VRBOReviews 1,999

Renters beware... I rented a beach house this July in Holgate, the location was great as was the outside shower, however does not only Holgate have a green head fly problem the owner I rented from scammed me out of the security deposit, telling me I left scuff marks on the wall plus a nick and a scratch in the molding which I did none of... its a scam beware
I also had an ant issue in the house that left me bitten and the the were in my car...
Left several messages with the owner Dan Fried, he never responded and I never received my 500 back... find something else... 7 Holgate ave Beach Haven

I usually don't badmouth a company, but I feel I must in this case. I booked a condo in Montreal on February 6,2019 for our trip to the Jazz Festival and received my confirmation. Then, on June 4th, I received an email from the owner of the property stating that he was sorry, but they had overbooked and it wasn't available. He did say he had another unit available that we could have if we changed our dates by one day. Even though it was going to mess us up a little, we told him okay and he told me to go ahead and book it. I explained to him that VRBO showed it was already booked, but the owner said it was open and he would take care of it. On June 18th, 2 1/2 weeks before our trip, he emailed me that Home Away had made a mistake, and the place wasn't available anymore. I called VRBO for a refund, but was told that I had to go through the owner to get my money back, no help from them. I finally got my money back (less $11.00 due to the exchange rate!) and booked a great place (though not in the downtown area) through Air B&B. But, when I wanted to place a review on VRBO warning travelers about booking with that owner, I was told by VRBO that I couldn't. You can only write a review if you stay in the place. There is no way to let people know to beware. I spent 45 minutes today on the phone with VRBO trying to work with their "customer service" people on a few issues I had regarding the owner and my refund, and believe me, they really don't care! This is the second time I've had a problem with VRBO and there will not be a 3rd time. From now on, I'm an Air B&B customer.

VRBO does not really protect you and you cannot trust the reviews. We had a cancellation for a large reservation less than 4 hours before check-in (day of reservation!) and we cannot leave a review for the property to protect others from getting burned like we did. Here is our saga: We made reservations for a booking with 3 adjacent lakefront houses for a 30-person family reunion. It was hard to find a place for such a large group, so we booked a year in advance (paid in fully July 2018 for a July 2019 reservation). We contacted the owner in June 2019 to start getting ready for the reunion. The owner confirmed that we had all 3 houses, provided us with check-in information, and answered detailed questions about docking boats, linen, etc. Then, the day before our reservation, the owner sent an email via VRBO that they had double booked one house, but we still had the other 2 houses. They refunded us part of the reservation cost (less than a third of the total unbelievable). I called the owner and they just said sorry and that the other people were already in the house. I contacted VRBO the morning of the reservation and they're offer was to book hotel rooms (about 5-10 miles away) for the people who would be displaced by the loss of one house. Not good for a family reunion. Less than 4 hours before the check-in time, the owner cancelled the reservation! All families were already on the road some had over an 11-hour drive! I did not contact VRBO again because I wanted lakefront houses, not hotel rooms for 30 people or separate houses miles houses miles apart (this is the only listing on VRBO in the area that accommodates 30 people). To not ruin my vacation, I found another place on the other side of the lake that could work, booked it, and enjoyed my vacation. When I contacted VRBO for compensation for the price difference after my vacation I was told since I didn't contact them to help with the booking, they would do nothing for me. So, because I wasn't willing to spend my family reunion in a hotel for a week, they won't do anything for me. When we looked again at the property we had reserved, we found a one-star review from July 2018 where the house was double-booked (sound familiar?). I tried to leave a similar review with this story, but cannot since the reservation was cancelled. So beware, you don't know how many times the owner has cancelled reservations! I won't be using VRBO in the future and I advise you not to as well.

This was my 4th time for a vacation rental but the first with VRBO. This experience was not good. The house was a great size but that is the only good quality.

Location: 6528 N Ashland AV Chicago Il ******* Floor 1
Manager: Armando
Issues:
- The air-conditioning was out for the first 3 nights nights when Chicago was 89 degrees and humid.
- The floors were dirty
- The bedding in the 3rd room was old and stained
- The dishwasher was unusable as it does not appear to be attached or safe to use
- The grout in the bathroom has mildew
- The bed frame for the 3rd bedroom was in the kitchen
- The lamp next to the bed in the third bed room was to short to plug in

The manager has ignored my concerns and refused to reimburse. Plus he re-registered the rental so that my review would not post. It appears from my research he has done this before with other rentals. This shows that VRBO is not monitoring its rentals and it's renters / users concerns.

This place was terrible. The house was very old. It was given rave reviews but certainly did not live up to that. The room was small, the tv didn't work, it was far from town. Construction was going on in the kitchen when we arrived and the B and B smelled from the construction. The price of the room was way too high. Don't stay here unless you want a bad experience. There are many hotels in town that are less expensive and much nicer.

