Paid $60 for a year subscription - useless and misleading Paid $60 for a year subscription, the site is for professional academic faculty home rentals. I was renting my house for a semester. Got one possible applicant who seemed reasonable but then it did not work out when they decided to stay where they were. The next applicant was a 25 year old applicant from Mainland China who said they were a graduate student. They came over and supplied no references, no bank account, only one relative in the US who would not be their guarantor, no past landlords or roommates to contact. When I told them no, they tried to offer me cash up front and mentioned their father was a government official in China and would pay their rent. I asked the person to leave. The person then posted a bad review of me on the site because I refused to rent to them. I complained to SabbaticalHomes and asked them how they could possibly let such a person be part of their site, what type of vetting do they do? I wrote to customer service as well as the President of the company. No response from either. The site is wide open for scammers. Would never ever use them again. They are unresponsive and only serve as a type of high end bulletin board, not a professional faculty travel home service exchange. I then wrote a review on the site of the young person who tried to scam me, and that person dropped their membership, saying they felt "threatened". By what, the fact that they were exposed as a scammer? All in all a terrible experience.

At least Sabbatical Homes exercised the Heideggerian Hospitality? Hi, I rated Sabbatical Homes 1 star and changed it to 4 stars after reading the review posted in January 2023, saying they were visited by a grad student from China, and calling her a "scammer" for no reason. I was that unfortunate youngster who had such demoralizing interactions with an ill-mannered local New Yorker. She's an academic, but she couldn't think straight, and obviously had no intention or ability to communicate civically. I didn't know Sabbatical Homes closed her account afterward; at the time, I didn't get any timely response after contacting them. The property owner wrote me a nasty comment after the visit. And before I left the house, she told me TODAY SOMEONE WAS PUSHED OFF FROM THE METRO STATION AND DIED. With the ongoing Asian hate and violence, especially in NYC, I was not so naive to see this random information as innocent. But I didn't know that she would go that far ( to harass me in the comment area of the website after I went back home). I was disappointed that Sabbatical Homes didn't act or react in a timely manner at the time. I was also tired of the USA after so many years -- messy, racist, violent, and performatively progressive yet behaviorally regressive. Unsophisticated. I should have chosen the UK in my teen years. At least they know how to express themselves legally. Well, anyway, it's not my country. I have 2 questions: One, does the USA need police stations? Two, do academia and its outputs have any impact other than acting as self-congratulatory entertainment? Final Comment on this non-crime incident: If Euro-centrism is out of the residue of colonial pride, a noble spirit to include other cultures and then civilize them (sarcasm isn't my intention), American-centrism is out of a self-assured, complacent ignorance that is both historical and ahistorical. If sitting an exam, most Americans know that there are countries other than America. But they don't understand this fact sensually or intellectually (to be precise, the second generation and beyond). To many people I've encountered in the USA, America is the only country in the entire world. I hope Sabbatical Homes get better before I use it for summer vacations during my Ph.D.