Ardis W.
Paid $60 for a year subscription - useless and misleading
Paid $60 for a year subscription, the site is for professional academic faculty home rentals. I was renting my house for a semester. Got one possible applicant who seemed reasonable but then it did not work out when they decided to stay where they were. The next applicant was a 25 year old applicant from Mainland China who said they were a graduate student. They came over and supplied no references, no bank account, only one relative in the US who would not be their guarantor, no past landlords or roommates to contact. When I told them no, they tried to offer me cash up front and mentioned their father was a government official in China and would pay their rent. I asked the person to leave. The person then posted a bad review of me on the site because I refused to rent to them. I complained to SabbaticalHomes and asked them how they could possibly let such a person be part of their site, what type of vetting do they do? I wrote to customer service as well as the President of the company. No response from either. The site is wide open for scammers. Would never ever use them again. They are unresponsive and only serve as a type of high end bulletin board, not a professional faculty travel home service exchange. I then wrote a review on the site of the young person who tried to scam me, and that person dropped their membership, saying they felt "threatened". By what, the fact that they were exposed as a scammer? All in all a terrible experience.
Response from SabbaticalHomes.comAug 28, 2023
In our back and forth communications with you, we reviewed your complaint about the inquiries you received from a Chinese graduate student. We found your complaint to be xenophobic, and subsequently closed your account.