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?

I would offer to pay for the postage and recorded/special delivery but £50! I wouldn’t expect that and would never charge anyone that either. We all need a little help and kindness sometimes

Im confused! that charge would be in addition to the £50, why would the cost of postage change the £50?

I left an airpod in Portugal last year. Hotel said they'd send it - no fee. It cost me €60 in customs charges to receive it.
My advice is to buy a new pair if you're going to get charged on both ends.

I run an Airbnb and the first time I posted something left behind without payment first was the last due to the hassle of getting a refund for my time, inconvenience and money. Sorry but you're being very unreasonable.

£50 is a lot but covering the postage is fair enough. Perhaps you could pre pay postage yourself and send them a prepaid label/QR code?

They’re not covering the postage!!!!

Yanbu it just being a decent human being and part of this type of business

YANBU, I left my kindle in a hotel in Paris just before Christmas and they just sent me a UPS link to complete (and pay for) and they took care of the rest of it - used an old box as packaging. Cost about £17 IIRC. I seemed to find a way of completing the customs form that was both accurate and didn’t land me with any additional charges thank god.

Am I the only one who thoroughly checks the hotel room or apartment before I check out?! So many stories on this thread.

it’s super easy to double-check you have all your stuff. Once you’re packed you can do a sweep. I’m quite a disorganised person but even that one I can manage!

I left something at a hotel and they just charged me £9 postage. Airbnb host is taking the piss, they should treat this like an actual business and not an opportunity to overcharge. Presumably they are not bothered about returning guests and poor reviews.

Probably not by the time the OP has paid the import duty and VAT on top of the p&p!

Also: YABVU!

they may have an agent who charges them to go pick the item up and post it. They may be charging for their time/petrol etc.

Oh, it's a plopper poster

But what if the owner doesn’t live in Paris, and pays an agency / management company to carry out the cleaning / handover. For a city Airbnb that’s pretty likely I’d have thought. So the owner isn’t in a position to pack and post the it themselves, they’ll be paying the agency. And by the time someone’s packaged, taken to the post office and posted / couriered the item I’m pretty sure they’ll have spent the best part of 2 hours, if not a lot more. For which the owner will be billed…. Is it reasonable to expect the cost of that to be include in the Airbnb fee, or should it be charged as an extra for those that use it…?

If it’s marked return of items, no import duty.

Two hours or a lot more? 🤣🤣🤣

So that's 6 steps for them to do before they've even left the house - for every single person who leaves stuff.

And even the 7th step is not necessarily that simple. I'm not familiar with the French postal system, but I highly doubt that they have one standard rate for every item that will fit in their post boxes, to be posted anywhere in the world... and assuming that they don't have one single rate, you have to weigh the parcel, go online to investigate all the different options and buy postage, download it, print it (assuming you have a printer), cut the printed sheet to size, stick it on the package, then go out and post it.

It's yet another case where "Can you just..." is made to sound like it will take a moment, but the reality is anything but.

Personally speaking, it's because I know that I'm very far from perfect that I would go around checking before I left.

Surely, if anything, it's the people who do think they're perfect who would assume that they would have remembered every last thing without the need to double-check?!

Eh? So you can just leave your stuff in somebody's house without their knowledge, then travel all the way home to a different country, and then accuse them of trying to steal the stuff that you left?!?! Is that a bit like the charities that used to send you unsolicited raffle tickets in the post and then demand you either buy them, sell them or send them back - otherwise you're a very bad person indeed?!

What the host will doubtless want is for leaving guests to take all of their own stuff home, so they can prepare for the next guests without a load of extra work and inconvenience that will take them far, far longer than it would have taken that guest to have a quick glance around before leaving.

This. Some people seem to assume the host is going to do it themselves and it’s little inconvenient. But they must be passing on the direct costs

They can’t just be posted. They have lithium ion batteries and the normal postal service might say no to taking them. Lithium batteries are what caused the recent fire in Glasgow that took down a listed building.

Well how much of their time would be involved in doing this?

Less time would be spend popping them in the post than writing an email explaining your terms and pricing for sending them back.

You never make mistakes? Your “double checks” never fail or you never forget?

I “always check”‘until I don’t or my “check” doesn’t work.

Come on, to err is human!

Covering their actual out-of-pocket costs- fine
Anything substantially over that- not fine

I think Airbnb owners sometimes forget they are charging their customers close to hotel prices and act as if they are doing you a favour even to let you stay. Running a business comes with costs, some of which may be irritating but are nevertheless part of providing a good level of service. I would certainly mention this in your review, op- you can just be factual.