Is erasmusu.com Safe?

Their cancellation policy is terrible. I cancelled my booking 12 hours after reserving it, and over a month in advance, and only received 50% of the down payment. That's excluding the 280€ Erasmusu fee which is not refundable. Don't expect to walk away with more than 35% of your booking payment when cancelling at this website.

I was looking for an apartment in Poland and the Erasmusu website seemed to have several available ones at a good price. However, when you book one of these apartments, after having paid out more than € 500 for the first month's rent and their large part, they let you know that – magically – it is no longer available. At that point, they start offer you more expensive apartments without listening to your needs, and you may make the mistake of accepting their offer to avoid losing your money. As if this was not enough, you may interact (as in my case) with a homeowner who does not allow you to view the rental agreement in advance, responds roughly, insults you and adds unforeseen fees when accepting the apartment. For these reasons, I canceled my booking before leaving for Poland, I never used the service and I never signed any contract. Despite having shared numerous evidence to support my version, the Erasmusu team did not take into account my affirmations only because they had collaborated for years with the homeowner, and in this way they decided not to reimburse me even 1 €. Their service seems friendly at first, but as soon as they get their money, forget about being protected and supported. I am sure they will respond to this review in a kind and empathetic way, talking about their "mission" to help students. I, as a student, have only wasted time and money (536 €).

Very bad customer service In short: Very unprofessional handling by the staff, poor customer service and if any problems occur with a booking, you will be the one that needs to prove why you deserve your OWN money back! Wouldn’t recommend, BE VERY CAREFUL! What happened and why am I saying this? I made a booking of a VERIFIED Appartement and even got contacted by a pre-bookings agent, because I wasn't sure to complete this booking right away, saying that if I needed help or assistance they would be glad to advise me about the procedures and kept reassuring me that their verified system was safe and landlords have been previously contacted to make sure everything is fine. And just in case that something does go wrong they would assist me with any problems. Here is what I was told: “We have verified all these landlords and also we will keep the payment safe until you arrive or sign the contract. Once you confirm that everything is fine, we will send the money to the landlord.” I decided then to proceed with the booking process and immediately got a mail saying that the landlord was contacted and they are now awaiting his confirmation. Indeed the next day I got a positive answer and the landlord and someone from the bookings team got in touch with me saying that my booking was successful and that I could now exchange with the owner, which I did. The same e-mail also specified that “If the landlord asks you a payment before your arrival, please let us know before doing it.” So I contacted the owner who told me that he doesn't trust this website and asked for one or two months’ rent in advance as a deposit which I would need to pay directly to him before signing anything or even getting there. Obviously, I found this suspicious and proceeded to signal the problem with the Erasmusu bookings team, as they even said to do in their confirmation mail. But then I get NO reply anymore from them! I contacted them multiple times asking them to assist with this matter or cancel my booking and refund me the payment I had already made, but all I got was RADIO SILENCE! The least they could do is to acknowledge receipt of the mails, reassure clients and tell them that they will look into it! I find it very unprofessional for a company that is supposed to make money providing a service for clients to not get in touch with people when they express legitimate concerns. They are very quick when it comes to you spending your money but once it comes to problems and refunds they really take their time. I understand if they are busy and that such matters need some time to look into, but at least reassure your clients that you are doing something rather then not replying at all. Finally, after writing a LOT of e-mails, contacting them through their Facebook page (which in the end worked better), and having posted some negative reviews of them on different platforms (which they tried to delete systematically) and trying to call multiple times (unsuccessfully), they finally got back to me saying that they couldn’t help me since the landlord accepted my booking, even though he had canceled it already (he send me proof of that indeed). I told them again that my booking was canceled by the landlord and asked for my refund and repeated that I was concerned about sending any money without signing a contract. I was then told that I was right not to pay anything without signing a contract (I know, obviously!) but that since I was “talking bad words about them” (as they put it), I would only get a partial refund. This is, of course, unacceptable and I told them so. Since when is complaining about poor customer service something you need to pay for? (BTW, at the same time, they also contacted the landlord again telling him that given our behavior (mine and his) we both wouldn’t get ANY money back. This is an email they send him but didn’t even inform me about. The last I knew was that I was getting a partial refund as said above, but then in the meantime their story changed and now somehow I was not getting any refund.) Having at some point exhausted that route (seeing that I wouldn’t just take this ridiculous excuse) they now accused me of scheming behind their back with the landlord and get his place without having to pay a commission fee, which is absolutely not true! I had already signed another contract with someone else entirely at that point (not through their website of course) so how could I be staying at 2 places at once and also why would I even want to do that? But since I was the one being “investigated” (their words), I had to send them proof that I rented another apartment, and finally had to threaten them to get a lawyer involved (guilty until proven innocent I guess…). So even if I did eventually get my money back, this whole process took hours and days and only was resolved because I insisted A LOT. They didn't tell me what they were accusing me of or informed me of their process and what was going on (maybe hoping I would just give up?), so I didn’t even really know how to proceed to get my refund. I get that they are busy but this is not a way to treat clients. They are the one trying to get paid for a service they offer, not the other way around. (Also, if you are SO busy, as you keep telling everyone that is complaining about your services, then how come you always have the time to delete bad reviews or reply to them saying that it is the high season and you're swamped with work? Instead of doing this, work to provide the services you advertise and reply to your costumers when they have questions!) I wouldn’t recommend their services at all. I had a bad experience and it cost me a lot of time and nerves and almost money. If you want to spare yourself the same trouble, in case a booking goes wrong, then be very careful. Don’t just take my word for it though, but please read other reviews rating their service as poor or bad and I suppose you’ll see I’m not the only one having had a bad experience.