VRBOReviews 2,001

Imagine paying almost $4000 for a weekend rental that had below mention problems:

1. Unhygienic pool - had algae all over it
2. Broken floor
3. Broken stairs
4. Ineffective AC in summers
5. Bedroom fans that dont work
6. Rooms without curtains, that get so hot, and its impossible to sit
7. Unaccessible laundry room
8. Bathroom doors that dont close
9. Had food products that expired months back
10. For a 5 bedroom, and 10 ppl house, kitchen had a very few utensils and therefore had to be washed after every meal... not only that, they were even broken and hand had a cut because we didn't realize the 1st time
11. Middle of summer, and there was no place to get chilled/ cold water - not even jug was provided and the fridge was also not equipped for that
12. Patio furniture was all broken

I weekend of nightmares thanks to VRBO and the house at ******* Mesa Verdugo, Temecula, CA *******

VRBO was least interested in our feedback and our experience. When we said that we have proof i. E. pictures, they were not even interested in asking for them

They took their commission for the property, and then washes their hands off.

We even contacted them in their Singapore office, and their reply, we will look into it... and what they did was contacted the property manger / owner who never even bothered to respond

VRBO are unethical, and immoral in every possible sense.

They post on their website that during COVID they are taking precautions, but look at "no responsibility" attitude when the hygiene standards were in question.

This is more of a question. I have a home I have been renting on VRBO for 2 years. Just recently I had a family arrive late evening, after 7pm, after driving all day from Georgia. The morning after their first night I was messaged by a person claiming they are a neighbor and that they was excessive noise from the property late at night. This could only have been the pool area by the lake. I asked the person where they lived (stating I wasn't asking for their actual address, just roughly, in the same street, across the lake etc). They have still not responded with that information, I have now asked 3 times during each response and they ignore that question each time. I contacted my immediate neighbors (either side, opposite), and they say that there was no noise or issue at all as far as they are aware.

The fact this person knew to look on VRBO and message her complaint that way seems odd. Also odd that a family with children, who had driven all day, arrived in the evening, would then ‘party loudly' until late hours.

I was just wondering if other owners have received suspect complaints, and what the motives might be?

I booked a cabin through VRBO and after one week realized the COVID virus numbers had sharply risen. I then cancelled the booking and was only given $600 back from $1500. I then filed with the insurance recommended by VRBO (CSA). They refused to pay and offered me a credit on the premium? Obviously this insurance is a scam. I asked the property manager if I could have a credit toward future rentals and this was also denied. Please beware of renting with VRBO Pigeon Forge. I only had this reservation one week and it cost me $900. This is bad business.

They are trying to be nice in their customer service team, however, if the core problems could not be handled and solved, there is no use of the team. They are trying to shift their responsibilities to property owners. Should read the review earlier. Should post my last experience and only one experience honestly earlier. This company does nothing to protect consumer rights. The owners (! Property #******* in Santa Ana CA!) out there are greedy ( as far as I experienced) and unreasonable. Don't trust them.

Booked a beautiful cabin in the Smokey Mountains for the 2020 Thanksgiving Holiday. We booked a large, 6 bedroom cabin to accommodate the family. They took our 50% deposit and we were set (so we thought). Made airline reservations, bought tickets to Dollywood, Country Tonite, etc. YESTERDAY (less that 3 weeks from booking this cabin) I receive an email from the property manager stating how sorry they were BUT our reservation has been cancelled due to the property being SOLD, and the new owners do not want to rent it out! Now we are scrambling to find another cabin large enough to accommodate us all at this late date. NOTHING is available due to the holiday week unless it's $1200-$1400 PER DAY higher in price. My suggestion to you before you give any funds is to be sure to ask if the property you're about to book is currently listed sale! Especially when it's a heavily traveled time of year. I feel it should be a standard courtesy of VRBO to disclose to a potential booker that the specific rental property IS CURRENTLY on the market... that way you won't be in surprised IF your unit cancels due to seller not wanting to honor the paid bookings. They ARE issuing us a full refund since they can't find us another cabin... now to wait and see how long this takes to actually get the refund!

Vrbo ask review for this rental:

16 Copper Springs Drive
Sedona, AZ *******
Stylish, Contemporary Town Home is a Golfers Dream Town Home! COPPER - S099.

So i wrote this:

Horrible experience, extremely racist neighborhood. Neighbors hate the idea of this condo be rented so they take it out on you as soon as you arrive and from there you are in hell for the whole trip.
Date of arrival - May 29,2020
Reservation ID #*******

And then when you do it and they don't like it, guess what? They send you this:

Vrbo
Your review needs some work
Thank you for submitting your review. Unfortunately, it needs a little bit of work before we can post it to our site. The reason we are currently unable to approve it is listed below. Please revise your review so that it meets our content guidelines, which you can see here. When you're done you can resubmit it by clicking the button below.
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The property being reviewed.

