FOTINI VILLA AGIOS NIKOLAOS WEST MANI GREECE
BOOKED AND PAID FOR 8th to 22nd August 2020
After travelling from the UK our party of 4 arrived at a Villa in Greece booked through HomeAway to begin our holiday. We found the Villa locked up, no one to greet us, the gardens were overgrown and unkempt and the pool was drained and dirty. Impossible to gain entry or stay at the property we immediately rang Homeaway but they were less than useless asking us to raise a complaint via email! - I made it clear that we were stranded and we needed to be offered comparable accommodation immediately for our 2 week stay in Greece. In all I made 20 calls to the Homeaway number in the uk from Greece Desperate for help and assistance, and they did not phone me back once, despite requesting to speak with a Supervisor/Manager or anyone with authority as a matter of urgency as we felt totally abandoned. They came up with nothing other than a Conference hotel 100km from our booking location, no pool with rooms overlooking a car park.
Ultimately we had no choice but to take matters into our own hands and book into a local Hotel.
I had to spend over 3k in addition to the original cost of the Villa and since returning home Homeaway have failed to apologise, have refused to refund my out of pocket expenditure, are hiding behind small print and have not even reimbursed the cost of the Villa which should never have been advertised. (We subsequently discovered this property has not been open at all this season due to COVID restrictions). HomeAway showed complete disregard for me being stranded due to their incompetence, allowing me to travel from the UK to Greece to a villa advertised and purchased on their website.
This Company is run by crooks STAY AWAY.

We reserved a weekend this past July of 2020 at one of the properties listed on the VRBO website (A HomeAway company). This property was not set up as a vacation rental. It was a young man's primary residence who needed help with paying his rent. It was not thoroughly clean and all of the occupants belongings including used bathroom toiletries such as washing products and used wash cloths were left in the shower. All the dresser drawers and closets were filled with their clothes and the cabinets and refrigerator were full with their personal food items. We unfortunately hadn't read the reviews prior to making our reservation. We had needed a large enough space to accommodate our party of 5 that was located a short distance to the beach. This property seemed to be a good fit so i unfortunately didn't read the reviews. Huge mistake on my part. Had I read the last review left by someone just a couple weeks before I would have never made the reservation. They had a similar situation where the space was not properly cleaned. VRBO had put them up in a hotel right away. I had contacted VRBO the next morning since we had arrived late in the evening and hadn't had a chance to assess the property until the morning. We had left the property within the 12 hour window that is stated on the VRBO site is a requirement to have any refund or cancellation. As instructed. After MANY phone calls and talks with VRBO reps who seemed to agree with us but would continuously tell us to contact the owner. We sent photos and snapshots of the correspondence with the owner who had stated that all we had to do was ask for him to come and make room for our things. We did all that VRBO had asked of us but they did absolutely nothing to remedy the situation. The owner even was able to still bill us for cleaning and an extra person? Unbelievable! All VRBO did was instruct the owner to issue a refund for our stay. I have recorded conversations with VRBO reps stating that the space was not set up appropriately as a vacation rental. But in our case unlike the previous renters. VRBO left it completely up to the discretion of the owner to issue the refund. They did not abide by what is stated in their policy (cut and pasted below) for protection for misrepresented listings. With all the evidence we have we could take it to small claims court but with the current COVID situation that is a much more difficult process at this time. We will be posting our review and message of caution to others in as many sites as we can so that others can be sure to read reviews and prepare themselves with the information needed should a location not be as it is represented on the VRBO web listing. Frankly, I will never be using any services of VRBO or HomeAway or Expedia ever again. Not when they don't provide security from owners who list properties that are not appropriate for renting as a vacation rental.

For reference their policy states:
(c) "Material Misrepresentation" means that (i) a Protected Traveler has made a deposit (if required) and full payment to an Advertiser for a rental property that is listed on a HomeAway Site, (ii) within twelve (12) hours of first entering the subject property on the first day of the rental term, the Protected Traveler leaves the rental property and refuses to occupy the rental property due to the Material Non-Compliance (as defined below) of the rental property as compared to the description made in the listing on the HomeAway Site; (iii) the Protected Traveler's deposit and/or payment is not refunded or is wrongfully withheld by the Advertiser, and (iv) the existence of the Material Non-Compliance of the rental property is subsequently confirmed by Us in Our reasonable discretion.