Have spent the first 3 hours since arriving at our vacation spot getting the runaround from VRBO customer service. Came in to an absolutely filthy place, submitted dozens of pictures, and they still refuse to provide any solutions. We paid $800 for 2 nights and since this place is not in livable condition, we are forced to find last minute and even more expensive accommodations. They continually transfer our calls around, and still have not made contact with the property owners. We will never use this service again, from now on we will only deal with Airbnb or hotels. Absolutely disgraceful

I wish I gave 0 stars! Vacarentals, vrbo, and other misc companies involved did not do anything to help us. We didn't even get to check in because some dumbass didn't put us in any reservations or our information that we were coming. When we got to margaritaville resort, the front desk didn't have our information because we found out that this was a separate contractor. I would give the actual Margaritaville Resort 5 stars! Because they actually helped us found a different place accommodating 10 people! Thank you to them, but the vacarentals, vrbo, etc did not help us. Wouldn't give us our refund back. Had to talk to multiple of agents for over 3 hours and nothing was resolved. I would say. Never ever use VRBo. It was our mini honeymoon celebration trip with our close family, friends, and their babies and that happened.

Do NOT rent your home with VRBO.
I was a home owner who used VRBO for years before I had to sell my home to pay a tax bill. It was a great house in a beach area and was very popular and I made VRBO tons of money and helped as every home owner does, make them look great and improve their reputation with great photos and reviews of homes that they do not own but take a piece of the profit to basically advertise on their site.

They do absolutely nothing in terms of services for the home owners and at the time they allowed people trying to scam leave a snarky review looking to get money back after stays and wouldn't let you leave a comparable review on their profile. They exploit the home owners string arming them into catering to their business model but allow no recourse when the renters damage the property except going through a third party insurance company which as they do. Make you wait and suffer.

Their VRBO help center is off shore and barely know what's going on when you call them and you're put on hold and transfered to people who don't speak English well, and make any hope of solving any problems. Hopeless. If you owe them back fees from one of the hundreds of reservations that made VRBO thousands on YOUR home at little expense to them. They sick wealthy lawyers on you who put their hands in your bank account and take what they want without your permission then threaten to sue you, the little home owner, with their huge million dollar team of lawyers, if you ask for even an invoice.

If you own a home rent it ANYWHERE but VRBO! Do it yourself or go on Air bnb or even Craigslist. VRBO is clearly making millions off us homeowners, as their fancy new ad campaign suggests but they will do nothing for you in return and squeeze every penny they can from you with no ability to negotiate or talk to anyone capable of making decisions at the company.
It's a horrible experience and I hope I help someone here who was thinking of making the mistake of doing business with VRBO.

Property # ******* In Sandpoint, Idaho. The person we rented from was a complete scammer. To top it off when we left our review, she lied again. Her place was a mess, which I have saved text to my husband as he was going to the store. I asked him to pick up cleaning supplies. This place only had a old can of Ajaxx, maybe 20yrs old. The carpets were just as stained and old. We figured the lady was old. So we did not say anything. Cleaned the place ourselves. Upon leaving the owner showed up, she was not older. My husband was taking out the trash. Odd thing to have people do, with such a high deposit. When we left she told us she was charging us for cleaning the carpets. Also something we found odd, thought maybe our son spilled a little drink or something. Then she sent pictures. This is when I knew the person was clearly a scammer. She sent photos of all her old, dirty, stained carpets. Something that would take 10-20yrs of people walking in and out to do. I asked to see how many times she has charged people for this. Or if she was even having them cleaned, she did not respond. Just called us liars online. She left us each a bath towel. We have rented places all over and have never been left with one towel. With no soap to do laundry, we had to purchase that the next day as well. She does not have professional cleaners. She does not know how to clean professional. Yet charges a big deposit, and finds reasons to keep it. I do have photos and text message proof. We could not even find the key the first hour we got there, she never responded.

I booked a rental house back in February for a stay in June, in April the home owner contacted me saying their HOA no longer allows the home owners to rent out their units and she as going to have to cancel our stay. Later I checked my bank statement to make sure I was refunded for the initial booking, however the amount I was refunded does not accurately represent the amount VRBO took from me. I reached out to the home owner, however she informed she never received payment & it was intact VRBO who holds that money. I reached out to VRBO about it, the first representative appeared she was attempting to resolve the issue then disconnected abruptly. I started a second chat, this representative never engaged in the chat. I then started a third chat, this representative kept telling me VRBO fulfilled the refund, I assured him my bank statement did not reflect that the amount initially taken did not match the amount refunded. He proceeded to tell me it was an issue with my bank & I needed to reach out to them. I told him my bank isn't going to believe it's their fault the amounts don't match, & I then explained to them how sketchy & untrustworthy VRBO is for taking money from customers before a service is provided then fail to return the full amount to the customer when the circumstances out of the renter's control change. The representative then ignored for a significant period of time & then disconnected. Especially after reading other reviews here I would never suggest using VRBO to anyone.

Having used VRBO since it first began, usually 1-2x per year, we booked a place in Rancho Mirage, CA in June 2019. We paid for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with air conditioning. At over $350+ per night for 10 days. What we got was 2 bedrooms with air conditioning, 1 without, and a bunch of ants!

Contacted property manager who said "he's working on it" then contacted VRBO. At least 2 hours overall so far on the phone with VRBO, plus a "chat" session. Multiple emails from VRBO asking me for the same information.

