London flat rental ... just a "heads up" re: Yourstay.com
May 13th, 2004, 11:52 PM
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London flat rental ... just a "heads up" re: Yourstay.com
Hey Fodorites... came across this site when looking up info on London flat rentals. Looks like everyone really needs to avoid www.yourstay.com like the PLAGUE!!
Take a look:
http://notyourstay.0catch.com/
Leigh
Take a look:
http://notyourstay.0catch.com/
Leigh
May 21st, 2004, 10:21 AM
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Let me put it to you like this...here is a letter I've written to Visit Britain.com, ccd Rick Steves, Arthur Frommers, NY Attorney General, Better Business Bureau.
This will detail the horrendous experience my family and I had from a sublet from yourstay.com from April 2, 2004 until April 9, 2004.
Yourstay.com?s London address is Studio A, New Crane Wharf; New Crane Place; Wapping, London E1W 3TS and its phone number is 0800 849 6743. The owner of the company is Raz. Customer service employees at yourstay.com refused to provide his last name.
We decided to rent an apartment from your company after having read information about positive experiences readers described to the editor of www.msnbc.com?s travel section, as well as after looking at the choice of apartments in the Docklands. We decided to rent the apartment coded as LONDKOW1. The website for this apartment is http://www.yourstay.com/london/LONDKOW1.html. After perusing the site and the photographs provided, it appeared to be a well-maintained, immaculate apartment. Additionally, taking a one bedroom apartment was certainly an appealing alternative to a cramped hotel room for our family. Lastly, the price of £650 for the week was a good value. Based on what we saw, we were looking forward to our stay.
However, the reality hit us when we arrived at apartment 132 at Odyssey Wharf, 60 Westferry Road, on April 2, 2004. We were disgusted. The carpeting and walls were stained. There were holes in the walls. The apartment had a stench of smoke. Furthermore, the kitchen, which appeared to be generously sized and state-of-the-art in the photos, was miniscule and dated-looking.
After looking around at the apartment, we contacted the office and spoke to Joanna. At first we thought this might have been an error. We told her about the horrible condition of the apartment, and she informed us that there was nothing that could be done; after all, this was the apartment we paid for and this was now our problem. We asked on several occasions to speak to her boss, Jane. Joanna told us that she was unavailable and that she would contact us later in the day.
We made numerous calls to yourstay.com?s office, to speak with Jane. She never returned any of our calls. We called the office one last time, and again we spoke to Joanna. We asked her to cancel the apartment, and have our money refunded to us. Joanna agreed to both of these requests, so we proceeded to book a hotel room.
We called the office one last time to ask her where to leave the keys, and to confirm that we would be receiving a refund. She changed her story and told us that despite our canceling the lease, we would not receive any refund whatsoever. Again, we asked to speak to Jane, who was still unavailable. My family and I were put into a difficult situation outside of our home county. Because we could not afford both a hotel room and the apartment, we had no choice but to remain in the apartment, in spite of the squalor. For our troubles, yourstay.com gave us a £50 credit for our stay.
On Sunday morning April 4, 2004, my wife awoke and informed me that there was no electricity in the apartment, nor was there any hot water. However, there was electricity in the hallways and in the apartment of my upstairs neighbor. I found the fuse box in the apartment, recharged the fuses, and concluded that there was no electricity coming in to the circuits
We contacted the office and again spoke to Joanna. She told us that the maintenance manager would be arriving shortly. Inun, the maintenance manager, came to the apartment to try to ?sort things out,? as did the maintenance man, who concluded that the electricity was definitely turned off, most likely as a result of yourstay.com?s not having paid the bill.
Again we called yourstay.com?s office and asked to speak to Jane, the manager. Joanna was the only one there and she told us that Jane not in and could not be reached. We told Joanna of the urgency of the situation and begged her to find Jane. She refused to be of any help. At this point, we concluded that we had been deceived by this company. We began to wonder whether this was a legitimate operation.
Later we spoke to Joanna, who again told us that the company was trying to ?sort things out,? and that we should be free to spend the day doing whatever we wanted to, and that the issue should be resolved that evening. However, we told her that if the electricity was still out on our return, then we would have to spend the entire evening in the dark. Because of our being inconvenienced, we asked for a credit for that day. We were denied this request.
My wife then called Joanna, urging her to find Jane and do something to help us in this situation. Joanna refused to do anything and proceeded to hang up on her. We then called the police, as a last resort, and they refused to get involved telling us that this was not their problem.
About one hour later, yourstay.com?s office contacted us and told us that we were to be moved for the remainder of our stay to an apartment in Haymarket. After the horrid experience we had with this company thus far, you can understand how mistrustful we were when we were told that the new apartment was of superior quality. However, we had no choice but to move out and hope for the best. Fortunately, when we arrived at Haymarket, we were pleased with the condition of the apartment. We were glad to have the Docklands situation behind us.
