Dear Tripped Up,
In June 2023, we stayed six nights in an Airbnb apartment in Paris, and it was trouble from the start. The electricity was faulty, forcing my children to use a flashlight to climb a steep stairwell, and the Wi-Fi didn’t work, requiring us to spend about $200 on international data. For workers to come fix the Wi-Fi, we were instructed to leave the key in a lockbox. (The lights were never fixed.) Two days later, we returned in the afternoon to find our apartment had been robbed, with a laptop, clothing and other items missing. It’s not clear how the thief accessed the building — he would have had to get through two gates with key codes — but we think we know how he got in the door. We found a key to the apartment under the doormat! We spent two days filing reports with the police, who were very thorough and ended up catching the thief. (He was sentenced to six months in prison.) But although Airbnb advertises its insurance coverage on its site, its agents had us running around in circles before finally advising us they would not compensate us. Our insurance eventually paid us about $4,000 for our lost goods, but we believe that should have been Airbnb’s responsibility, and that the company should credit us for our ruined stay and pay us back for the data. Can you help? Cindy, Roslyn, New York
Dear Cindy,
I’m sorry your trip to Paris was so frustrating, I’m glad your insurance reimbursed you for lost items, and I agree that Airbnb should have acted more quickly and efficiently to help. After my intervention, the company reimbursed you $3,029 for your stay and $200 for internet access.
I am impressed with the Parisian police and your record-keeping, something that always makes my job easier. It was a smart move keeping all communications in writing too.
A spokesman for Airbnb, Javier Hernandez, was quick to respond to my questions with a statement and answers via email.
“The overwhelming majority of Airbnb stays occur without issue and we offer protections to guests and hosts in the rare event something doesn’t go as planned,” the statement started.
As a regular Airbnb user and a journalist who follows the company professionally, I have no quibble with that first part. It is true that most Airbnb stays occur without issue, just as most restaurant meals occur without food poisoning and most walks in the park end without squirrel attacks.
But the real test for travel companies is how they respond when something does go wrong.
Note that in his statement, Mr. Hernandez writes that the company offers protections to both “guests and hosts.” It’s a good reminder to travelers that they are not the only clients of Airbnb (and Vrbo and all their competitors). As middlemen, these companies are required to perform a balancing act of protecting guests while still having their hosts’ backs. (Anyone who wants to see the tightrope in action can read through Airbnb’s separate policies for guests and hosts online.)
Mr. Hernandez noted that “Airbnb’s host liability protection provides up to $1 million in coverage if a guest’s belongings are stolen or damaged during a stay and the host is found liable.”
Airbnb works with Crawford and Company, an Atlanta-based claims management company, to determine liability in such cases. For 10 months — 10 months! — you went back and forth with a Crawford employee, who had you sending documents and photographs, and repeatedly explaining your situation.
Despite the extended back and forth and general politeness of her messages, her final email to you, on April 29, 2024, was an unceremonious rejection:
“Unfortunately we can’t do anything because the host denies that there were duplicate keys,” she wrote. “A photo under the mat is no proof for us. I am therefore obliged to close your request.”
After reading through your correspondence with her, as well as the French police report and court decision, I am inclined to disagree. To begin with, why would the adjuster simply believe the host’s denial?
(A spokeswoman for Crawford said that under an agreement with the company’s clients, “all information regarding claims is confidential.”)
It was not just your photo of a key under a mat. The police did a thorough investigation, you said, including dusting for fingerprints and confirming that the key under the mat opened the door). You also sent to Airbnb (and me) a court document that showed the burglar had been convicted and that he had used “a hidden set of keys” to enter and rob the apartment.
I can imagine a scenario in which the host would not be liable: Perhaps the burglar was a foreign spy and locksmith wizard who disarmed the gates and forged a key to the apartment door, stole your son’s laptop and Nintendo console in the belief it contained state secrets, and then left the key under the mat as a calling card. But the fact that your son’s credit card was used minutes later at a neighborhood butcher and local shoe store makes that scenario unlikely. (The credit card issuer refunded those expenses.)
It is possible that the repairmen who came to fix the Wi-Fi made a copy of the keys and their associate robbed you a few days later. That scenario would clear the host of direct fault. In any case, it is hard to imagine any situation where you could do better than present a court document that backs up your story and photos.
One lesson travelers can take from your experience is to copy everything you did right: Contact the police, the host and Airbnb itself — that last one a key step many guests skip — and to keep all the documentation, and follow up. Even then, having backup insurance turned out to be your savior.
Another lesson is that no matter how much protection Airbnb and competitors offer, opting out of a hotel and into a vacation rental comes with greater exposure to the real world circumstances of the destination you are visiting. In the “overwhelming majority” of cases, that’s what makes it great. But sometimes locales reveal their dark side, and in many places, the local justice system will be far less helpful and efficient than the French turned out to be.
The apartment, you will be happy to know, is no longer listed on Airbnb. So to try to get the host’s side of the story, I tried the same WhatsApp number you used, but, as I discovered, it no longer belongs to the host’s representative. Instead, the profile picture of the current owner shows a scantily clad woman whose face is not prominently featured in the image; in our brief exchange the person clearly had no idea what I was talking about.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to [email protected].
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