Airbnb host refusing to send AirPods without me paying?

[moryn]

Recently got back from a short break in Paris.

I left my AirPods on the bed, the host refuses to send them back unless I pay £50 plus postage.

AIBU to think this is ridiculous?

It does not take an hour to put something in the post. It just doesn't, unless you are being wilfully obtuse and/or just plain lazy.

You find an envelope. You write the address on it. If, by some astonishingly slim chance you aren't going near a post office in the next week or so, you buy postage online and stick it in the post next time you go near any sort of settlement, which everyone does.

Justifying £50 for doing that is absolutely absurd, and claiming it takes an hour to put something in the post equally so.

I have posted a few items for guests (I do live close) and if I wasn't close by, I would still try and arrange it and I'd be transparent about what costs I would be incurring to do so. I agree that returning it might not be necessarily be simple but it doesn't sound lie this host is trying very hard on the customer service front. In my experience, when people leave stuff (which they do infrequently) they are always apologetic and very grateful for them to be returned.

I have posted a few items for guests (I do live close) and if I wasn't close by, I would still try and arrange it

And that is lovely, and excellent customer service, and well done you. Definitely how we should all behave towards each other.

However, not going that extra mile does not automatically equate to being something worthy of complaint!

I have had many guests who took the sheets off their beds, put the recycling into the correct bins, left me a gift and a thank you note on the table. I appreciate it, and think they are lovely people. But they didn't need to do any of it.

Plenty of other guests don't do any of those things, even leave things kind of grubby. I'm not talking about terrible, not trashed, just not as good condition as some guests leave it. And it's fine, because I expect to check it and clean after them. I wouldn't fine them or write them a bad review for not being exceptionally thoughtful human beings.

Re returning lost property, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. Some Airbnbs and hotels operate on a case by case basis, some see it as an opportunity for extra earnings. It's great if they are generous, but you can't assume that they will be.

Staff and petrol to go to the post office?

If they don’t live close to the rental themselves, they’ll have to ask someone else to do it for them. If that person is an employee, they will need to be paid for their time.

Obviously covering postage would be expected but £50 seems a lot! I wouldn’t be happy either!

For this reason, I wouldn't offer if I were the owner. Especially not if I had to have someone else actually pack it up, etc.

And finding out what the package weighs; and finding out how much it costs to send it to a different country; and having a jiffy bag handy or otherwise buying one specially; and working out the appropriate value for insured international post; and making sure you follow the correct procedures and fill in the forms for sending restricted, potentially-hazardous items; and having a printer (which a great many people nowadays don't); and loading it with suitably-sized stickers (assuming you have some), or otherwise cutting down a sheet of A4, getting some sellotape and scissors and having to stick it on; and then driving to the post office - as you obviously can't just drop a fire risk like a battery into a post box - and finding somewhere to park; and emailing the owner with details of incurred costs for them to reimburse.

Yep, 2 minutes max!

Do you know where their local post office is, or what hours it is open ? It’s difficult for many working people to get to a post office during the week, and my nearest one is about 2 miles away.

I don't know about France, but post offices in the UK are closing down left, right and centre - because many people never need to use them anymore. I can't remember the last time I went to one. Actually, thinking back, I do remember now (that's how unusual an occasion it is) and it was the best part of a year ago.

Yes, it would be small enough to drop into a post box; but it obviously isn't safe enough to drop in one. You have to go to a post office and complete a declaration when sending a hazardous item - and that's just for within your own country; I'm guessing it will be somewhat more stringent when it goes across a national border.

Of course you wouldn't be happy at the situation, but you'd be very wrong to direct that unhappiness at a stranger whom you've asked to do you a special favour that could take them or their employees an hour or more.

Just like you wouldn't be at all happy if you misjudged pulling off your drive and badly scraped a panel on a wall, but you wouldn't find somebody else to blame for it. You certainly wouldn't expect to complain about the garage's charge for repairing it, on the grounds that they did your MoT only last week and this should just be a part of their good customer service.

From someone who has not posted internationally since the new regs came in.

If only!

£50 does seem excessive, perhaps it’s so much hassle for them that they’ve put a ridiculous price on it, in the hope you’ll not want them back. I can’t sign up to the fact that it’s just a case of popping in them post. They might not live near a post office, they’ll need to find the appropriate weight, packaging, international postage etc. Ok it doesn’t seem much but it’s still time out of someone’s day. And imagine if they had to do that for every guest, if they left something behind. At the end of the day they’ve put a price on their time and inconvenience and that’s it.

