VRBO

8 phone calls, disconnected twice, 9 booking failures and still not fixed. Promises made and zero!

I had a listing on vrbo (3b/3b on South Beach - Miami). It was clearly listed that it can sleep maximum 6-8 people and the minimum stay is 3 nights.
I've received an email from potential guests to rent my apartment. The request was for 1 night to sleep 12 people?!. Obviously they needed the place for a party.
I wrote back to the client saying that the minimum stay is 3 nights and that I'm not willing to rent to a group larger than 8 people, because it is 1,3 million dollar apartment and I've suggested to use local hotels in Miami Beach.
I've received angry email back, saying that they need the apartment for bachelor party for only one night and that only 5-6 people will sleep in the apartment.
My response was that, my apartment is not a public house to make parties, and that there are plenty of places on south beach where they can organize bachelor party, and that I'm refusing to rent the apartment.
After that I've received a phone call from the same person threating me that they will sue me, because I'm discriminating them?!?! And that I don't know with whom I'm dealing with.

The very next day I've received an email from vrbo.com, saying that they received an complaint and that I'm not using a correct language in my emails when comunicating with clients?!?! My listing was DELETED the same day.
What should I do? According to them I should rent the apartment to bunch of drunk kids just to destroy my 1,3 million dollar apartment? For $500 for one night - come on?!?! Are you serious?
I've asked for a refund of my $690 for the remaining period of the listing. They didn't wanted to refund my money! I've contacted my lawyer, he wrote them a very nice letter and they refunded my money.
VRBO is ultra expensive web site, trying to charge you as much as possible. It's not worth the service.
Also they will start send you emails to add listing on their other websites (cyberrentals.com, homeaway.com, greatrentals.com, a1vacations.com and charge you over there also the same fee?!?!)

I WILL NEVER, EVER list my property to their websites again, i've made my own web site and started advertising on google and craigslist!

The hard core might want to try this place, if your a Foodie, OUTSTANDING and a Great Beer and Wine selection. I even went back for more the next day

Booked a property on the lake. Great property, horrible owner (who lived next door). She had 20 people at her house for the weekend and they used the entire lakefront and all the spaces she advertised. Kids were running around everywhere, screaming, playing baseball by our vehicles. I said nothing, just enjoyed what I could of the lake and the area. I got an email to write a review of the property, so I did. I was quite kind, though I felt the need to point out the fact that the only space you get is the front yard, and that the owner and her family basically take up everything else, even though you paid to stay in a lakefront property. I get the owner's review upon my submission of my review and it is HORRIBLE. 2/5 stars. A 1/5 for cleanliness and a 2/5 for communication. I emailed the owner and questioned the review since the cottage was CLEAN (except dog hair- but I paid a $100 cleaning fee) and my communication with her was good. She stated it must have been a computer glitch and that she rated me much better than that. She apologized and blamed the website and promised to call to take care of it the next day. I waited, and nothing came of it. So I contacted her again via email and asked her to please remove my bad traveler review. She did not respond, so I called VRBO. Basically they said there is nothing they can do, and that only that particular owner would be able to see my bad reputation review. (not true, they can see my average which is affected by her poor, false review) I got an email from VRBO stating that per my request, the property review I wrote was removed. (I never requested that!) So I called them again. The customer service is probably the most useless waste of time ever. They told me to re-submit the property review. I let them know I already did, and it was still not showing up online. Forever later the rep comes back on the line to say VRBO rejected my review, but the review team handles that, and they are offline and do not have a phone number. I said, then read my review and let me know what about it made it get rejected. She stated only the review team could do that but they had no info as to why it was rejected. I said what is the criteria for rejecting a review? I was put on hold again, only for her to come back and say they did not have that info. I said, then how does the review team know what to reject? Again, no info. So finally I hung up after vowing to never use VRBO again.