My wife and I recently booked a lonG weekend vacation on the southern Oregon coast through vrbo. We are both in very stressful careers, she as a death investigator and myself in a non profit healthcare setting. It is rare to actually be able to get a break at the same time. Upon realizing we had not received a confirmation email on July 5th, I looked in my spam folder and found it from Vacasa, a property management company that basically subcontracts with Homeaway. Upon viewing the email, I learned the dates were off by a day. Being 12 days away from the start of our few days off I began my efforts to contact Vacasa (I was routed to them from Vrbo) resulting in being placed on hold for over an hour. I was then met with an unprofessional and rude support staff who talked down to me, told me there was nothing that could be done and that it was my fault and she seemed to only get off the phone. Eventually she told me that I might be able to get a voucher for use at a later date within 15 months. I attempted to explain that my wife and I would most likely not be able to get the same days off again in that timeframe and the voucher would be useless. The next morning I again attempted contact someone at both Vrbo/Homeaway and Vacasa but without any satisfactory help and long waits on the phone. I decided to look a little closer at Vacasa and found consistent bad reviews of the company online (Trustpilot and others)as well as over 50 Better Business Bureau complaints. It is amazing to me that a company like Homeaway would tolerate such a sleezy, unprofessionl and possibly criminal company to appear to link with them to steal from unsuspecting consumers like myelf and my wife. It is of little comfort that they offer me a 110% coupon to use even knowing I probably will not be able to do so. I was simply requesting a refund or assistance in locating another similar property for the actual dates we have away from work. So at this time we will cancel our long needed few days off and return to helping others deal with the horrors of a pandemic and tradegies of life but with a valuable lesson learned. To others who may take the time to read this please avoid booking any property associated with Vacasa as property managers for your own good. Please do not take my word alone but read the reviews online and at the BBB.

After trying to call sporadically over the last several months to speak to a customer service agent, waiting for 30 mins or more on hold each time, never actually speaking to a human being, I decided to try their virtual agent. This was our communication...

Today
Hi, I'm the Vrbo Support Agent.
We now offer booking cancellations through chat
What can I help you with today?

Me: Hello. I had a reservation for a home in Savannah with Southern Belle Vacation billed on
1/22/2020 in the amount of $3,784.11. (reservation number #######) Our stay was set for March
26 - the 29th which we obviously had to cancel due to Covid-19. I was willing to re-book our
Stay for a later date, to which the homeowner refused. According to the homeowner, fully aware
That we could not travel due to Covid restrictions, our only way to get a refund was to cancel, and
This was only if they were able to rebook for the dates we were intending to stay which was
Against HomeAway Policy. They also encouraged me to cancel so that we could at least receive
Our cleaning fee back in the amount of $454.00. The homeowner
Also has not refunded the amount they agreed to on March 16th. I have not received a response to
My inquiry on March 18th or any response at all after this date.

HomeAway: I can't help you with this yet, so let's get someone who can

Me: We need help getting our cleaning fees back as well as filing a complaint against them. We are
Very upset with how HomeAway has not enforced a stronger policy in refunds and how its
Possible that they are still posting on your site when they did not follow your policy. It is also
Abusurd that we can not leave a review of how they handled this situation. We have found about
20 complaints on Yelp, so we know we are not the only ones.

HomeAway: I can't help you with this yet, so let's get someone who can

Me: I am an avid HomeAway user and have actually just booked another home through you. We are
Also in the process of purchasing rental homes and would love to use your site. However Air
BnB did a much better job of handling this situation and had much better results. Please show us
That you can and will do better.

HomeAway: I can't help you with this yet, so let's get someone who can

Me: I've been waiting for over 30 minutes. Still no response?