So you don’t want to pay £50 for something that was your fault but expect them to pay it?

No one is paying £50. OP would cover postage but was probably hoping for goodwill from the owner regarding their time.

The £50 is in addition to postage.

You could probably get someone on taskrabbit to go collect it and send to you for leas

As somebody who works in admin, this thread is just confirming to me how little idea many people who aren't admin-minded have about how long things that seem mundane and insignificant frequently actually take.

So many people will ask for what they genuinely believe is a two-minute job, but are absolutely oblivious to all of the many necessary little stages and tasks that are required to do what they want... or at least to do it properly, so that it doesn't go wrong and then take even more time and effort to fix - which all naturally falls on you as well.

Oddly enough, as we're seeing on this thread, the words 'just' and 'pop' feature heavily; and even though they think it's a two-minute job, they still made the effort (and probably spent more than two minutes) to contact you and ask you to do it, rather than just doing it themselves in a trice...

I don't think the host is likely to object to that, are they? They certainly haven't expressed any deep desire to have to arrange and do it all themselves - they'd probably be delighted if somebody else would do it instead of it all falling to them.

I think you’re getting confused between it not taking you an hour to post it, and it not taking everyone else an hour to post it.

It would actually take me far longer than an hour. And that’s without me being obtuse or lazy. I don’t drive and the nearest post office is a ten minute walk, a 30 minute bus ride away to the town centre and another 10 minute walk to the other side of the shops, where WHSmith is located, so we’re at nearly an hour before I even queue up. Even our local branch was a 30 minute walk away, before it closed, and I’m not particularly rural. I don’t carry a ready stock of envelopes so I need to queue up to buy one, then join another queue because you can’t pay the Post Office for Smith’s envelopes and because I don’t have a printer to print out the postage that you can buy on line. I can’t remember the last time the queue had less than half a dozen people in it, so I could be there for anything up to 20 or 30 minutes. Then I’ve got the same journey home in reverse. And I’m supposed to take time out of my working day for this, which means I’m then under pressure to catch up with my work.

It’s simple for you, and that’s great if anyone ever leaves something at your house. But it’’s not simple for everyone. It would be a massive ball ache and an imposition on my time and £50 wouldn’t make it any less so. I’m not familiar with the French postal system but I’d guess travel time, or parking in a city (with associated costs), queues and lack of a printer would be fairly common issues throughout Europe. I’m quite impressed with them that they’re not prepared to be out of pocket or hugely inconvenienced just to do someone a favour.

You don't need to "work in admin" to have a realistic idea of how long it actually takes to do a task and how ridiculous it is to charge someone £50 to send a small item to someone.

All this waffle about it taking 3 working days to put something in the post is just deflection.

How much are they worth? I agree if someone has to go and retrieve them, insure, pack and post it will cost a bit. Of course they may have 'gone' if the b&b/hotel/airbnb/etc was immediately re-let.

Ok, that's a bit mean.
I had an insurance replacement car recently. I found a lady's wallet inside- cash, cards, driving licence etc. I sent it back to her for free, Special Delivery. She offered to pay, I said no. But Royal Mail delivered it a day late so they refunded the postage, and the replacement car people reimbursed me for the postage too (too much by mistake) so I ended up feeling honest, and a few quid up.
Although not so much as I needed the insurance replacement car!

The best bit thought was hearing the relief in the lady's voice when I phoned her!

Well I'm actually parisian so yes I know, mailboxes and post-offices are everywhere.

I have never lived more than 5mins walk from a post-office and 1min away from a mailbox.

£50 is extortion.

I and several others have clearly described how long it would/could take to complete all the tasks needed to post a restricted hazardous item to somebody in a foreign country; so if you're still insisting that it's a job that only takes anybody a couple of minutes, it sounds like you're only just proving what I said. You may as well claim that going and doing a month's worth of family food shopping at the supermarket takes no longer than the time it takes to stick your bank card in the machine and press five buttons to pay for it.

I don't recall which poster said about it taking 3 working days - however that clearly doesn't mean that it actually takes 22.5 hours nonstop to do something, but just that a normally busy person might not have chance and the available free time to do a random errand as a favour for a stranger for three days... which is actually quite a short lead time, I would say.

I'm presuming that most people don't have lives and livelihoods with nothing whatsoever going on, with them just waiting to be given a random errand to do to bring a bit of excitement to their long empty hours.

Seems a little steep. I'd say £20 or £30 plus cost of postage would be reasonable and it should be listed in the terms and conditions of the host.