VRBO
reviews and complaints

In May of 2021, VRBO listed and rented my property in Kelowna BC. Since then, they have refused to pay any of the amounts owed to me. In my complaint to the BBB, they falsely claimed that they were working on my account, that there were computer problems they had to work out, and even that they were going to promptly look after payment to me. None of this has occurred. They made other false statements to the renters to cover the actual situation. They originally stalled by providing me with false information and failing to provide appropriate contact information to the departments causing the problem. Their last word to the BBB was that they would not make payment because they had not received disputed monies for another rental from years ago where VRBO owed me monies (again). When the legalities of that situation was explained, they essentially indicated that they were not interested in the law, and that they had my money.

No refund from vrbo we will never do business with vrbo due to case#[protected], did everything according to what was on vrbo site but they used a secondary site hotel connect and no refund. We have tried since Dec. 2021 till date, March 16, 2022. Watch what refund system that they use we got caught.

This is the second complaint on this site...

James & Kathlene

Vrbo gave us a false address for our rental unit. Because I arrived at 9:00 pm I had no choice but to sleep in my car. The following day I recieved the correct address from Vrbo and was able to access the unit . No apology, no offer of compensation from Vrbo. Sleeping in my car aggravated my back condition which basically ruined my vacation.

During our stay the unit owner allowed access to an 'inspector' while we were not there . After this 'inspection' I noticed 500 $ missing from my bag .

Upon our return home Vrbo informed us of an extra 200 $ ' cleaning ' charge .

The unit was an absolute disgrace, dirty smelly and almost nothing worked, lights fans etc .

Vrbo has not responded to any of our complaints .

Cancelled reservations Dec. 7,2021 and as of March 5th, 2022 no refund.

Cancelled before no refund date Jan 28, 2022 and should get 80% back but got $281.00 of the $855.06. Followed all procedures as requested and a total of over 60 emails back and forth and no refund. I sent bank statements, and all information requested but still no refund. Called customer service many times on phone 1-2hrs with no results only escalated to next level and unable to talk to

who is the next level. My wife and myself have lost all trust in VRBO.

The reason we did cancel was due to my wife health problem.

This is under comp# [protected] (VRBO)

I have been a premier host consecutively for three years with all five star reviews and hundreds of bookings. Someone in a department, no one will see the name, decided to deactivate my account. No doubt, mistakenly. I have been working for a month with customer support to correct their err. Nobody will allow me to speak with Management, not even customer support’s own management! I am simply told, and every single host out there may relate, that they must be the ones to escalate the concern to the other department that you have zero access to. They do not respond to emails, customer supports claims, anything. You are given no reason and no response to why your listing has been deactivated and no one is allowed to reactivate you except for this particular department that I know no name of.

AirBNB is even worse. Be forewarned of both VRBO and AirBNB!

I booked a rental with VRBO and paid the fees associated with the booking. However, within a week, we realized that our trip plans had to be changed and I requested a cancellation of our reservation. I received a refund from the host within 1 day of the request, but 15 days later I still have not been refunded the fee which VRBO charges for the booking. This all transpired well within the cancellation dates listed on the rental site. I contacted VRBO by phone and spoke with a representative who explained that they had not received a cancellation, although my trip page on their site listed the rental status as "cancellation pending". I was told to send confirmation of the cancellation either by screen shot or photo of the owner's agent's email confirming that the booking had been cancelled. VRBO took my payment without hesitation, yet I have to

work to receive a refund which is rightfully mine.

There are two addresses owned by Mr. Evan Plauche of New Orleans LA. These addresses, 320 Windward Passage, Slidell LA and 111 Ondine Lane Slidell LA 70458, are in a residential area where VBRO is illegal and prohibited by Parish Code. 320 Windward Passage was rented 2/11/22 through 2/14/22 and 111 Ondine Lane is currently rented as of today 2/15/22.

Ordinance #6641, went into effect 2/1/22, which banns single family residential areas. Vacation rentals only in areas zoned for commercial or mixed use which is not this subdivision.

Please do not allow this owner to continue operating illegally. I do have pictures to prove this violation.

