CX Turin Belfiore Student&Explorer Place

If you are considering CX but unsure on exact due dates of your marks, exams or arrival to Italy, just save some money and get an Airbnb instead.

Initially they overpromise flexibility of move in date, understanding that visa and exams can be very unpredictable. They only asked to be updated regularly so they are aware of what is going on, so that the booking could be adjusted. Peachy! Lovely conversations with the staff. I made a deposit and asked staff 3 (three!!!) times to confirm that deposit is 1/3 of the bond, meaning I have to pay 2/3 of the remaining bond before arrival later.

Fast forward a month before move in, you get bombarded with emails of "Have you paid yet?". Updated them that I am still not sure when the exam marks are coming out. Clearly, "I do not know because I am not the one who releases exam marks" is not very clear, as I had follow up emails of "give us an approximate date".
Exam marks get delayed by a few weeks, and one night I get a message from CX "You have to pay by tomorrow, for this past month of rent (although I did not move in yet, nor gave the date), the bond, the check in fee, and also pay for the next month because there is less than 10 days to it". Best part? The deposit is now not 1/3 of the bond, in fact the bond is now not 2 months of pay as I was initially told, but 3 months of pay, meaning that you have to pay like 800 Euros more out of the blue, oopsie! But hey at least you have time till tomorrow!!! Once I attempted to cancel the service (bad news about exam), they charged me for previous month "because we held an empty room for you", for next month "because you are cancelling 10 days before the end of month" and took the deposit (fair enough on this one). They threatened me that if I will not pay them by the end of that day, they will take court actions against me.

If you do not know what exactly will happen in the next 7-8 month, save yourself some headache and save your wallet. You will find no flexibility here nor any help - this place is a glorified scam. This is a service to rip off international students who have no idea of prices in the city. You can find MUCH cheaper alternatives via Airbnb, Facebook and a few rental sites. Please don't make same mistake that I did trusting them!

This place is a “high tech” nightmare. Everything is “smart” yet nothing works as it should and things just take much longer than they should. Just book a regular place, you’ll be much better off.