plafield

lizann: yes, that's right. They upped the price and then discounted it so it's not really much of a discount. The apartment was $140 a night when we arranged this rental, almost a year ago. Apparently at that point, the noise was not an issue (we specifically asked about noise) and the cranes were not up. I expect that we will receive some kind of discount/refund but exactly how much remains to be seen. VIP will contact us (probably Monday) and let us know exactly what was worked out with the owner.

The owner stopped by a few minutes ago with new pillows (very nice ones!)and said that VIP had sent him my original email and he seemed surprised that I was as angry about it as my email to VIP indicated that I was.

He told us that when the noise from this construction started he contacted VIP and understood that they would contact all confirmed renters and let them know about the issue as well as say something about it on the advertisement for this apartment. He also said that when the cranes went up he sent them a photo but I don't think it ever got posted on the VIP website. He was very surprised that we had not been told anything because the intense noise started many months ago (but we had already rented the apartment by then)and he is clearly upset that we are so upset. He definitely wants us to be happy here but of course, he can't do anything about the cranes or the noise.

So the long and the short of it is that there are no clear bad guys and everyone seems to want to try to do the right thing but it wasn't handled well in terms of real disclosure. We'll be OK here (it's Paris after all!)but in my opinion, without the clear view, this apartment is definitely not worth renting even with the "discount."

plafield

So here's the next chapter in the saga of this apartment! Today (Monday morning) at 9:00AM on the nose begins a huge banging and sawing in the apartment right above us. Constant, ongoing, very loud construction of some kind.

We head out to get our morning croissant and see that one of the elevators is shut down and there is a note saying they are working on the elevators all week. We wonder why they are working on them right above our apartment as opposed to on the ground floor.

A block from the apartment, who should we run into on the sidewalk but the owner of our apartment(who by now is quite terrified of me!)We tell him about the noise and the elevators and he tells us that the noise isn't from the elevators but that he has heard that an apartment on the 10th floor is being renovated! So another issue he knew about that was not communicated to us! He, of course, apologized profusely and said he would speak to them and see if he could get them to start later in the day but no matter what, this will not be the relaxing haven to linger over morning coffee and croissant or come back to for an afternoon nap. At this point I'm wishing we had just returned to Hotel Jeanne D'Arc where we had a lovely stay last year!

gracejoan3

playfield,

VIP should be moving you to a different apartment. That is unconscionable treatment of a guest! If the rental was with VIP, I would make all contacts with them, not the owner. It should be VIP's responsibility to take care of you!!

Sorry to hear all your rental problems. They should not be!!

Joan

Royal

Agree that the rental company should be relocating you immediately. Your contract is with them and they have a definite responsibility to you and you are entitled to a comfortable stay.

Looking at the website for this rental it is apparent that the main attraction is the view and that is what they are promoting. They are obviously not providing this view and you should have been informed of this long ago.

You have been more than patient.

Christina

I don't know, I think you are more generous with VIP than I would be. First, I don't believe them when they claim they didn't know about the problems -- well, either they are lying or the owner is lying, as he said he told them. Given my experience with them, I'd go with the owner.

YOu should be dealing with VIP, that is what an agency is supposed to do. They are taking a large fee from this guy, and as such, they are the ones you have a contract with and they are supposed to be doing something for that fee. I've rented from French agencies and sure, the apts always have their own owners, but whenever I had a problem, the agency was the one who solved it and responded. I think VIP only put that note on the website because they knew this was being publicized and it isn't very prominent, actually. I notice that they still don't have photos of the bathroom of the apt. I inquired about where they claimed they just didn't happen to have one, and it's been several years later by now. They are hiding something on that one, I'm sure. Also, raising the fee to $160 and then claiming you are discounting it to $140 is pretty shyster-like, also, IMO. They should be discounting it a lot more than that, I think -- like to $120 at least.

Now elevators do go out of order, and that can't be predicted by owners, I've had that happen in apts I've rented, and I don't think the owner can predict other people's renovations. I've never known when other people were going to renovate in any apt building I've lived in.

kerouac

To go way back to the mention of the metro lines, actually 2 of the lines are right at the train station (lines 6 and 13) and two of the lines are at the far end of the endless corridors (lines 4 and 12). It is one of the most important things to know for people who will be using the Montparnasse metro stations a lot.

