The apartment I stayed in itself was awesome. But a great price for a space that is bigger than the average loft in the DTLA area wasn’t worth the price of admission I spent dealing with Abode. Abode is the company that managed this listing and many others they list on Airbnb in Los Angeles and I assume, other cities across the US.
It seems renting out listings is just a small part of what Abode engages in as a part of their business model. The other is invasion of privacy.
Abode runs their own background check aside from what Airbnb provides and I wonder if they are aware of abodes other activities Abode engages in.
Abode went past check in time to comb through my personal financial background. And when I reached out to them by text and phone calls, Abode surprises me with a special mystery guest tied into their call back to me on conference call- a debt collector in charge of collecting a past due balance I am in the process of disputing. I can only guess that Abode is paid to sabotage their paying clients by double dipping on my business with them with those looking to collect balances unrelated to the money I paid them to secure lodging. And they didn’t check me in today for more than an hour past my check in time as I stood outside the unit’s building on Broadway with my luggage.
My guess on what Abode’s business is comprised Of is booking tenants into their properties, collecting their data and using the details of their customers financial background against them.
My last criticism of my stay is directly related To the unit I rented. On day 2 of my stay I left the unit to get take out food a block away. I returned to the unit with my food to find the password on the digital lock on the unit reset. I had to eat my food in the hall of the building because it took 30 minutes to reach a rep from abode and another half hour to reset the code on the lock.
Moral of the story- avoid renting from Abode on Airbnb. Their name is often in the title of the listing or under Host. My guess is they pad their revenue by collecting and exploiting your data and shrug at exploiting your privacy.