Apartment scam
 

Has anyone rented an apartment through Buenos Aires Stay (www.buenosairesstay.com or www.bastay.com)? The landlord of an apartment they managed stole my deposit and claimed that I damaged the apartment. I absolutely did not. They did nothing to help me out

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Buenos Aires is a wonderful place with many honest and trustworthy people...but people being people...there are some locals who see tourists as a source of ill gotten gain.

It is best to do business with apartment rental companies that will safeguard the rights of tenants instead of protecting owners.

Be careful when selecting a rental agency.

Sorry to hear about your experience. As the poster above states bad experiences can happen anywhere even if you choose reputable agencies. Just curious, since I don't know anything or have heard nothing about the agency with which you dealt, had you read good things about the company prior to selecting them to rent from? Did you think of them as a well-referenced company when you selected them?

I selected Bytargentian to rent an apartment from when we visited BA, mostly because numerous posters mentioned them as reputable and a couple of the tourist guides listed ONLY them for renting apartments. We were lucky, I suppose and had no negative experiences, in fact everything worked out extremely well for us, but I would not discount that others may not be so forunate. Recently, another poster said they had problems with a broken toilet and no towels when using Byt.

I loved renting an apartment in BA; it gave us the extra room to lull around in, a place to cook, a washing machine, and a local neighborhood. For us, the only downside was having to carry large amounts of cash for the rental fee and security deposit. We are sorry to hear you were scammed and can only hope that your experience was atypical.

Hope the rest of the trip went well for you. I don't know how helpful this would be, but I would send numerous e-mails to the company and send them this Fodor's thread as well. Good luck. Negative experiences like yours will ruin their business eventually.

That agency certainly is NOT among the ones I have seen recommended here and in other forums.

I suggest you e-mail them this thread, write a similar post on trip advisor, giving FULL details of the problem (which you have NOT done here) and tell them you will make sure everyone who uses the Internet to plan their travel will hear about your problem.

There's just a small chance it MAY work. Give them a chance to fix the matter BEFORE posting again.

According to their website, this is the owner's e-mail: [email protected]

Another thing, Rebecca: could you tell this forum a little more about your BA experience?

Rebecca: I have observed you also have posted twice on Frommer's about this problem, without giving further details.

While this is obviously your privilege, I believe it tends to make people less inclined to pay due attention to your complaint.

The fact that you have not acknowledged any of the replies you have received so far, also has the same effect.

Please let us know more about it and about your BA experience.

I am really surprised to read this posting, I post regularly, supporting Buenos Aires Stay, as I have used them widely as has some 20 of my friends and numerous contacts and by far they are the very best agency in Buenos Aires – British run and very, very professional! I rang the boss today as I thought I tell him about this posting, especially since my mum is there next check in tomorrow morning – so excited she’s a BA virgin - I think one of the replies here is correct – why post twice – raps of the sour ‘competition’ who find outsiders doing things well a real concern me thinks. The boss said he does not recall the matter; only one deposit has been retained by a property owner in two years! He says that this is independently verified by their auditors and he remembers if it is the same person, who lost their entire deposit, they wrecked a luxury pad in Palermo and the property owner replied to all the posts – if not – this is more sour grapes – read widely about this company as there are positive posts all over the internet about http://www.buenosairesstay.com - I loved the last one at the New York Times –very honest people –

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rebeccashalom:

Return of deposit and for that matter, advance payment is a serious concern.

We rented an apartment in Bs. As. several years ago but did so on the suggestion of a local travel agency.

It worked out fine in our case. The deposit was cash and I made note of the serial numbers of the bills. I got the same bills back, no problem.

I suspect that the renter was as concerned about fake money as we were about getting it back.

What makes you think that the renter does not have problems with occupants who do not give a s--t about taking reasonable care of the rental property?

Some of the inventory terms of our rental were strange to me but on review with the rental agent, they were cleared up.

There is always the chance of non return of the deposit but if so, that becomes part of the cost of travel.

So either back up your statement giving us full details of your complaint or suck it up and get on with life.

I want true and full understanding of a complaint and do not appreciate this board being used to 'get even' if that was the case.

Woodie

The OP was written almost 8 months ago and remains as the poster's one and only "contribution". I don't think we'll hear from rebeccashalom again.