I booked an airbnb to be closer to the city center and after my reservation was accepted, got a call while I was out from someone who was supposedly the owner, asking me to cancel the trip since I had booked it for a weekend, and weekend payments took longer to clear, up till next Friday. He sent me a similar message on the app, and when I asked for his number, sent a WhatsApp only number where I got voice notes describing this, and the gist was, “I can’t wait till next Friday to get paid for a service rendered this week. Cancel, I’ll refund you the full amount”. Meanwhile the refund policy clearly said no refunds.
The entire thing seemed very scammy to me, and felt like either there was a man in the middle trying to rob the real owner of their revenue, or it was an elaborate scam to get you to book and cancel so they keep some or all of the payment. I responded to say I wasn’t interested in any offline trip and would want to proceed as normal without canceling. No response. Now this is awkward. Do I really want to interact with this host after refusing to play ball? Or even still stay here?
The next day, feeling unsettled about my weekend plans I cancel the reservation, and actually see that it went through with no refund mentioned anywhere. I panic and request help with the refund from support.
The host eventually sends a message, saying he got charged an extra $50 because I didn’t request the refund as directed, and this was an example of “the classic Nigerian problem.” His message seems genuine enough, and now I feel bad for not helping him out.
In hindsight, after listening to the voice note carefully, it seemed more plausible. I should have given him benefit of doubt and reached out for a refund directly without contacting support. I definitely panicked, but in my defense all this was the complication I was trying to avoid in the first place.
As a business man myself, sometimes if an alternative becomes tedious it’s okay to eat the cost of your mistake. The cost of communicating all that to me, and the risk of me getting him fined could have been avoided by just waiting for a payout this time. To be honest, with the way the place I booked looked, if business was good, getting paid one week later for one weekend out of four shouldn’t be the end of the world. We could have just carried on as normal once I showed reluctance to take things offline. It was lack of a response after I said I wasn’t interested in the offline trip that made me cancel.
The classic Nigerian problem is thinking mainly at the individual level, and not thinking enough in systems, and how they are useful structures for a working society. Systems are seen as a nice to have, or for the person who isn’t sharp or connected, so systems don’t work. Things become unpredictable because every where you look, it’s people bypassing the system either for the elite, for money or as personal favors for their own network.
Systems however aren’t just there for decoration. Systems act as trusted third parties and reduce the incentive for any individuals to misbehave. Systems govern behavior and help organize societies so its members can act in acceptable fashion. Systems act as trusted third parties to reduce the load on individuals to police every interaction, or only rely on individuals they trust.
The danger with offline transactions from any sharing economy platform is that you’re on your own, there’s no longer any incentive for the supplying party to give good or any service. There’s also a safety concern since no trusted third party has a reliable record of that transaction. You’re basically taking off a layer of protection and trusting a stranger on the internet. It might make sense to cut-out the middleman in due time, but I’d rather not do that at first go in Nigeria, especially for somewhere I’d be physically staying.