No ready to be rented out and they don't want to give your deposit back
I would not recommend staying there.
We booked one of their apartment at Downtown Dubai. Forte 1. Unfortunately my whole review wasn't posted in booking.com so to make sure no one else will go through the same experience I am posting it here.
After booking, they told us that on arrival, they needed a security deposit of 2000 AED on top of the accommodation fees. This is even though we already paid an extra £100 on booking.com for a professional cleaner to come after we left. They would only take the deposit in cash, and said it would be refunded when we leave. Alarm bells were already ringing. I should have cancelled as soon as I heard this, but we carried on.
They didn’t activate the key for the front entrance of the apartment block until day four, and this was only after having to contact several people during our holiday. Concierges had to let us in the building each time, and wouldn’t do so without seeing our passports. One half of the cooker wasn’t working and there were a few other electrical problems; it was a real hassle getting anyone to come and fix them. We had 4 or 5 different people come during our 8-day stay to fix various things, and we had to be in the apartment each time, which really took away a lot of our leisure time. The apartment block wasn't really ready for people to inhabit; despite being on the 7th floor, we were woken every day by building contractors working below us. One day, they shut off the water early in the morning without any notice; we had to leave for the day without having use of the shower or toilet at all.
They said the deposit would be returned to us by bank transfer (cash only works one way, apparently!) after 3-5 days. 10 days later, still waiting for the deposit, I contacted them, and was passed to yet another person. They sent photographs claiming that we had damaged the apartment - marks on walls, carpet stains, bedsheet etc. All of these problems existed before we arrived, I sent them some photographs and we had paid for a cleaner. They showed no intention to return the deposit because of these. We showed them evidence that many of these existed before, from videos we took of the apartment, but of course we didn’t take photographs/videos of every square inch of the place on arrival, so they just cherry-picked things we didn’t have firm evidence for.
It was only after we threatened to refer them to the police (there is a dedicated service in the Dubai Police force for dealing with tourism-related fraud), 16 days after we left Dubai, they agreed to refund the money. 2000 AED was around £500 when we paid them that cash. We only received back £381 - they claimed this was the best exchange they could get. I believe when they took that deposit, they had no intention of ever returning it. It was only with the threat of police action that we got any of it back.
This is a good location for the downtown area, and the initial price - without the deposit - was very reasonable. But these people are scammers, and I wish we had spent more money to stay with a more reputable host. It wasn’t worth the hassle, firstly missing out on holiday activities to get the problems in the apartment fixed then, upon return, having to chase the money they stole. This was the worst accommodation service experience I’ve ever had while travelling.
17 février 2024
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