Vrbo has given all the powers to the property owners. Property owners are more interested in the money, and they do not care about the health or situation of a person. I booked and paid for my Florida vacation. This was when the covid-19 numbers were looking good, and we realized we wanted to go and rest after staying and working at home for one and a half years. Hardly did we know that the Delta Variant would create yet another havoc. So when we saw the Florida numbers were not looking good, I sent an email to the property owner requesting to reschedule my trip as is listed on the website, and I did not get a response from him. I waited for two days and followed up with another email. I still did not hear from him. I knew very well that I had passed the time of cancellation. I wanted to reschedule the trip because I had people with pre-existing conditions in my party who did not feel comfortable traveling after realizing that Florida was becoming a covid-19 spot.

The property owner has not responded to my emails. The Vrbo customer services could not provide any help, yet it is stated on their website that you can request to reschedule your trip if situations change. On several occasions, the Vrbo representatives I spoke with kept telling me that they will send a courtesy email to the property owner while my days for the travel were approaching. They could not give me any help. The Customer Service representative gave me a phone number to contact the owner, to which I did. The property owner told me that he would not take my request to change my trip dates because he would lose some money. I told him to at least reply via email to state his reasons, and I never received that email.

Meanwhile, the site states that you will receive a response within. Would you please not book your vacation trip from this site? I have made several trips to Florida using Villa Direct, and all was well. This time I tried to change, and I caked see I am losing my money because our safety is better. If you have booked and paid and you are within your cancellation period, please cancel. If your situation changes and you cannot travel, trust me, you will not reschedule, and you will lose your hard-earned money, especially during this pandemic. I know they think they are clever, but all the money they are collecting will not take them anywhere. I feel sorry for their greedy wretched souls.

Homeaway VRBO Expedia has been cheating its customers for years now.
First they talked their customers who are homeowners into paying for upgraded premium subscriptions (platinum) for a cost of nearly $2,000 with included bundle promising they would show up at the top of searches displayed to the travelers on their websites. Then long before these outrageously expensive subscriptions expired homeaway/VRBO/Expedia cheated those same owners by artificially bumping up other homes to the top of the search because by doing so Homeaway/VRBO/Expedia would make a larger commission.
The list of lies is a mile long, even their customer reps have been recorded outright lying to travelers.

Now Homeaway/VRBO/Expedia want to make another HUGE money grab by charging travelers a 10% commission ON TOP of the HUGE listing fees they already charge owners.

And when we the owners try to put WARNINGS on our pages to let travelers know we are not the ones charging this they block our listing and because they now own most of the listing websites they essentially put us out of business.
Worst they lie outright about what the fee is for.
They say it is for insurance, in case the owner fails to deliver.
First of all any credit Card Company will immediately reverse the charges if a traveler complains, so they are providing nothing. Second it is not them who can help the owner. Its up to the property owner to be of service. What if the AC fails? What if the pool stops working? Is Homeaway going to fix that? Of course not only owners can.
To collect this exorbitant fee and rip off the traveler as much as they already rip off owners they now make it seem like all owners on their site are crooks. Well if the owners on homeaway are such crooks the travelers should ABSOLUTLY AVOID BOOKIN ON homeaway/VRBO/Expedia.
Please if you are a traveler reading this DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH ANY of the homeaway family of sites.
There are other more reputable companies, and the best thing you can do is look to find an owner DIRECTLY on the web and save these huge fees that should be going to feed your family.

When using the VRBO app I attempted to book a home. After inputting my credit card I received an error message that stated something to the effect of "Something went wrong. Try again later. Upon trying again the home was no longer available. I told my wife that the house was no longer available and went to bed for the night. She proceeded to arrange another property through VRBO.

