Every now and then, it’s nice to treat yourself to a little short getaway somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily have to be at a fancy hotel. A simple homestay or an Airbnb will do just fine. The point is to enjoy your holiday however you like. However, there are risks to booking your stay somewhere.
There is always a possibility of being scammed when you book a place to stay. Or even if the unit looks fine and clean, you may never know if the owner or operator might be a pervert that secretly films you. This family, unfortunately, did not have a good experience at their Airbnb stay, and to make matters worse, the operator even threatened to sue them. Here’s what happened:
Facebook user Myra Suhaimi recently shared her experience of staying at this certain Airbnb unit located nearby MSU Shah Alam. It is said that the Airbnb unit was advertised to have a “luxury concept” but did not at all fill the bill. Initially, the Facebook user only needed to pay RM400+ to book her family’s stay but was suddenly given additional charges per head when the host contacted her.
It gets worse. On the day of their stay, the family discovered they could not park inside the building without paying an extra RM20 per vehicle which was not specified in the operator’s profile. Upon entering their unit, they found that the place was not left in good condition and even noticed the damaged ceiling that could collapse at any moment.
Unsatisfied with their stay, Myra wrote an honest review about the unit on the Airbnb website. She then unexpectedly received a message from the host threatening to sue her for her “bad review”. When asked for further explanation regarding certain processes, the host only insisted that it was part of the agreement before the guests’ stay.
After posting her experience on the Hotel Review Malaysia Facebook group, netizens backed Myra up saying that the host had no right to sue her for writing a review. The Facebook user also revealed in the comments that the host deleted their old account and created a new one without any reviews.
At the time of writing, there has been no update from Myra nor a statement released by Airbnb. We hope the issue will be resolved soon and that no more guests will be scammed by these so-called operators again.
