MyStays Taupo | Lakeside Accommodation — Local services in North Island

Sharing an unfortunate experience from earlier this year with Lakeside Accommodation Taupo that happened over a three day period post stay. An experience I had not expected after making such beautiful memories at the beautiful home they manage but due to their inappropriate conduct, I feel it is only right to warn others about the disgusting tactics they use to resolve issues.

We had accidentally left a very meaningful possession at the house after our stay and the team at this point were amazing with communicating about getting this back to us.

Unfortunately, not long after reaching out to retrieve this possession, they let us know there had been an issue with our stay at the house due to a miscommunication via booking.com. My husband (the main and only contact dealing with Lakeside Accommodation Taupo) happily agreed to work through this issue (through no fault of our own) and pay the excessive additional charge they requested. Again, at this point the ladies at Lakeside Accommodation Taupo were amazing.

When he went down to retrieve our possession, he was told by the girls working in the office that they had been told by their manager that they were not to hand over the possession until payment had been made. Even though he had made the payment, he was absolutely disgusted that if we had not, Lakeside Accommodation Taupo would use extortion against him in order to get our possession back.

Now, this possession is extremely important to my husband and I, having lost our baby a month prior to our stay, it was a representation of our baby. Making this even worse, was the fact that my husband had explained the importance of this possession to Lakeside Accommodation Taupo who at the time were super understanding and wanted to get it to us asap. The fact that their true intentions were to hold this from us until we paid, is absolutely disgusting.

After my husband had received this possession, we thought everything had been resolved. Unfortunately, due to a human error with the payment - his payment to them was short. Lakeside Accommodation Taupo called him but due to him working a full-time job that requires him to not be at his phone 24/7 he missed their call. 45 minutes after he missed their call, they contacted me at my place of work - having stalked me on the internet to locate me. They had no contact details of mine as the booking was under my husband's contact details. This call took me unawares as my husband was dealing with this entire issue. The fact I had to explain to them that my husband can't always answer his phone straight away and would have called them back when he was free seemed absolutely ridiculous that I had to explain that. The fact that I had to explain if the payment was short it would have been a mistake seemed ridiculous. I let them know how incredibly INAPPROPRIATE it was to have called me at work after my husband didn't answer ONE call. This call left me highly distressed (already being in a fragile mental state), I felt like I had been hunted down and treated like a criminal. It has made me scared every time a random phone number comes through my work line, all over a payment mistake that should have been communicated PATIENTLY and DIRECTLY with my husband (the booking contact).

Of course my husband was very upset that they had harassed me at work and couldn't believe the disgusting tactics they have used to resolve an issue that he had been working quite happily with them on.

We corrected the payment begrudgingly as the way they went about this was absolutely despicable when my husband did nothing but work with them.

Please take this review on board when booking with them as a customer, you never know how people really conduct themselves in business.

As for any response that Lakeside Accommodation decides to come back with, take it with a grain of salt re their "facts" and check out their "facts" in other responses to other...

DO NOT recommend this company, DO NOT use this company to manage your property. We used it for several months, it was a big mistake. They failed to take basic care and respect to our property.

1: They promised to deliver a high service standard, actually it was the worst we have even seen. Our Property has suffered significant damage, due to their neglect, failed to provide basic duty of care. It takes upto 5 weeks to repair the damage, which should have never happened if Lakeside did their jobs properly. The worst part is that their business owner keeps changing her stories, twisting what's actaully happened; refusing to front up, or taking any responsibilities. In stead, sent us their "Fineprints", which is very unreasonable. 2: We asked them to provide a service record to show how they operate, Lakeside reply is even more shocking: " The ‘Lock ups’ list is always handwritten by my Ops Manager and taken and followed by the person completing the task. Paper is disposed of so we don’t hold a record of this." They can't even provide this for very recent days??? Or they never did it. We have suffered sigificant loss due to they failed to do those checks. but, they tried to blame something else, rather than own up to it. 3: They talked us into installing a expensive lock, But, they didn't inform us it will cost us extra upto $200 for owner to use it once cancel their use . We asked them why this costs wasn't disclosed. Lakeside reply: "As per our terms and conditions we are not liable for this cost."

4: They will always send on their own employee for any repairs; charging owners additional 10% surcharge on top of nomral hourly rate to use their own exployees; Even, their employee can't fix anything most of the time; you will still have to pay for all those, plus paying for a professional to fix it, still be charged extra 10% on top.

5: We have tried to revolves those issues with Lakeside, their response are not honest, not fronting up, not owning up to...

The property is very luxurious and beautiful no doubt. We had a lovely family get together in Taupō late Aug and this location was ideal for our trip.

There was just a few concerns we had once we arrived to the Airbnb- these concerns were raised with the property manager Charlotte who initially replied to my email-asking me to clarify which toilet was not working. I then replied with several emails with pictures and videos but then I haven’t had a reply since hence the 1 star for communication.

•There was 2 toilets in the property and only one was working. Very inconvenient as the only working toilet was in the master bedroom and the guests staying in it were disturbed everytime someone needed to use the toilet

•There was Food scraps on the large coffee table in the lounge •Patio area was very dirty, almost muddy looking •Bbq had seemed to be cleaned in a rush and still had food bits and grease on it. Needed a thorough clean before we could use it •Kids fingerprints on bedroom mirror Hence the 2 stars for cleanliness

•Both bathroom floors seemed to be slippery as its tiled. Was a bit dangerous for our heavily pregnant guest.

Apart from the above. The property, the decor and furnishings are immaculate and very well thought out. The owners have done an amazing job with this beautiful accommodation. It is private, secure and in a quiet area away from all the hustle bustle which was quite nice. It’s a shame, if it weren’t for the above concerns the property is definitely worth a 5 star accommodation.

We would definitely return and hopefully don’t have any issues in...