Warning: do not book an apartment in Rome with Rental in Rome
 

Hi,

We have had a very bad experience with Rental in Rome, the company we used for booking an apartment in ofcourse Rome. The deposit of 40 Euro was paid, but unfortunately the money arrived in the Italian bank after the reservation was made. Our reservation was cancelled. This is the policy of Rental in Rome, so we don't object, although we feel they could have warned us. A fortnight later we discovered just by chance that the booking was cancelled! Since we did not receive a warning and we did not care for any other apartment of Rental in Rome, we decided to give Sleep in Italy (www.sleepinitaly.it) a chance. Great & friendly service and terrific apartments!
Anyway, Rental in Rome confirmed countless times (in writing and by phone) that our deposit of 40 euro would be reimbursed. This happened in February 2005, and notwithstanding several phonecalls, emails, warnings etc. we still have not received our deposit back... We have supplied all details like banking codes (IBAN nr, Bic & Swift code)3 times now, but no result. The most annoying thing is dat Jack Calabro, the manager keeps promising to send our money back, but he just does not keep his promise.

Therefore, everybody, beware of Rental in Rome. If you want to book an apartment in Rome, our advise is to use the other agencies.

I don't understand this at all. Naturally the deposit would arrive at their bank after the reservation was made. Why would you send a deposit without having a reservation?

Annelies is a first time poster. (Read into the username what you will). Which country were you booking this apartment from Annelies?

I read this nickname as "Anne Lies"

Don't you confirm with any company if they've received your money?

Susan, this is their policy. The payment of the deposit (normally 20% to 30% of the rental) for apartments is due within 3 calendar days of the confirmation of availability via e-mail. See their booking procedures.
We got a message that the apartment was available, answered that we wanted it and payed promptly. But things go slow at Italian banks and the money did not arrive on time.

But that's not my point. My point is that we paid a deposit and did not get the deposit back, although we have several messages that "yes, we will pay back your deposit".

"Read into the username what you will."

I read into it that she's Dutch. Annelies is a perfectly normal Dutch name.

Hi,

Please do not insult. This happens to be my real name! German version is Annalise, English version is Anne Louise.
Ofcourse I checked if they did receive the money, they did, but could at that point not provide the apartment any more. I booked the apartment from Belgium.

As far as I'm concerned this poster is providing a very useful warning to anybody out there that's planning to use this company. I don't see why anybody has to resort to insulting her or her nickname without any indication from her post that she was a troll or otherwise lying.

I agree this is useful information for others to know about that agency. It is lucky that the deposit was only 40 euro, that's for sure.

I have heard of other types of companies to ask for a deposit that may not arrive for several days, and then they book the place in the meantime. I can understand their reason, that they don't want to hold up renting a place since they never know if the other person will really pay the deposit. Some places will just trust you for a few days and hold something for you, but it's always difficult. I dealt with an agency in Paris that made me send a deposit by check, and as I recall, I had a contract for the apartment up until some date when they would cancel it if they hadn't received the deposit. It gave me enough time to send it with some leeway. That was a better way to do things, and that agency was very professional in their dealings with me. That was some time ahead of the desired period, though, so they could do that.

It always seems to be problems with Italian places with deposits on here -- at least, those are the posts I read where people have the most trouble in terms of how to pay them, how to send them, what form of money, etc.