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It is increasingly becoming difficult to tell if the rental platform’s problems are because of the pandemic or chinks in its business model.

Editor's note: NestAway has been getting slammed of late. Rajeev Kumar says he has had it with the online rental platform. The IT professional has been back in his hometown, Patna, for over five months now and just can’t figure out how he can get NestAway to give back the security deposit he put down for the flat he took on rent in Bengaluru. NestAway won’t say if or when it will refund the Rs 60,000 deposit. Kumar has tried everything from calls to emails to social media but the company’s silence would put a corpse to shame. Kumar’s is not a lone case. Soham Deb from Bengaluru hasn’t received a single penny as rent since July, but NestAway has refused to help. Deb isn’t taking it lying down, and is now going around telling other landlords his story of working with the company. It is a cautionary tale of an unresponsive platform that touches a chord with most landlords. There are several accounts online of tenants and property owners, talking of long delays in return of security deposits and overcharging for …
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