HomeAway: Hmm, I didn't quite catch that. Try rephrasing or typing something like "cancel hotel" or "start
Over".

Me: Respond to my earlier message please

Nothing after this...

SOME HISTORY FROM A PREVIOUS PROPERTY OWNER:
I owned 2 rental cabins in the Tennessee Mountains for 6 and 10 years respectively. In the beginning, VRBO (before it was purchased by HomeAway) was a great company for owners to place our properties for vacation rentals. They were fair in their pricing to their property owners and they gave really good service. We loved them.
THEN ALONG CAME HOMEAWAY and purchased VRBO. In the beginning, they kept the rates affordable and we were treated similar to the way we had been treated in the past. I personally handled all my own bookings, kept my prices affordable to my guests and gave my guests EXCELLENT service and perks. At that time, the owner contact information was posted on the listing and guests were allowed to either book directly through the owner OR place their reservations through HomeAway OR VRBO. Eventually, I began to hear from my guests that if they booked through HomeAway instead of the owner, that they were being nickel and dimed to the point that their junk fees added considerably to their bill and that if they tried to cancel, they were penalized, even though it was within the same 24 hours. They reported to me amounts of $50 and more in junk fees plus they were being charged a "reservation fee". They also were not provided with the information of how to contact the owner AND the contact information that had been on my listing had been removed. HomeAway also scanned all the language in the listing to make sure we did not "hide" our contact information in the descriptive verbiage.
On the property owner's side... Slowly but surely a couple of years after purchasing VRBO, HomeAway seemed to begin trying move away the VRBO name (whom everyone had LOVED), They held large "owners" meetings all over the country (I attended only one of them) in which they were trying to convince us that "they had our best interests at heart and that all the big changes they were going to be making were going to be GREAT FOR US as property owners. A year or so later, things did start to change alright. They began to charge us horrendously increased annual fees for EACH of the VRBO AND THE HOMEAWAY subscriptions (multiples of our previous subscription fees) and there was no longer a discount for listing on BOTH sites. Then came the FORCED elements where they would no longer allow us to handle our own reservations at all.
I had guests who had been visiting my properties multiple times over the years tell me that even though they requested my cabin, they were "switched" to other cabins which were owned by subscribers who were willing to purchase their highest premium packages, instead of my available cabin. Of course my previous guests and the friends they referred to me looked up my contact information from their previous visits and contacted me directly after their unhappy experiences with booking through the HomeAway site.
It finally got to the point that "I was mad as heck and refused to take it anymore". It get worse until became so furious that I sold my cabins and refused to have anything to do with HomeAway AT ALL.
NOW... I see that they have brought the VRBO name back. I notice also that they have now become a public offering on the stock exchange and they are rated VERY POORLY. Greed and Karma will get you every time sooner or later.

