One Person Who Should Never Home Exchange
I was contacted this week by a lady who was phoning me (via our toll free number) to complain long and loud about her home exchange experience.
Conversation with her was not easy because although she had called the Exchangehomes Customer Service, it very quickly became obvious that my perceived role was just to listen while she ranted. Any interaction from me wasn’t part of her plan!
I learned that when she had initially decided to look into “this home exchange thing” - (her words), she had trawled all the major home exchange web sites for information, but had chosen to publish her request on one of the freebie web sites. “Why give you my money when I can do it for nothing?” - (her words again).
She actually lives in Miami and was seeking a home exchange with the UK, hence she very quickly received a couple of inquiries, after all anywhere in Florida is a prime exchange destination for a lot of Brits.
From what I was able to gather, she corresponded with one likely exchange partner for several weeks and the UK correspondent appeared to be asking some of the right questions. Then they had arrived at a point where the UK correspondent asked for personal references and Ms. Miami had taken immediate offense. “It was insulting. He was implying I couldn’t be trusted. I asked him who he thought he was. Would he like a set of fingerprints as well?”
Surprise, surprise, from that point forward the UK party had vanished into thin air, and this was her reason for phoning me. To record her opinion that home exchange stinks. She had been ready and eager to participate, only to be let down right in the middle of negotiations.
I tried to placate her but I was wasting my time. All she really want to do was register her opinion that every home exchange site on the web that expects to be paid money for memberships should be shut down. The one thing she really wanted to brag about was that at least she hadn’t paid a single dollar her hard earned money to be “conned” (her words)!
Oh, well. Perhaps it was a good thing that she never actually got as far as making a swap. There are most definitely people out there who really are better off not even attempting it.
I would love to hear from the guy in the UK with whom she had been corresponding. It would be very interesting to hear his take on the course of events.
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