When I awoke the next morning and checked my email I found a confirmation email stating that I had some how booked the property when I had originally received an error message. I immediately picked up the phone and called the customer service phone number and told them the story. They apologized and told me that both properties had a zero refund policy and it was my failure because I hadn't check my email for a confirmation email after receiving the error message. After calling several times and insisting on speaking to a supervisor only then did they tell me that the only way to get a refund was to cancel my reservation and hope that someone else rebooks the property through VRBO. I sent the owner a message through the app and he said the same thing. I questioned both VRBO and the owner, "What if he books the property through AirBNB and it doesn't show up in VRBOs records as being rebooked? Then how am I guaranteed a refund?" The owner has since stopped replying to messages and VRBO could not give me a straight answer.

As of right now VRBO has not taken any responsibility or accountability of the error on their app. And the owner is not planning on refunding my money.

The only hope I have is that I have filed a dispute with America Express on the charge.

We will never use VRBO again.

We rented a downtown Atlanta unit for a mother/daughter trip and walked into absolute FILTH - mold, bugs, food-covered dishes, extreme dust, etc. There was extreme misrepresentation on the VRBO pictures as well. We arrived at the unit late at night and immediately called VRBO. After four hours with customer service, VRBO told me to get a hotel and could clearly see mold. There were NO hotel options available at midnight; we had no choice but to stay.

The following day we patiently waited for options…ALL-DAY. I called multiple times >> VRBO will not give you any direct contact.
HOURS later, I received an email from VRBO stating they would send me $100 credit to clean the unit. I had been patient with unacceptable and unhealthy conditions; I followed up again, not happy with their resolution to clean the unit myself. Their response, HOURS later:
"We advised you to self lodge while we reviewed your photos, and we would reimburse you for the lodging. We have it noted that you would prefer to stay at the property than to self lodge, and did stay at the property instead of going to a hotel as advised. This is an indication the property is acceptable for use, and a denial of our assistance."
"We were informed that you do not wish to have the property cleaned further. This is a further denial of assistance. We Have offered a $100 concession as a courtesy to assist with obtaining cleaning supplies or to do what ever you deem fit. We will be closing your case as resolved."

I could not make this stuff up!
-VRBO never offered to PAY for a hotel the night we arrived, as stated in their response. We did not relocate due to no hotel availability at midnight in a big city.
- It was not just dirty; there was mold, bugs, and heavy dust; both my kids had runny noses and sneezes from the mold and dust, I suspect.
- You cannot clean mold and take care of bugs with a day clean. $100 cleaning supply credit? No thanks, VRBO.

We then contacted the building manager, thinking we had reached the appropriate people for two days. Nina was a ray of hope; we sent her photos, she said she would reimburse and agreed it was unacceptable. We were able to find one hotel with a king bed and were just happy to get out of there.

Nina refunded her portion a couple of weeks later, but VRBO has not returned the percentage they take. Any stars for this HORRIFIC experience go to Nina; VRBO left us hopeless and stranded. We have used VRBO for YEARS but have never had an issue with accommodations - now I know, NEVER AGAIN VRBO.

I have used VRBO in the past but will never do so again. I saw a vacation home on its site and should have known better; I booked through VRBO, was taken through the payment process and then received a call from the local rental agency at the vacation site saying they had "not received a payment". I checked and VRBO debited for a $500 service fee, but did not do ANYTHING ELSE! The payments and info will be coming from the local rental agency and VRBO collected a fat fee from me for NOTHING. I feel so stupid and also feel cheated. This is completely unfair for the "service" provided, which is apparently nothing. Never ever again. Lost a repeat customer with this. I cannot share the image from my account, but it is showing the VRBO fee, as well as the payment made directly to the local rental agency. TOTAL RIPOFF!

We had a condo for a vacation rental a couple of years with VRBO and we never had any issues, recently we sold the condo and bought a home to rent as a vacation property on VRBO.
My first complaint is that they changed the way they issue payments to the owners, we have to wait till the trailer checks in to have the funds released and then at that point we have to wait an additional 5-7 days for the funds to show up in our bank account, I just had a supervisor argue with me about verifying my account that my wife has repeatedly added me too and they still will only send her a text to verify and will not acknowledge me as the second owner, I was transferred after having them verify threw my wife to a supervisor who then asked me to verify myself again and I could not believe after 20 minutes of getting told that they don't know why the funds were not being released on last weeks check in and only a supervisor might have the reason for this and the supervisor basically gave me an extremely hard time about re verifying myself and when I said I have had it I'm going to get my wife on the phone the supervisor hung up immediately.

