Hero
Lack of Houfy consumer intervention
White Bohemian Atlanta | Reservation code: TTYUZVC223 Wrote info@houfy about an issue with a rental. We attached the receipt and reservation number hoping houfy would intervene. However, instead of intervening houfy responded with “You will need to resolve any issues you have between each other.” Since houfy looped the homeowner in on the reply, the homeowner responded with threats of legal action for us reaching out to houfy with legitimate complaints. Houfy said nothing and bowed off the conversation. This guy is still withholding deposit regardless of us following all the rules and leaving the house better than we found it we feel like houfy has not stepped in to investigate said issues. My issue with houfy is the lack of interests with our issues encountered and ultimately the lack of intervention. You’ve asked me to deal with the houfy home owner. However why would you expect customers to fight with unprofessional homeowners during these transactions your business model will eventually fail. Where are the customers rights? Who ensures the home owner or renter is practicing fair business practices? Who protects the consumer? The issues started upon checkin when the house house did not look like the pictures on the houfy site. I explained to the houfy rep that the homeowner has not responded to my complaints and is still holding my deposit. I would hate for this extreme misrepresentations of the unit aka “catfishing” to happen to someone else. I exclaimed that My feedback to Brandon has fallen on deaf ears. See below. The space was definitely STAGED well but there were some things that were unacceptable. The lack of cleanliness and the rough spots not shown in the houfy listing, especially with the cost to rent the space definitely ruined the expected experience. Hopefully we can discuss the things we had to do to make the space somewhat livable for our guest. Because the money we spent compared to what we got left us uncomfortable and embarrassed that we subjected our guest to that space. I prefer not to leave this in a review and hope your open to the feedback This may not be the best space for events if noise is an issue for the surrounding neighbors. Perhaps advertising as such and issuing threats during events may not leave guest with the best experience. A "reasonable level" of noise is extremely subjective and if you don't mind the events maybe ensure the individual coordinating with the event planner is aware of the correct time. We were all tracking 11 including the very detail oriented event planner. Already having to clean, the subpar living conditions in the bathroom with the sheeted ceiling and dirty kitchen then the added threats during the event definitely left us disappointed. After reviewing Airbnbs for months. We truly had high hopes per the advertisement via Airbnb for this establishment. After arriving it was quit apparent that the photos were perfectly staged and zero highlights of the rough spots were displayed. Providing truthful photography is critical and it truly made us feel like we were manipulated into booking this space due to false advertisement. The main bathroom had a sheet hanging from the ceiling, the HVAC unit had a sheet loosely wrapped around it. The kitchen grey curtain hanging awkwardly on the wall had spiders nested in it. Beyond the false advertisement that was a large amount of debri throughout the home. Before our guest could arrive we spent hours and over $200 buying cleaning supplies and equipment to clean the home. For the cost of this establishment I’m greatly disappointment on the actual presentation of the home. These nuances added more of an expense and stress rather than the comfort that we expected. A refund in some amount for our hardship would need to be discussed. We are available for further discussion. As business owners ourselves we understand the need for consumer feedback as we hope you do as well. I wish I could upload the pictures of the vents covered in dirty sheets in the house and how much we had to clean the house to prepare for our guest.
Response from HoufySep 2, 2023
Dear Hero 2, As you know, Houfy is a DIRECT BOOK site and neither you nor the homeowner incurred any costs from Houfy during your transaction. It is a direct transaction between both parties and that is made very clear on our site. You mentioned various times in your negative Trustpilot review how the listing you found on Airbnb was, in your opinion and after staying there, highly misrepresented on Airbnb. Are you suggesting Airbnb would have refunded you the deposit within a week overriding any rights of the homeowner? When you contacted us, August 23, about one week had passed from you contacting the homeowner, and at that time we indeed suggested you try to resolve the issue directly with him. We have since looked into the matter and the pictures and agree with you that withholding $1000 damage deposit for moving a medium sized wooden tepee support a few yards is highly unreasonable and unfair. We have since proceeded to hide all listings from this homeowner and have already informed you of this. There is nothing more Houfy can do at this point. Writing such a negative review about Houfy and this particular property on Trustpilot, while not reviewing the property itself seems rather unfair and definitely does not serve any travelers in making informed choices. We at Houfy have now for years empowered homeowners and travelers to contact each other directly and be their own decision makers, rather than a big OTA deciding what funds you may get/pay and when. Countless satisfied customers on both sides testify to this and we at Houfy plan to continue to do so while constantly improving our services in the future.