HomeAway & Vrbo sent us a $ receipt for a prepayment on a property both knew was uninhabitable. HomeAway & Vrbo received numerous complaints about the property and property owner prior to our finding the listing on both sites. HomeAway & Vrbo advertise a "Book With Confidence Guarantee" which is an intentional deception designed to make consumers believe there is some measure of safety in booking through HomeAway & Vrbo. In truth, contracting through Vrbo/HomeAway places the consumer in a worse position than renting directly or through another site. Vrbo/HomeAway practices and policies and advertised "guarantees" are deceptive trade practices. Contrary to Vrbo/HomeAway advertised claim, Vrbo/HomeAway does not care about consumer safety. Vrbo/HomeAway policies, practices and advertisements attract voyeurs and scam artists specifically because Vrbo/HomeAway policies, practices and advertisements deceive consumers into believing the companies offer some assistance. Vrbo/HomeAway repeatedly and deceptively scammed us through false advertising; prior knowledge a listed property was dangerous and relisting the property repeatedly with prior knowledge the property owner's have repeatedly scammed consumers. Vrbo/HomeAway refused to refund our prepayment (the day after it was made) upon the property owners disclosure the property would not be safe for our daughter. Vrbo/HomeAway additionally refused to refund our money upon our obtaining the photographic evidence they said they required. When we complained online, Vrbo/HomeAway paid people to ridicule and harass us and others. When we posted a complaint on BBB, HomeAway answered the complaint against Vrbo stating they had nothing to do with our contract. The BBB dropped the complaint against both companies (same people) based upon the absurd assertion HomeAway had nothing to do with our claim against Vrbo. At the very least, the BBB should have continued the complaint against Vrbo. However, as our receipt for payment is from both interrelated companies (Vrbo/HomeAway) with the same policies, practices and advertised "guarantees" the BBB should not have dropped the complaint. Do not do business with Vrbo or HomeAway or any other name they add to diffuse liability for their actions. We were scammed. We were cheated out of more than $5,000.00. This scam, cheat, and harming of our health and family began with Vrbo & HomeAway continually listing a property both knew was uninhabitable. (Mold, Algae, no a. C., no 220 electricity, no hot water for showers, cleaning or cooking, appliances did to function, the house was a construction site November, December and January. Additionally, the property owners wanted us to drive to their house daily to shower... ewww! We were not safe, Vrbo/HomeAway knowingly took our $ despite prior knowledge the property owners disclosed none of this to consumers at check in forcing consumers to find out these horrors on their own costing precious time the consumer needs to find and pay for another safe place to stay. There is no excuse for Vrbo and/or HomeAway's actions. Vrbo & HomeAway will probably respond with a false "sorry" followed by to bad, so sad... if you read all of our small print (ignoring all our advertised guarantees) you should have known we will cheat you! I hope this post protects others from being harmed by these swindlers. Contract number... HA - KF06M5... the HA designates the contract is a HOMEAWAY contract in direct conflict with HomeAway's claim they had nothing to do with the contract.

I rented a home for 4 days of which my 87yr old mom an myself also a senior stayed maybe 30 minutes. The home was misreprented as the type of home and the accessibility, They also had cameras which is not allowed with Airbnb. As stated there is no way to leave an undesirable review thru the rules they allow the homeowners to have. Had a complaint about the house and also the way I was treated by the host. No empathy for the difficulty my Mom had with this house that was shown as a sandy beach area turned out to be a bed of white rocks and the stairs were much deeper with no safety rails. We went in and out once- it was all I could do to get her back down the stairs at that point I knew she could not do that for 4 days. At that point I went back in and retrieved our suitcases and went to a hotel. I did check the back to see if there maybe an easier way for her but the back was worse, old rickety metal stairs that were higher and more than the front. We then went to a Hotel. I let the Host know the issue and instead of trying to remedy the situation was very rude. Long story short I went back to take a pic of what she said was the better back stairs. Soon after I received a very nasty email telling me to stay off the property which is how I know Nitayla has cameras. She said she was reporting me to the police and would have me arrested! Sure that was a big priority for the police 2 arrest 2 senior old ladies. Home Away defended the Host during the whole conversation even tho they have access to all the correspondence. I was also charged the full $150.00 for the cleaning deposit said I would of been fine to just get that back that was also denied becasue according to the home owner they had to fluish the toilet. Which I dont knw if that is true or not, no beds had to be changed nothing else.
Again the side of home owner was taken and was feeling like they were calling me a liar. STAY AWAY FROM PROPERTY CALLED SEAHOSE IN PANAMA CITY BEACH AND HOST NITAYLA. NEVER WILL USE THIS COMPANY OF VRBO AGAIN! AIRBNB ONLY!

Do NOT RENT 18 Rue de Bateau Antibes France!

Go ahead and hide behind bogus rules and guidelines Celia and Homeaway...
I've been dealing with Homeaway and this owner in France for the past 2 months trying to get a refund I was promised and they never followed through.

Originally I ticked the box for aircon on my search and this place came up. Not realizing it did not actually have air con it was too late to cancel and she said I'd be charged if I did.
I had been promised by her there would be "cool air blowing through the home being so close to the ocean or she would bring in cooler fans only if she had to".

