Joivy Scotland — Local services in City of Edinburgh

Altido (formerly Bnbbuddy) were managing my flat in Edinburgh for over 4 years. From day 1, there have been consistent problems and despite numerous conversations on these issues, there have been no attempts from Altitido to improve their service so I have finally terminated my relationship with this company. I am not someone who likes to write negative reviews of companies but as handing your property into the management of a company is a big decision, I wanted to share my experience with Altido to help people make an informed decision before engaging their services.

I currently live in the US so it is difficult for me to regularly check the flat but every time myself or a family member has visited the property, they have been shocked by the state of disrepair of the property. My father was shocked to visit a few weeks ago to find that all 5 of the kitchen lightbulbs had blown, the bedroom carpet was filthy, there were broken floorboards and the shower was covered in black mould. Looking back at guest feedback, these issues had all been raised numerous times by guests and ignored by Altido. For my flat, Altido charged guests a £39 cleaning fee, so guests expect a high level of cleanliness but Altido only give their cleaners 20mins to turnover a property, which means the property is never properly cleaned. Guests have consistently rated the cleanliness of the flat very poorly but this has never been addressed by Altido and my overall rating has gone from nearly 5 stars when I engaged Altido to 4.3 stars today, which clearly limits my ability to attract new bookings.

Altido's billing system is set up so that they receive all of the guest fees and then pay the landlord their share so Altido collect their fees regardless of the guest experience. This means Altido have no impetus to maintain high standards as they don't rely on repeat bookings, and as I could not withhold payment from them, I had no commercial leverage to improve Altido's performance. In the past, when I have raised issues with Altido, I have been given assurances that they are making investments in their cleaning team and were hiring a team of people to regularly view properties to ensure quality control. I understand that there will be teething issues with any rapidly growing start-up. As such, I tried to give Altido the benefit of the doubt and hoped that things would improve but I now realize that Altido put company profit above all else, and are not interested in ensuring guest or landlord satisfaction as long as they continue to receive their fees.

After raising the most recent issues with Altido, my first 2 emails were ignored and it took me changing my Airbnb password and removing Altido as a co-host for them to respond. They are now withholding my keys and ignoring my emails so I felt compelled to write a review in the hope that this may encourage them to respond to me and give me back the keys to my flat. It is a real shame that Altido has been able to grow so quickly and swallow up smaller family run companies, that actually cared about the...

BEWARE. Horrible experience in Edinborough at “lovely garden flat near botanical garden”. NOT. The apartment was dirty, carpets stained with grease, very dingy, wall paint peeling, stained and greasy coffee table, crayon marks on wall, water damage/bubbling up paint in the main entrance hallway, broken lamp, stains on bathroom walls, dirty plastic flowers, kitchen did not have the equipment pictured in photographs. At 474 English pounds for 2 nights this is UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE. I immediately called Altido to tell them that I would NOT be staying (!). I then took photographic evidence as they had requested, emailed the photos, and duly left the property. I asked multiple times what they would do about it and their response was “your concern will be sent on to the appropriate person and investigated. We will get back to you.” No alternative accommodation was even offered or suggested. When I called 4 days later to follow up, the rep said that the email with photographs had not been sent on to the appropriate person. (He saw them sitting in the inbox). But that he would send them on. A few hours later I received a jolly email from upper management that the company could not grant a refund because I hadn’t cancelled the reservation. WHAT? I tell a live person on the phone, minutes after my arrival, that I’m furious and that I’m leaving the soiled apartment (and tell him that I expect a refund!) and four days later am told that because they did not amend the booking on their end, they technically have to charge me for it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I am a seasoned traveler, stay all over the world, and have never been so shocked by the condition of a rental vs price accommodation, and abysmal customer to business response/remedy. One would expect a fairly new venture company, competing in an already very competitive market, to try to distinguish itself from the pack. It HAS NOT. I’ll spend my money with AIrbnb happily now that I know Altido...

This was the worst experience I have ever had at any accommodation. Altido double booked us. We had to walk almost 2km to their office to pick up keys (which they didn't tell us until 2 hours before check in). The person working there was confused about which key to give us, and when she did eventually find the right key and we went to the apartment, other guest's stuff was there. We tried to ring the help line but they basically said they wouldn't be able to check us in today, even though we PREPAID for this accommodation. They asked us to put in a request for a refund. They also asked us to go into the room, with other people's stuff, and take a photo (which I refused to do out of respect for the other guest's privacy). After multiple hours of calling, they basically said they couldn't help us tonight and we ended up with no place to stay at 9.30pm on a Friday night in Edinburgh during peak season. Kind of a scary thought. We walked for a further 2 hours looking for any hotel that would take us last min, and ended up being £400 per night out of pocket since it was the only hotel available. Completely ruined our holiday. A part of me wondered if it was a scam.

I understand that mistakes can happen, but the lack of professionalism or care was astounding. Any other hotel would bend over backwards to accommodate you somewhere or find another hotel to take you, at their expense. Altido instead did not even want to process a refund for accommodation which I had prepaid for and they failed to provide.

On top of that, I find it concerning that they have double sets of keys and are happy to hand them out to multiple guests. Someone else less honest could have rifled through other people's stuff and stolen anything the wanted. Completely...