Suzanne2

Wow, it sounds like everything that can go wrong has gone wrong with this place. I wonder if they have many other places availabe at this time of the year. We had a very noisy place we rented frommthem 2 years ago. Turns out there was a nightclub next door . So we were not sleeping well at night. So like you, noise is a deal breaker for me.

opaldog

Wow, I would be very upset about the apartment. That type of thing can ruin a trip. I have used VIP twice. The first time we had a very nice apartment on rue d'Ormesson in the 4th and loved it. The second rental was a studio up near Republique that was in my words, a dump. I spent the first day in mourning over the apartment before I wised up and started to enjoy Paris. However, it really colored the time we had there. We did not enjoy coming back at the end of the day. The weather at times was cool and damp and we did not have that comfortable "home away from home" place to retreat to.

I did complain to VIP on my return because while I was totally dissatisfied with the studio, it was liveable. It was nothing like what plafield is experiencing. VIP would be wise to find a replacement apartment immediately, if at all possible. It would certainly help their reputation on Fodors at this point.

We are renting again in October but this time are using an apartment that we found on vrbo with a website of ourparishome (I think). It appears to be run by 2 gentlemen from Atlanta and the apartments look very nice.

Good Luck, plafield with VIP and the rest of your visit to Paris.

JayMazz

Ewwwww. This isn't looking good. I am shopping around. At this point I would just like to hear that ViP is sending you to a different location of EQUAL or GREATER value.

Tho, I must admit, ViP has more pros than cons on this forum.

~Jay

marya_

I hope that your story has a happy ending.

For the record, our ViP apartment (Marais Royale, #138) was fine but also much smaller than it looked. (No square footage was posted so I was prepared for that; spacious apartments always boast of the square footage.) Second, they advertised Limoges dishware and antique silver available for use -- and that was actually a factor in our decision because we wanted to prepare some meals in -- but the items were not actually there. I reported this to ViP (over a year ago) and they acknowledged my complaint,but I see that the website description remains unchanged.

Good luck.

plafield

It's been great to have all of your encouragement. The saga continues:

The owner emails me and says he is so sorry about the noise of the renovations and he has tried to ask them to start work later in the morning but they will not comply. He cannot do anything else about it but would like to take us out for dinner and would please be his guests on Wednesday evening.

The LAST thing I want to do on my vacation is go to dinner with this guy. I politely decline.

Meanwhile, I have written a very pointed email to VIP saying how surprised I am that it is Monday and I still have not heard from them since they told me on Friday they would contact the owner and get right back to me. I expected them to email or call me to offer me the discount (as the owner had vaguely offered) that was clearly offered on their website. I also told them about the incredible noise from the renovations in the apartment above us that had begun that morning. I told them that we were expecting to receive a sizable discount on the rental.

They emailed back right away saying how surprised they were to have this email from me as the owner had told them it was all settled and that we had accepted a $15 a night discount and we were fine. They also said that they did not know anything about the internal renovations (and that work is still being done on an elevator!)and that the owner had not informed them about the cranes until I had complained. It appears that VIP and the the owner are each blaming the other for our not being informed but a $15 dollar a night discount is the only thing being offered by either of them for recompense. Oh yes, and VIP said they would offer us a small discount on an any apartment we rented through them in the future. Like we'll rent from them again after this?

I responded to VIP saying that it was very awkward for us to have the owner show up here and try to appease us with champagne and that he had been vague about how much the discount would be and that this conversation happened before we knew about the renovations happening right above us. I said that our contract was with VIP, not the owner and that it was wrong for us to be in the middle with each of them blaming the other for the issues and that we did not want him to contact us again.

Next thing we know, we get another email from him saying how surprised he is that I am so upset and that he had asked us if we could cope with the apartment because if we could not he would have asked VIP to relocate us and that he would do so now. (obviously they are forwarding him all of my emails.)

Well! He had asked us if we could "cope" but never even implied that if we said no he would or even could suggest to VIP we be moved. And when he asked that question on Saturday, we still didn't know about the renovations that would start first thing Monday morning and the only real issue was the view so of course we could "cope" even though we were disappointed.

And through all of this, VIP has not mentioned any possibility of moving us elsewhere so I really don't even know if they would. What I do know, and wrote to them (copying the owner) is that I wouldn't move without first seeing in person where we were to go and that at this point, with only 4 days left, I don't want to spend my time viewing another apartment and then packing up and moving. I told them that I would take the offered $15 discount, do my best to enjoy Paris and chalk it up as a learning experience.

And that's the last of it. I did not receive a reply to this email from either VIP or the owner. It has left a very sour taste in my mouth and I wouldn't recommend using a rental agency that depends on all the information about a property being provided by owners whose apartments are in another country. It may be convenient to deal in dollars but in the future I will only consider renting an apartment directly from an owner.

gomiki

I am so sorry you are having such a bad experience with this apartment. I would be miserable!! I don't think VIP will be getting any of my business in the future.

danon

thank you for letting us know about your terrible experience.
$15 dollars discount for all the problems you have had! Hardly buys a couple of beers.
I almost rented from VIP this summer and was considering them for the future trips. Not any more!

cw

I'm sorry VIP didn't do better by you. A $15 per night discount doesn't seem to show the agency's good intentions to make things right. You should not have been put in the awkward position of dealing with both the agency and the owner. The whole appeal and selling points of this apartment is the view and the chance to enjoy that from your balcony. Clearly you can't do that.

