SUSPECTED ROBBERY + RUDE AND UNHELPFUL HOST:
I have always had positive experiences with Airbnb, but this was simply horrific. My girlfriend and I were holidaying in Paris for both of our birthdays. On arrival we were told that our room wouldn't be ready for an hour but the hosts kindly let us leave our bags in their office on the adjacent street to our booked room. Upon entering the room, everything look relatively clean and nice and tidy - we were very excited for our stay.
When we left our room the first time to go out, we single locked the door to our room and then locked the main door into the building. Upon return, I noticed that the door to the room was double locked (which I did not originally know was possible), but I didn't put too much thought into it. From this point onward I ALWAYS double locked the door into our room.
On the third night of our stay, we went out for dinner and I had left my wallet in the bag in our room. When we came back, I noticed the door was only single locked despite double checking I had double locked it before we left. I was slightly concerned, but the room appeared in the same state and our passports and wallet were still in my bag so, again, I didn't put too much thought into it. The following day was my birthday. Halfway through the day I received a text from my bank alerting me to potential fraud on one of my cards (please note this was a bank card I had NOT used the entire holiday and which had REMAINED IN MY WALLET at the bottom of my bag in the room for the duration of the trip - I had been using Apple Pay on a DIFFERENT card the entire trip). My girlfriend and I rushed back to our room and checked over everything. We found out that one of my bank cards had disappeared from my wallet and upon checking my banking app, someone had been making transactions the previous day and all of the current day in Paris. Whilst I was busy trying to sort this out on the phone to my bank, my girlfriend checked the small zip pocket inside of our suitcase. She checked both her wallets (neither of which had EVER LEFT THE ROOM) and found that one of her bank cards and 50 euros cash was missing. To make things even more obvious, all of her cards and previous train tickets had switched positions in her wallet (like many people, they always stay in the same compartments). By this point, as we were putting all the pieces together, it was becoming clear that someone must have come into our room. The room showed no signs of being broken into, so it must have been someone with access to keys.
We immediately sought help and went down to the host's office. We explained about the lock situation on our door and that cards and cash were missing from our room that we had never even taken out, let alone touched ourselves. The women in the office COMPLETELY DISREGARDED everything we had told them, offering us no help whatsoever and telling us that none of what we had said was possible. They told us it had nothing to do with them as hosts and that they knew who was in the building at ALL times (which is clearly not true since they don't work from the office 24 hours a day and the fact that their office is facing another direction on the adjacent street). As mentioned previously this was my birthday and my girlfriend was extremely upset and, at this point, crying. We felt so uncomfortable that someone had clearly gone through our stuff when we were out. I mentioned about the possibility of someone having an extra set of keys or someone getting keys copied which was immediately shut down as "it is illegal to get keys copied without a card" - in reality we all know it is definitely possible to find someone to copy keys illegally. My girlfriend then asked about the cameras inside and outside of the building (which we have taken photographic evidence of) - again they completely ignored this. The hosts showed NO INTEREST IN HELPING US and were EXTREMELY DEFENSIVE. They even asked us if we had pictures, which was ridiculous - who takes a picture of their wallet with all their cards in? They were being extremely accusatory and only when my girlfriend was getting visibly upset did the woman tell her to "calm down" and finally said that she would call her boss. She also told us she couldn't move us to another room because they were all fully booked (which didn't solve our problem of someone having access to our room anyway). She proceeded to tell us that she would call us back once she had spoken to her boss. WE NEVER RECEIVED ANY CALL OR FORM OF COMMUNICATION FROM OUR HOSTS.
Thank god that this happened towards the end of our trip as we would've felt completely uncomfortable for the rest of our stay knowing that some had access to all of our belongings. We were then forced to carry all of our valuables with us every time we left the room, which we felt very uncomfortable about knowing pick-pocketing is so common in Paris.
The hosts did not ask us any questions about what had happened and only told us we could go to the police ourselves. They showed no empathy or concern which we personally found VERY alarming. It was very clear that they were only out to cover their own backs.
The fact that only 2 of our cards and cash was taken very clearly indicates that this was a strategic theft. Whoever it was clearly didn't want to make it too obvious that they had been in