Once I got to the home it was not what it looked like in the pictures as I'm sure the pictures where several years old. It was so hot in there it was like being in a sauna.
There was a huge crack in the floor where a cockroach crawled out of, dirty sponges and dirty kitchen utensils, bathrooms etc...
The lack of communication with the owner was frustrating, as I could not get a response from the owner regarding the place being so hot and To please bring those cooling fans she had promised.
I was developing A migraine within an hour of being there due to the extreme heat... hence no answer from owner the entire 14 hours I was there
I arrived 230pm
Emailed at 3or 4pm
- no response
Emailed / text at 7
- no response
Emailed /text at 11pm
- no response
Emailed /text 8am
-no response
I said had to leave home, too hot to stay and I was there for work and I had no communication from her
I was only in the home 14 hours out of 7 days because it was such a joke
I had to move myself out as I was sick with this migraine due to the extreme heat while the government were warning people about staying in the cool air... then On top of that BS i had to pay for a hotel!

Even more unbelievable... the response that was finally sent by the owner 2 hours after I left the home, had promised a refund under the circumstances... Which I still have not received
Again 2 months later she kept saying the bank did not know how to wire the money to the US
Are you kidding me?
I not only lived in Africa and had money wired to this US bank by the African bank and even they managed to do it,. But I had used the same UK bank Celia said she "supposedly " went to and they supposedly told her no they could not do it.
Her excuse was that because I did not have an IBAN number... seriously!? I told her several times US does NOT use IBAN... Europe uses an IBAN numbers
I even gave her my banks specific instructions on what to tell Barclays as well as sending her the website to assure they could follow the correct wire info and phone numbers to contact if any issues
Still all I got were excuses by owner
No refund
Don't tell me Barclays, who does millions of dollars worth of business with the US could not do a wire transfer?

"Homeaway guarantee" protects no one but
Homeaway and always the same answers from them and nothing resolved
I've spoken to 7 reps in the past 2.5 months
All these emails and pictures were shared with or documented on Homeaway - it still did not matter they would still hide behind their bogus BS rules.
Work with the owner? Seriously? Homeaway is just a company that encourages people like Celia to steal other peoples money legally.

I had used Homeaway for several years for work and never had this experience with a homeowner... however this last experience has left me with a clear choice
I WILL NEVER USE THIS COMPANY AGAIN

Im sure management instructs these "lemmons" type employees" to keep the renter spinning in circles until they give up.

Do not use Homeaway or rent from
Celia Greetham
18 Rue de Bateau In Antibes France
Use a competitor...
One that will REALLY stand behind the renter

I am an vacation property owner who started out listing with the original wonderful company started in Vermont in 1996. Over the years it has been bought and sold, and It is now owned by Expedia, the greediest, most voracious on-line booking company in the business. And if we don't like their fee schedule - TOUGH - nothing we can do about it except pull our listing.
Today, they changed their policy for advanced deposit payments. NOW if we want to get OUR deposit money when OUR guest books, we can -- for another 3% ( for a total of 6%!) JUST FOR CREDIT CARD PROCESSING FEES. Otherwise, for merely 3%, they collect MY deposit money immediately on booking from MY renters and keep it (sometimes for months, sometimes for a year), hold it until 7 days AFTER the guest checks in.
To add insult to injury, at the time of the booking they collect all the OTHER FEES we owe them UP FRONT from the deposit! They charge my guest 9-12% and they charge me 7% of my 'profit'.
So - for 25% they DO NOTHING except provide a platform to book and collect money. They do not clean, or pay property taxes and insurance, or do maintenance or deal with issues that arise, or plow roads or buy boats or repair docks or buy new linens or greet people and make sure they have the time of their lives.
They pass off Yapstone - their credit card processor - as a separate company they have no control over. They don't say things like we realize this is silly and we are looking to replace this company with another one with more competitive rates. Nope. It's just - here it is - take it or "Opt Out". I will be removing my listing from this HORRIBLE, MONEY GRUBBING company once the season is over and I have all the money they owe me. Check out what other companies this company owns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedia_Group
One last super irony: In March 2017, Chelsea Clinton was named to the board of Expedia. In her newly named position, Ms. Clinton will get $45,000 a year in cash, plus $250,000 a year in stock vesting over three years.[19]

We rented a property in Woodstock, NH during the week of the 4th of July. The posting for the property stated that the property owners "do not live on site, but do visit on weekends and are usually available at check in and check out." We had the expectation of having the property to ourselves during the week.