False advertising, overpriced, slumlord running a scam! It's nothing like the description or photos. What a rip-off!
I had spoken with the listed host of the property prior to my booking, which was only 24hrs before our actual arrival.
He failed to mention that he's currently "in between internet providers" at the moment, so there was no Internet access, which meant no TV's either.
We chose this overpriced rental because of the rooftop lounge area that's listed as an amenity with photos showing that it overlooked downtown, but upon our arrival, the door is locked to all guests due to Covid. It's obviously been locked up for a long time, but they still advertise it as a selling point on their VRBO photos/bio. Without the rooftop, there's no other option to sit outside at all. Not even a chair in the "mulched" backyard.
The business owner controls the temperature & keeps it at 76 degrees. Difficult to sleep when your sweating profusely in your bed.
The evening before we left, it was cooler outside so we opened some windows for relief and to air the place out. The front room curtain rod pulled right out, like it has done many times before us. There were drywall screws pushed into 1/2" drywall & no backing in the wall. Drywall alone will not hold 9' tall curtains & metal rod.
In typical slum lord fashion, the owner took $786.00 of our $800 deposit for emergency curtain repair & soiled sheets (aka: from sweating profusely in our beds)
This must be an ongoing scam played out on unknowing travelers. Our deposit was taken before we even boarded our plane. There are locked cameras monitoring the front and back at all times which is creepy.
I've rented from VRBO for years, but never again. They've offered no help and we're left dealing with this poor slum lord on our own.

If I could leave zero stars I would! Absolutely horrible company! Used the filters on their website and booked a cabin with WiFi to find out a few days later that the filter failed and the cabin I booked didn't have WiFi. This was a huge inconvenience since we were planning to work remotely and our kid was supposed to use zoom for school. When I called to complain Vrbo agreed that their website filters are faulty but did not offer us an option to switch cabins or even a partial refund. Do not recommend!

It is very difficult to correspond or get any help from customer service. They have not take away their email. I called and got someone in the Caribbean that had difficulty with English language and understanding. When he couldn't understand my problem, he stated is there anything else and said that's all he could help me out with.
I have had other customer service issues. I do use them because they do get bookings. BUT THEY NEED TO REALLY WORK ON CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Booked a place that claimed availability on sept 2. It was canceled by owner. Owner refunded money but Vrbo still holding money 6 days later. Owner claims Vrbo doesn't show these properties as booked when in fact, they are. Then they hold the money! My boyfriend found another property, tried booking it and the exact same thing happened!
Vrbo claims the owners aren't taking down these properties in time but I don't really care, either way, if a booking is instantly canceled by the owner, you should be refunded immediately! Both of us were out of money all weekend! It's Tuesday and we still haven't received our money! We couldn't go anywhere all weekend because we paid for two bookings that were canceled and no immediate refund!
There is no reason to take this long for a refund on something that was absolutely no fault of our own!
Buyer beware! Just because a property says it's available, chances are, it's not and you will be out your money until only god knows when! I plan to contact a lawyer if my money is not in my account by tomorrow

If your trip goes as planned, you'll probably have no problems at all conducting all. Your business online. However, if there's a problem, you're sunk. Customer Service is horrible and their business practices are unethical.
I had to cancel my trip. The property owner promptly issued a refund in full but she did so through VRBO. Now VRBO won't issue the refund back to me. It's been over a month since VRBO claims "an error in their system" caused my refund to not be processed. First, they need told me about that - they just waited a month for me to finally give up waiting and call in. Since this is a billing issue, they refer the problem to the billing department - but the billing department doesn't get phones so you can't talk to them. They only send automated emails that they're on the case, then nothing. I'm out $2500, the property owner is out $2500 and VRBO is just keeping the money.
Customer Service is very rude. If you escalate to a Customer Service Supervisor, you just get the same rudeness from a different voice. I'm stuck and I can't do anything except pound this keyboard in frustration.

I used VRBO for a trip and it was a nightmare instead of getting it absolved I was given all the avenues to go in circles to end up with no refund and no resolution but instead was harassed by the homeowner Rachile Williams in spring texss. Vacationers be ware don't use this site if u paying to go have a good time you will only end up paying to deal with others issues and problems to your own expense! And yes I have proof to all these allocations all FACTS!

I made a rather substantial reservation in January for an October stay and then, due to covid, had to cancel in February. This was when the problems started. For "technical reasons" the date of my reservation was changed, moved forward (a change I knew nothing about and did not approve). This meant I was within the no cancelation dates. After much discussion, daily calls for a few weeks, the owner of the property and VRBO admitted that the error was on VRBO's part. The property owner immediately refunded the funds she had recieved. VRBO did not.
I spent several more weeks fighting with the people at VRBO and finally they agreed to refund my money. The problem was that in the time of all this fighting, the exchange rates had changed and I was out $400. The property owner said that wasn't her issue it was VRBO's. VRBO said it wasn't their issue, it was the property owners. Another month of fighting ensued and VRBO agreed to refund the final $400. However, they said it would take 6-8 weeks.
After 9 weeks had passed, I contacted VRBO. They claimed they had not recieved the forms they needed. The back and forth began again. I resubmitted the forms and this time contacted them to confirm receipt. After several more weeks a check arrived for the final amount.
The process started in February and was finally completed in early August. In between times, I spent, literally, hundreds of hours on the phone trying to assert my rights and get my refund. But, at the receipt of the check I thought it was all done. I was wrong.
Two weeks ago I received an email telling me that the final payment on my reservation was due. I call and told them that there was no reservation intact. I was informed that the property owner did not approve the cancelation and the payment was due.
Today, I received a notice that the payment was past due. I have spent another half hour trying to get these idiots to understand that I do not owe them any money. They are not getting any money. All they need to do is look at their own files and they would see this but instead they keep telling me I am wrong.
My advice, don't use this company for anything.

This company is horrible I had an owner cancel my trip 2 days before my check im date. The company told me that they would keep the funds and book me another place before the 24hour mark of my trip. This was not true. I was then told that I would be refunded my 500.00 but It would not be in my bank until 7 to 14 business days. So my whole trip was a mess. Flights were booked but this company could not help me find a other property instead I was given Gabrielle who gave me attitude and an Im sorry. Never use this service it protects its owners but not the guests