On Monday morning April 5, 2004, (at about 9:30 am), we contacted yourstay.com?s office to inform them that the washing machine was not functioning. We were promised that someone would repair it that day. We returned to the apartment that evening, and a note was left on our door, requesting that we contact the office. We assumed that our being asked to contact the company had something to do with the washing machine.
We called the office and again spoke to Joanna. She told us that we would have to move back to the Docklands apartment, as the entire situation there was ?sorted out.? To us, that meant that they paid their electric bill. We told her that we were promised that we would not have to move again. She denied this. She told us that if we did not move out that evening, the locks on the apartment would be changed while we were out. However, it was already past 9:00 in the evening. My children, ages 9 and 12, were tired and eager to go to sleep. Additionally, they were very scared when they heard the discussions that were ensuing. We also told Joanna that we had expensive, non-refundable tickets for a rail trip to Bath and would not be returning to London until almost 11 pm on April 6. If yourstay.com would refund us for the rail tickets, we would be willing to move back the next morning. Joanna refused to do anything to assist us. It was to be yourstay.com?s way or no way.
Given what Joanna told us, we were now fearful for our safety. As a last resort, we contacted the US Embassy in London regarding the situation, and spoke to Brian Bolton, Vice Consul. Mr. Bolton spoke to yourstay.com?s office to discuss the situation, in an attempt to defuse a potentially volatile situation. Soon thereafter, my wife spoke to Raz and we compromised that we would move back to the Docklands Wednesday morning. We moved back, being further inconvenienced by having to wake up early that morning and losing precious touring time.
Needless to say, we were very happy to leave the Docklands apartment on Friday April 9 but vowed to make sure that you were aware of the situation.
Yourstay.com and its staff made our vacation unnecessarily difficult and unpleasant. In traveling back and forth between apartments, arguing with the staff about all the abovementioned issues, and having to make additional calls for help, we lost the equivalent of at least two days? time, not to mention all the aggravation that that was caused.
I have told my friends and colleagues never to book an apartment with this company in any of its locations.
This will detail the horrendous experience my family and I had from a sublet from yourstay.com from April 2, 2004 until April 9, 2004.
Yourstay.com?s London address is Studio A, New Crane Wharf; New Crane Place; Wapping, London E1W 3TS and its phone number is 0800 849 6743. The owner of the company is Raz. Customer service employees at yourstay.com refused to provide his last name.
We decided to rent an apartment from your company after having read information about positive experiences readers described to the editor of www.msnbc.com?s travel section, as well as after looking at the choice of apartments in the Docklands. We decided to rent the apartment coded as LONDKOW1. The website for this apartment is http://www.yourstay.com/london/LONDKOW1.html. After perusing the site and the photographs provided, it appeared to be a well-maintained, immaculate apartment. Additionally, taking a one bedroom apartment was certainly an appealing alternative to a cramped hotel room for our family. Lastly, the price of £650 for the week was a good value. Based on what we saw, we were looking forward to our stay.
However, the reality hit us when we arrived at apartment 132 at Odyssey Wharf, 60 Westferry Road, on April 2, 2004. We were disgusted. The carpeting and walls were stained. There were holes in the walls. The apartment had a stench of smoke. Furthermore, the kitchen, which appeared to be generously sized and state-of-the-art in the photos, was miniscule and dated-looking.
After looking around at the apartment, we contacted the office and spoke to Joanna. At first we thought this might have been an error. We told her about the horrible condition of the apartment, and she informed us that there was nothing that could be done; after all, this was the apartment we paid for and this was now our problem. We asked on several occasions to speak to her boss, Jane. Joanna told us that she was unavailable and that she would contact us later in the day.
We made numerous calls to yourstay.com?s office, to speak with Jane. She never returned any of our calls. We called the office one last time, and again we spoke to Joanna. We asked her to cancel the apartment, and have our money refunded to us. Joanna agreed to both of these requests, so we proceeded to book a hotel room.
We called the office one last time to ask her where to leave the keys, and to confirm that we would be receiving a refund. She changed her story and told us that despite our canceling the lease, we would not receive any refund whatsoever. Again, we asked to speak to Jane, who was still unavailable. My family and I were put into a difficult situation outside of our home county. Because we could not afford both a hotel room and the apartment, we had no choice but to remain in the apartment, in spite of the squalor. For our troubles, yourstay.com gave us a £50 credit for our stay.
On Sunday morning April 4, 2004, my wife awoke and informed me that there was no electricity in the apartment, nor was there any hot water. However, there was electricity in the hallways and in the apartment of my upstairs neighbor. I found the fuse box in the apartment, recharged the fuses, and concluded that there was no electricity coming in to the circuits
We contacted the office and again spoke to Joanna. She told us that the maintenance manager would be arriving shortly. Inun, the maintenance manager, came to the apartment to try to ?sort things out,? as did the maintenance man, who concluded that the electricity was definitely turned off, most likely as a result of yourstay.com?s not having paid the bill.
