i live in the u.k. with my chinese wife , we had planned a holiday and shanghai would be our base , it would be somewhere to leave our heavier luggage while travelling onto other destinations , so i started looking on the internet for an apartment and i finally stumbled on one that was advertised on the move and stay website , the apartment building was called Shanghai Metro Garden Serviced apartments and the address given was no,1 lane 78 ,Gonghexin road , Shanghai , i paid Move and Stay $180 deposit and my booking was confirmed at that apartment name and address , the balance would be paid in full in yuan/RMB on arrival at the apartment about 7000yuan + 2000yuan deposit .
we arrived in shanghai on 28th june at about 9am and after 12 hours flying we were quite tired and wanted to get to our apartment , i had originally planned to get my currency from the bank at the airport but the exchange rate was to low so we got a taxi to a city bank of china and got a much better rate there, we got the money and made our way to the apartment , we had been sent the address of the apartment by the agent in shanghai -Olivia Han , she is chinese but speaks good english .
we were taken to an apartment building that i can only describe as a dump , it was dirty looking , shabbly , there were people loittering outside , the area outside looked unsafe and i had noticed a massage parlour down the road .
this was definately not the apartment that i had pre-booked , there was no name on the apartment building and it looked totally different from the photos that had been advertised on the Move and Stay website .
i refused to even enter the building , my wife contacted the agent -olivia han , she was adamant that i had booked that apartment but i was in no mood to be conned .
we walked away from that apartment and stayed in hotel rooms which actually turned out to be a lot better .
so my advice is not to pre-book any apartment in advance , you can pre-book a hotel room for a couple of nights and arrange the rest of your accomodation while in shanghai itself , there will always be accomodation available