The bottom line is this company is now using our funds when we take the first deposit it can be a year or more out then we have to wait for the check in date and then a cleaning period this is all new policy and should be illegal considering VRBO is not a financial institution and has not right to hold monies that belong to the consumers for a very long period of time, are they insured like a financial institution if they have company problems where does our money go and we still have to honor the traveler.

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.

On June 30th, 2021 my friends and I booked a home on VRBO that sleeps 7 people for 1 night in the Poconos (PA). The rental was confirmed by VRBO. We departed on our 5-hour journey to the Poconos on July 3rd and when we arrived at the rental property, we met the property owner, but he had NO IDEA about the reservation. He brought us inside the home and told us that he had called VRBO to take down the advertisement from their website as he was SELLING the house. We walked around the house to find nearly all the furniture had been removed. We called VRBO inside the property together and the property owner told the representative that he had cancelled the listing, and this was not the first time he had to have the money refunded to other renters because they hadn't taken down the listing. VRBO did not help us find a different location but did tell us send the receipt for the reservation we did end up making. We had to scramble to find a new location which was another hour away from the property we had booked and had to coordinate 3 different groups of people and how to get there last minute. We emailed the receipt and after several calls to VRBO stating that this was their mistake they told us that they would not compensate us. As of this posting the property is still on their website! I still have the property owner's phone number and we spoke several times since we had arrived, and he was nothing but helpful. So, the takeaway here is that if you book through VRBO and it's a listing that they haven't taken down due to their negligence and your holiday plans go awry they won't take responsibility for their mistake and you'll be on your own to scramble. I highly recommend using a different company for your vacation rentals. VRBO customer service is atrocious.

DO NOT rent from Gabe of Property ID: ******* in Ocean City, MD!

This is the worst owner/renter experience I have ever had.

Upon completion of our stay he say in an email that we were great guests and he gave us a 5-start review. But then the actual review was scathing. He sent that initial email to me to fool me into writing a good review for him. He then went on to say we were horrible guests and that we didn't adhere to any of his house rule.

Here is what he is falsely claiming:

1. Cleaning Fee - He claims that leaving a wrapper on the floor, a few bits in a trash bin in the bathroom and a few items in the freezer do not fall under the cleaning fee. If those minor items are not, then what IS included? We swept the entire unit, made the beds, scrubbed the kitchen, washed the dishes, put them all away, cleaned the patio area, took out the trash and recycling, etc. Plus his cleaning service would not have to wash any linens or towels because this owner expects the renter to supply ALL of their own sheets, bath towels, beach towels, hand towels, etc.

2. Screen door - He claims that we broke a screen door, which we did not. One of the rollers at the bottom of the screen was on the floor, which was there upon our arrival.

3. Smoking - He accuses us of not adhering to a no smoking policy since there were cigarette butts on the ground outside of the unit in the parking lot. We DO NOT smoke and cannot be held accountable for someone else's actions. Not to mention that renters cannot be held accountable for cleaning a parking lot near the unit.

4. Coffee machine - He claims that we LIED about his coffee machine being broken. It is a very basic, single Keurig cup machine that absolutely did not work. We made several attempts at using it, wasting OUR purchased Keurig cups. When the brown liquid finally came out of the machine it was barely warm and was not consumable. He says he ordered a new coffee machine but it did not arrive in time during our stay. He provided a $25 gift certificate to Starbucks (generous, but that was before he called us liars).

I have been notified by him that he is charging an additional $300 for a new screen door ($250) and additional cleaning fee ($50). I absolutely will not pay these fees. They are false claims and he was nothing but rude. I reported him to VRBO and will share this review everywhere.