Kathleen H.

I rented an apartment in Paris for one week. The Airbnb photos looked fantastic; the reality was a filthy dilapidated apartment that reeked of stale cigarette smoke. And guess what? Airbnb doesn't care. When I wrote a true review of the filthy moldy bathrooms and kithcen, cigarette burned carpets, not working lights/ poor electrics, the Hong Kong based Chinese owner of this apartment had four fake reviews posted immediately. The reviews weren't even one sentence long. Did Airbnb take them down? Did Airbnb refund my payment? No. They refunded half of one night's stay so we paid for 7 1/2 nights at the most disgusting place I've ever stayed. We tried to get a hotel but Paris was literally full (of Americans!). We didn't let this ruin our trip but we will never use Airbnb again. I had been warned by several friends who've had the most awful experiences. Don't do it, it's truly not worth it. VRBO is more reliable as are realtors. Airbnb is a just a money grab for unscrupulous owners and Airbnb scumbag of a company.

Do not order from River Island UK as they do not know how to the do DHL returns. I order from UK companies all the time and returns via DHL are no problem if the company knows what they are doing. River Island does not. They do not have the correct links so I could not sign up for DHL pick up (getting anyone at DHL on the phone is impossible so don't even try). So I took the package to DHL drop off who would not take it because even though I had DHL return labels provided by River Island at the cost of $15.00, I did not have return invoice for customs. DO NOT ORDER UNLESS YOU ARE 100% certain the item will fit. BTW, UK clothing runs small compared to US.

I am a "Genius Level 3" on Booking.com, whatever that means, because I previously used this website without a second thought. We had to cancel a one night trip for our daughter's tournament because she is sick. Super easy with airlines but with booking.com, it's a whole other level of "service." They instruct you to use "chat" function for best service but then after providing all the details of your booking, they tell you that you have to call. After going through the same rigamarole with the phone line, I finally speak to customer service rep who tells me she will EMAIL me a form to start request for refund procedure. Wth. I get the email which states that I cannot start the request for refund until after the booking date and time have passed, quite honestly laughable as they will then state that no refund possible because we did not notify in advance. I was telling a friend about this and she said she never uses booking.com anymore because of their terrible service. That makes two of us now. Oh, and the voice prompts on their customer service line is British. Why? I'm guessing because their customer service is now British. No offense intended, I live in the UK for 12 years. British customer service is non existent and they are the masters of very politely giving customers the runaround and not providing a refund. It's not worth any small savings you may get on Booking.com or the convenience of one stop shop for hotels and cars, just book direct.

Ordering from any of these affiliated companies - Pottery Barn, PBTeen, PBKids, William Sonoma, West Elm, etc. All of them are truly terrible. Most recently tried to order from PBTeen using college student 15% discount. Discount would not work online so had to do telephone order. Took two calls of an hour each. Then told the bookshelf not in stock until Dec or Jan. It's August. Wth. Ordered $800 rug two years ago from West Elm. Spilled water on it, ruined the rug. WATER. What kind of joke is this. Do not buy any viscose rug. West Elm & all these affiliated companies do not have online reviews for a reason. Found out customers at CB had same issue -- difference is they were allowed to write reviews warning other customers of defective rugs & many got money back. After the rug experience I never wanted to order from them again, but teen needs desk now since all classes online. Necessary evil and never again.

This website should be renamed Buyer Beware. Luckily I only made a small purchase -- what was supposed to be a size XS Madewell tank dress. What could go wrong? The dress was shrunk so it was so tight in the chest that it is unwearable. Poshmark's response was that there are no returns if something doesn't fit. This was a case of the item being damaged. I feel luckily that this is all I bought. Most of the Poshmark reviews are bad. Only sellers like it because there are no returns so they can pass along all their bad buys, ruined items and junk to unwary buyers. It doesn't get any worse for buyers so just don't be tempted and take the risk.