I do understand the problem of the overhead construction. There is no way to know about that in advance and not much can be done about it, except giving a discount on the price.

I like your attitude--live and learn. Enjoy the rest of your time in Paris.

Cathinjoetown

I, too, was very positive about VIP until I heard your experience--there's nothing worse than being played off between an owner and an agency. While I loved the VIP apartment I had last September, I won't be giving them blanket recommendations any longer.

opaldog

I am agreeing with the coments about recommendations of VIP. I have recommended them in the past. After our last experience I haven't been so enthusiastic. I was telling my husband about the difficulties you have been having plafield. He was fairly adamant that we not rent with them for our next trip in October. Their customer service has not been good. I hope that you are letting them know about the feedback from this site. They would be wise to reimburse you in full at this point.

moolyn

platfield, because I so nearly was in the same building and situation as you, I decided to email the person I dealt with at Vacation in Paris and let her know that such poor customer service as you received will have a future negative effect.

Here's my email:

I am so glad that I did not rent your Apt 62. I have learned about the experience of someone who is currently renting Apt 154 in the same building. When she arrived she discovered that the view, her primary reason for choosing this apartment, is totally obstructed by a crane!

Not only that but there is loud noise from renovation in a nearby apartment during the day. All that she has received in recompense is a reduction of $15 per night. She should have been relocated or given a sizeable discount.

As a result of such poor customer service, you have lost many potential customers, including myself. In this internet age, word about this kind of treatment gets around and the effect will last for some time.

hmmm

We rented an apartment in the 8e on rue Berryer from VIP and concluded our stay about six weeks ago. The apartment was as described and virtually everything worked as expected. The staff was pleasant to deal with. We found VIP through numerous positive recommendations on this site.

I have a hard time understanding what would have satisfied the poster, short of a full refund or move to another place, that may not have been available. I understand that the poster was extremely disappointed with the state of things, particularly the view of the crane. I would have been also. I find distasteful the act of marking up the stated rent to discount it, if that was done.

However, I don't travel abroad to sit in my hotel room or apartment to take in the views, for any length of time, and get out to see things. I would not expect that the owner of a single apartment in a building would have any control over the repair and renovation undertakings of the owners of other apartments in the building. I can pull out photos of our recent trips to europe and see cranes and scaffolding on or near many famous sites and monuments. I have stayed at many fancy places in Italy and France with prime, and very expensive balcony views and been forced inside by open trash burning. Wouldn't dawn on me to expect "compensation" from the proprietors.

What is fair redress to the original poster?

Suzanne2

I agree with Hmmm on this one. There was a disclaimer on the listing about the construction in the area. I know that because I looked at that apartment a few months ago. I do not however, think there was a discount offered at the time. I was willing to take the apartment anyway, but it was already booked for my dates.

I don't see how the owner or VIP could have predicted that another apartment was going to be renovated during the poster's stay.
We have been to Paris many times and in our experience, other that the street sweepers, the Parisians seem to start their work days much later than what we are accustomed to here in the US. Since we are usually up and out by around 9 we have never been bothered by noise in any of the buildings we've stayed in. Except for the one in the 6th which was next to a night club with booming music until 4 A.M. I wish I'd been warned off that place. We've had the same problems in a few hotels one in Monterey comes to mind.

The apartment we had in Paris in March had a disclaimer about
renovations being done. I called VIP and asked if anyone know the extent of the renovations and what we could expect if we rented the apartment. Since they are in New Jersey they could not really say for sure. VIP contacted the owner and we were offered a $200.00 discount. I then contacted someone I know who lives in the area and asked him to check it out for me.

We ended up staying there and were quite pleased with the apartment. We did not have the view we hoped for but we were basically only there late at night so it turned out to be a non factor for us.

I really think we need to keep in mind how low some of these apartments are renting for. especially in US dollars.

Royal

I would agree with Suzanne and hmmm except for the fact that the main focus of the promotion of this particular apartment is about the views. There are probably lots of apartments in Paris that are as nice as this but how many have such an incredible view. I feel that this renter was swayed by the promise of the view. A promise that wasn't kept.

At the very least I think VIP should have done more to compensate plafield. I would have great hesitation in dealing with this company.