Again we called yourstay.com?s office and asked to speak to Jane, the manager. Joanna was the only one there and she told us that Jane not in and could not be reached. We told Joanna of the urgency of the situation and begged her to find Jane. She refused to be of any help. At this point, we concluded that we had been deceived by this company. We began to wonder whether this was a legitimate operation.
Later we spoke to Joanna, who again told us that the company was trying to ?sort things out,? and that we should be free to spend the day doing whatever we wanted to, and that the issue should be resolved that evening. However, we told her that if the electricity was still out on our return, then we would have to spend the entire evening in the dark. Because of our being inconvenienced, we asked for a credit for that day. We were denied this request.
My wife then called Joanna, urging her to find Jane and do something to help us in this situation. Joanna refused to do anything and proceeded to hang up on her. We then called the police, as a last resort, and they refused to get involved telling us that this was not their problem.
About one hour later, yourstay.com?s office contacted us and told us that we were to be moved for the remainder of our stay to an apartment in Haymarket. After the horrid experience we had with this company thus far, you can understand how mistrustful we were when we were told that the new apartment was of superior quality. However, we had no choice but to move out and hope for the best. Fortunately, when we arrived at Haymarket, we were pleased with the condition of the apartment. We were glad to have the Docklands situation behind us.
On Monday morning April 5, 2004, (at about 9:30 am), we contacted yourstay.com?s office to inform them that the washing machine was not functioning. We were promised that someone would repair it that day. We returned to the apartment that evening, and a note was left on our door, requesting that we contact the office. We assumed that our being asked to contact the company had something to do with the washing machine.
We called the office and again spoke to Joanna. She told us that we would have to move back to the Docklands apartment, as the entire situation there was ?sorted out.? To us, that meant that they paid their electric bill. We told her that we were promised that we would not have to move again. She denied this. She told us that if we did not move out that evening, the locks on the apartment would be changed while we were out. However, it was already past 9:00 in the evening. My children, ages 9 and 12, were tired and eager to go to sleep. Additionally, they were very scared when they heard the discussions that were ensuing. We also told Joanna that we had expensive, non-refundable tickets for a rail trip to Bath and would not be returning to London until almost 11 pm on April 6. If yourstay.com would refund us for the rail tickets, we would be willing to move back the next morning. Joanna refused to do anything to assist us. It was to be yourstay.com?s way or no way.
Given what Joanna told us, we were now fearful for our safety. As a last resort, we contacted the US Embassy in London regarding the situation, and spoke to Brian Bolton, Vice Consul. Mr. Bolton spoke to yourstay.com?s office to discuss the situation, in an attempt to defuse a potentially volatile situation. Soon thereafter, my wife spoke to Raz and we compromised that we would move back to the Docklands Wednesday morning. We moved back, being further inconvenienced by having to wake up early that morning and losing precious touring time.
Needless to say, we were very happy to leave the Docklands apartment on Friday April 9 but vowed to make sure that you were aware of the situation.
Yourstay.com and its staff made our vacation unnecessarily difficult and unpleasant. In traveling back and forth between apartments, arguing with the staff about all the abovementioned issues, and having to make additional calls for help, we lost the equivalent of at least two days? time, not to mention all the aggravation that that was caused.
I have told my friends and colleagues never to book an apartment with this company in any of its locations.
May 21st, 2004, 03:50 PM
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Have you considered taking them to small claims court in London? I'm not sure if they have an equivalent to Judge Judy - but it strikes me that the threat alone might be enough to get a refund from these scum.
May 31st, 2004, 08:52 AM
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What I find interesting is that Yourstay continues to remain in business even though the fradulant nature of the company is well known. It would appear that the best we can do is to continue to warn potential lodgers.
Jun 29th, 2004, 02:26 PM
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Did author alanj contact notyourstay? Those who created the notyourstay web site. On that site they offer to provide information on how to reach a London City Government Office that is asking to hear from those with a less than acceptable Yourstay experience.
Aug 14th, 2004, 06:00 AM
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Another option might be to write to the company that owns the freehold of the development where the office is situated, to ask if the running of a business like Yourstay from that address is compatible with their lease. If it's anything like mine, it might not be, but I don't know if the address in question is leased as residential or office property. Either way, you could point out that the bad publicity might start to rub off on New Crane Wharf:
NEW CRANE WHARF FREEHOLD LIMITED
108A NEW CRANE WHARF
11 NEW CRANE PLACE
LONDON
E1W 3TU
NEW CRANE WHARF FREEHOLD LIMITED
108A NEW CRANE WHARF
11 NEW CRANE PLACE
LONDON
E1W 3TU