The property did not provide the quiet, secluded family time we had been expecting. During our weeklong stay, we had only one day of peaceful family time (and unfortunately by then our daughter had thought it best to take our young grandchildren elsewhere, away from dogs and construction). We checked in on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday the caretaker was walking through the property (including a visit to our "private" deck). On Monday the property owner began construction serenading us with the sound of hammering and a saw set up outside below our deck. On Tuesday my husband complained to the property owner in person. The construction continued through Wednesday when an outside construction crew showed up. My husband shared emails with the property owners wife via the Homeaway message system when she followed up on our in person communication with her husband.
During these days we also had multiple visits from the property owners off-leash dog who was enjoying eating our grandchildren's food. Their son was unsupervised and allowed to sit and stare at us playing with our grandchildren, walk through our gatherings and even sprayed my husband with a squirt gun. According to a communication with his mother Laura, he claimed to have been squirting into the lake, however this took place away from the waterside. On Friday, after being promised by the property owner that there would be no more construction, my daughter was blessed at 8:30 by the sound of the caretaker digging outside her window. He was wheeling a wheelbarrow from the front of the house, past our vehicles to behind the driveway. Later in the day a dump truck arrived and dropped off what sounded like gravel. At this point we had no interest in verifying the content.

Obviously, this is not the experience we were expecting and to add injury to insult, the homeowner gave US a bad review out of spite because she knew we would give her an honest one. We were given 0 stars for cleanliness when we cleaned, swept, washed counters and sinks, made beds, cleaned the refrigerator and freezer, returned all outside chairs, boats, paddles, life preservers and toys to their appropriate location. I am not sure what more could have been done with the exception of remembering to push the start button on the dishwasher (we however were reimbursed our damage deposit even with the zero stars). They claim that we failed to follow house rules but did not give an explanation as to how and they claim we did not communicate with them. I can not prove that we followed house rules as that is akin to proving a negative. I do know that my son-in-law accidentally parked in what appeared to be a space off of the driveway and that we were told it was not and moved the vehicle. Additionally, we have the emails that clearly show there was communication regarding our dissatisfaction over their complete lack of respect for paying guests. We can also document the state of the house upon our departure as my we had come to the conclusion by our departure that we were not dealing with reputable property owners and felt it best to take pictures and videos. (Note: House rules state that renters should NOT strip the beds so they are only loosely made in order to insure they know which sheets were indeed used. The picture of the doorless closet is to document that we did indeed put fans away where they were found. Other items in closet are as we found them)

At what point your property owners held accountable for demonstrating common courtesy to their guests? Yes, we could have called HomeAway during our trip, but what would that really have accomplished? Yes, we considered leaving the property with our daughter and grandchildren but again, what would that have accomplished? We do not feel it should have been necessary to ask in advance if there would be any kind of work being done on the house or property during our vacation (it would seem to be a given that vacationers renting this type of property are looking and paying for a quiet, secluded time). Nor does it seem reasonable to ask if the property owner will have a dog off leash or an unsupervised child. Their posting states that the homeowners may be present on the weekend. That is very different that activity through the week.

In the end the property owner felt a promise of a reimbursement of $200 was sufficient (it is not), and yes this is total, not per day of construction. I would be surprised to see even that much but feel that we should be reimbursed a much larger amount as they failed to rent us the private property that was suggested in their posting. (Note: The owner has submitted a refund of $200 for the damage deposit but that is all.) We also believe that the negative review that they gave us should be amended as we followed house rules, left the property clean and clearly communicated with the owners.

We filed a claim with HomeAway and received no response. After a month, we inquired as to when we would here from them to be told that all they do is submit the case to the homeowner and expect the two parties involved to work it out.