HomeAwayReviews 1,751

We have been scam for the 2nd time through Home Away.

First time was a fake traveller who was not verified by Home Away and let the property.

The latest is our property has been duplicated by someone else pretending to be the owner and let it out to a young couple who paid a months rent and deposit. They turn up yesterday to look at the apartment and notified us of the scam. They called Home Away and were extremely unhelpful.

Looking at other reviews. This is a regular occurrence and clearly Home Away do not go in-depth (if any) to check or to verify owners or traveller details. We will delete our account as they clearly have zero security what so ever.

I booked a beautiful property through HomeAway, received a confirmation, paid the deposit, and then went to book flights for 10 people. Then I receive an email from the home owner who obviously double booked the property and tried to move us. As we had booked flights we could not move and told him so. No chance. Then I called HomeAway. Help? No sir. It is obviously my problem. They won't even suggest alternative options.
Yes, they may be cheaper than AirB'nB. But with no service and no security it ends up being more expensive.

Terrible. During the rental process does not disclose that Owners can put whatever they want in the "rental contract". The rental "contract" is only available AFTER you pay. So they owners can bind you to any terms they want.

Also never disclosed anywhere that requirement to provide Government ID copy directly to the individual owner. For every person staying at the rental. I understand them wanting to know who is staying. BUT without any standards or data protection - you have no idea what owner will do with the information. AND no recourse if they lose or sell your information.

I wish I had read the prior reviews prior to using HomeAway to book a holiday. The company will not return my refundable $500 deposit over 3 weeks since vacating the property & the homeowner releasing this bond.
The customer service team are pathetic & take all conversations around in circles.
Be aware, they will first try to tell you to the funds have already been released. Next up they say your case is escalated, but may take 5 days to get resolved. 5 business days later, they detail they are re-escalating as someone has someone' has closed off the case without making contact. They now need to start the procedure all over again.
You are unable to speak to these escalations teams. I am still waiting on emails.
I have made a complaint with the ACCC I am so afraid I am never going to see my money again.
AVOID, AVOID, AVOID!

Rancho Santa Fe *******@bensonmgmt. Com or anything benson. Put up $3200 in deposits plus $8000 for the house. Contracted for pool@ 84 (medical reasons) 71 when we arrived took three full days to heat up. Three days before anyone showed up and the answer was "must be something wrong it should not take anywhere near that long." I have service dogs registered, owner said his mother was seriously medically allergic. I said I understand. Then he called and said for $500 extra I could keep them in kitchen next to his mother's room. W. T. F. No toilet paper in some of the rooms, 1 garbage bag, no food containers. 1 tiny soap. Wanted us to clean house better than we received. Now he says we owe an additional $8000 for utilities. 6 days. Has kept $3250 deposit and wants almost $5000 more. For 6 days? Stay Away. STAY AWAY! 6658 la Valle plateada STAY AWAY!

We booked a property from HomeAway and were extremely dissatisfied with the condition of the property. We tried to leave a review on HomeAway about that certain property, but HomeAway refused to publish it. The review was honest and meant to serve as a warning for other people considering booking that property. They repeatedly refused to allow us to publish our negative review. Very dishonest and will never book through HomeAway again.

I have booked twice with homeaway in April and in Dec and both times owners have confirmed that they have released the deposit due to no damage and explained that the return is made through homeaway. This is also the guidance to owners on their website. In fact in both cases homeaway have not given me the money. As the April one was a smaller sum i didn't notice it straight away, but December was for 500 and they are claiming I never paid a deposit, even though it shows on the statement they have given me! This does sound very much like fraud to me?

- I hope they get back to me soon as so far no luck despite numerous attempts to call and email them to resolve..

I was looking at homes in Hawaii for my family to rent. I thought I had found a great deal. I booked it. The cost was quoted in Canadian dollars. I had read everything that was included in the ad, paying close attention to the costs associated. When I got charged, it was in USD so I had no idea what was actually charged to my card until I saw my statement. It was wayyyy more than I thought it was going to be. It was really expensive. It's because I got charged an extra 500 USD for extra people! The ad said the house could sleep 10 and we had 7 adults and 2 toddlers and a baby. So why was I charged for extra people?! I immediately asked to cancel. I gave it two stars because the host was nice and approved the cancellation. I still have to wait for the full refund to show up on my card so we will see if I have any more of a hassle with this. I don't recommend homeaway. I went with the trusted airbnb instead. They quoted in cad dollars and charged in cad dollars. They also listed all the charges I would expect to pay.

I made my reservation... they took the $308 from my credit card quickly enough, and three days later I received confirmation that my booking was paid. After checking my credit card, I saw only the service fee was paid. I got in touch with the owner and she had no idea. I did online 'chat' with 'Diane' and after some digging, she said the owner was using a 'different management system' and I should contact her to work out payment. Diane was pretty snarky in her tone, and told me how the service fee was to cover 'comprehensive payment protection that protects your full rental payment'... what? So now they have my $308 for basically nothing--I had to figure out what happened, and I will NOT use this site again. I will deal directly with the owner from now on.

HomeAway are keen to take your money, but have no real power when things go wrong. The HomeAway listing for the property we stayed at was seriously misleading with 18 of the 35 pictures on the listing not being of the specific property being listed. Furthermore the internal space was 150 sqft compared to the HomeAway listing of 825 sqft.

When I came to complain, HomeAway said they were powerless to make the owner provide compensation or a partial refund. At the time of writing this review the misleading listing remained unchanged.

Avoid HomeAway like the plague!

I contacted an owner of VRBO #*******, who also lists VRBO *******. The owner then contacts you and tells you how to go around VRBO and contract directly with her. So I did it to save myself some money. BIG MISTAKE! This owner lives above these 2 units and she has 2 dogs that bark incessantly. I have video to support it IF this company wanted to know they missed out on their fees by this scammer owner. In addition to the dogs (and I am an animal lover, I had my dog with me), she had contractors doing work almost nonstop, even on the weekends! This is why she goes around VRBO- to avoid more bad reviews, which she has now for the second unit above. You can see by the dates that only the most recent bad review is the last review posted for either unit because she gets the contract outside of VRBO so you can't post a bad review! So those considering renting outside of VRBO, directly with the owner, this could happen to you as well. At least being able to post a review would prevent others from this experience I just had, for an entire MONTH! And lastly, when I arrived at the unit, it wasn't cleaned: bed sheets from prior renter, dirty house/dishes/floors/bathroom! Owner apologized... But happily charged for cleaning!