All you get is a run around from their customer service never getting to talk with their "Traveler Care Team" because THAT system is down and cannot be accessed. But, wait, you all work for VRBO - right? You can access things but a separate team cannot? On the same system? Huh?

Last call I asked to speak to a supervisor where I got put on hold 2x for 10 minutes each and then summarily disconnected.

I will never ever never use VRBO again. I suggest you don't either because if you have an issue - you will get NOWHERE.

VRBO will be out of business soon. I booked and payed the deposit on a summer home. The owner advised they putting up the daily rate, probably because they received a better offer than mine. I had to accept the new terms, 25% increase or end up not having a destination for our summer vacation. I made contact with VRBO confident they would intervene. Wrong! They completely wash their hands and offer no protection. I now conceded to the higher rate to avoid not having accommodation for our summer vacation. Trough VRBO the traveler is completely subject to the owners changing terms. There is no bully protection.

We were supposed to have payment received for summer rental property by June 6. It is not June 21 and we have called three times looking for our payment. Our renters paid in full in May and VRBO said the $ was supposed to be disbursed to us on June 6 however no one can tell us why it hasn't been disbursed or what they propose to do about our receiving our rental $. They have promised to call us back each time but no one has called so we have been forced to chase them. Also they are holding our funds and collecting interest on this money all while not owning up to their lack of reimbursement. Not professional at all and very disappointing.

In February I booked a condo in Orange Beach, AL for June 18-24. Due to unforeseen circumstances at the beginning of May, I was thinking about canceling or shortening our trip. I decided to log into VRBO and look at what the cancellation policy was before I decided bc I didn't want to cancel if I i was going to lose a lot of money. So I logged in and saw the rental agreement that the owner of the property sent to me. (I have attached it to this review). I was over a month from canceling. So according to what I read I would receive a 100% refund, less the $50 cancellation cost. Well the next day my reservation was cancelled, but I only received part of my money back. The property owner apparently has 2 cancellation policies floating around and this was the incorrect one. I sent her a message saying I didn't understand why I didn't receive a full refund and she made me aware of her other cancellation policy. I told her I was not willing to be out over $600 dollars and I would like my reservation back. She told me I could not have it back. I have contacted her and VRBO about this. VRBO is basically taking up for the property owner and saying that it's up to her to pay my money to me. And they aren't refunding their $156 fee unless she refunds me 100%. I am beyond disgusted with this situation.

I'd give a1 if I could. First time to use vrbo, also last time. Rolled up to our rental. Dumpy, unkept neighborhood on a busy thoroughfare. 2 flights of filthy dirty broken concrete steps up to house. Key didn't work so we went through the knee high grass to the peeling paint side porch complete with a dirty empty dog crate. Storm door was locked so we walked around back to junk filled deck and our key worked. Deck
Complete with junk and a glass front filthy, stuck on food grill. Entered a room piled high with junk and 3 doors. I said out loud which door do we go to? The door on the right opened and a man said your room door is on the side. I told him the storm door was locked. He later wrote in his response to our review that we didn't push the storm door button hard enough. Maybe because the storm door was 40 years old! No chair, no tv, (as pictured on his property's profile) stale smelling, bathroom from the 50's, not particularly clean, no smoke detector, bed practically on the floor, comforter dirty and pillows thrown haphazardly to the head of the bed. A hook and eye was the lock on the door that opened from the bathroom into the rest of the house. Not exactly secure. We left the property within10 minutes. Texted the property owner telling him we were not staying, that it was not acceptable to us. I offered no other information or criticism. Contacted vrbo and sent the screenshots and 2 pictures I took. Their response you contact the property owner for a refund related to his policy. I did. I got a scathing, rude and threatening response. Sent that to vrbo and got no response. It's only $109. But it cost vrbo my business and all my friends business forever. Vrbo and property owner #******* your customer service and trashy property stink!

Arrived at house. Got out of car with luggage and could not go up the steps due to thousands of bees swarming around steps, near door, in trees and bushes surrounding house and around eaves of house. Owner came out of house with child in her arms swatting the bees away and told us to come in. I am allergic to bee stings and my wife does not enjoy walking through bees. They were everywhere. Owner asked us to make sure we did not let the bees into the house as they would make nests inside the house and come out every year. Knowing this, she should have not listed the property during this bee season. The best part is she lied and told VRBO we didn't even get out of the car! The house is beautiful and situated in close proximity to the golf courses we booked and in a very nice neighborhood. Why would we leave at 5PM to find another place to stay? There may have been bees in the house already when we arrived which would have been buzzing around inside the house. Does anyone want to spend time while on vacation trying to kill huge carpenter bees in their accommodations? How about quickly running in and out of the door quickly and hoping you're not attacked by bees? Sound like a fun vacation? VRBO says we should have called them and they would have found another place to stay. I guess after travelling all day, hungry and tired, we should have waited in our car for them to call us back after they found a place. Would we have to drive around to different places to check them all out? That's what Michael told me on the phone (who is polite and respectful on the phone). How about the 45 minutes it took for someone in the complaint department just to answer the phone? I had to call three times before I got to the right dept. VRBO does not help the renter get a refund.