Booked a house and payed in full with credit card and the only thing they said is the homeowner had to approve us as renters. Got a confirmation just to get a response the next day that the price was wrong and then sent their ameded price (see attached email) which was twice the price as I payed for. This just doesn't seem like fair trade practice in my opinion. Thanking you in advance.

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Pending

North Camellia Acres, Virginia, United States of America

Property ID: 2661930

Check-in

Jul 25, 2022

04:00 PM

Checkout

Jul 30, 2022

11:00 AM

Mark and Kathy

Joined in 2022

Change or cancel trip

VRBO are one of the agencies advertising our rental property. We link all our availability calendars because VRBO have an instant booking facility. When guests book through another agency VRBO request from me their names and emails addresses. This is so they can offer to write to the guests asking for a review post stay.

I have discovered it is a scam. My guests get the email from VRBO, spend their precious time writing a review then return it to VRBO. Each and every guest then get a message back saying "Oops, there has been a problem at our end" This is written to let them think it is a software problem that will be resolved so leave it to them. I have had three different VRBO chat agents tell me it is a software problem. Its not, it's a scam. After several complaint to VRBO I eventually got a written admission saying it's not a software problem, VRBO simply "do not support reviews from guests using other agencies" So why ask for their email addresses then write an email requesting a review!

Since becoming part of Expedia VRBO have become ruthless providing not just poor customer service but also being deceitful.

Why is the renter has 30 days prior to arrival to cancel & get $ refunded(50%) but owner can cancel right before arrival with no warning or explanation. I booked a condon rental last February 2021 for rental Jan 3-Feb 28, 2022. Paid all my fees, rental etc. car packed up, quest's airline tickets purchased, time off work & school ok'd. Night before Gibson Beach Rental called to inform me owner canceled our reservation. They were very "short" in their answer as not knowing why. Original reservation slept 8 in which I needed 7. Only could offer me a 1 bedroom unit in exchange. You can't tell me there were no other units available for 7 people. Very disgusted with VRBO in which I will NEVER used again for any booking & for Gibson Beach Rental for their handling of the situation. I ended up finding a unit which cost me almost double what i was paying with the canceled property.Flooding social media with bad reviews for both VRBO & Gibson Beach Rentals

Worst Comapany ever. I booked a vacation home through this and Owner denied the availability later. there was glitch in their system Owner refunded his part but VRBO never refunded my money. They still owe me 300$. After several calls to their customer service, they didnt do anything and making excuses. I am not sure who to contact for my money.
This is what they are sending me everytime.

Dear shruti,

Thank you for contacting Vrbo.com Customer Support.

We apologize that you haven't receive your refund. Have you contact your bank to check? You can call us so we can escalate this. Please prepare a screenshot of your bank statement.
Visit help. vrbo.com for answers to frequently asked questions.

Best regards,

Naomi
Vrbo.com Customer Support

I found a property on VRBO. The property was far from me, but the price was low that tempted me to make the reservation.

Just after that, a new payment was requested by the owner. (That means he increased the price) It was half an hour after reservation and in the period of 50% cancellation fee.

So, I thought the price was no longer that good and since I wasn't so interested in the rental I preferred to not continue. But, strangely when I contacted call support they told me you have to pay a 50% cancellation fee! (after 1 hour of discussion!)

Here is the problem: I rented the property at a price and the owner decided to increase it. Why am I supposed to either pay more money or pay a cancellation fee? I asked him to cancel the reservation if he doesn't want to give it with original price but he refused.

Here is my complaint: You cannot request more money after you sell something and refuse to even cancel the purchase and, instead, ask for a cancellation fee. Why do you expect me to pay the cancellation fee when I don't accept your increment on the price?!

That time, I was forced to pay the money since the deadline was close but canceled it later.

VRBO support admitted I am right at that time but took no serious action. They told me that they can only encourage property owners to not increase the price after reservation! they said they would ask the rental owner to cancel but after they called back and said, unfortunately, he didn't accept! So, what is the responsibility of VRBO? only encourage people to not do scams or fraud? what is the role of the VRBO as the platform?

for VRBO information:
Property ID: 2459285
Reservation ID: HA-X1BK1C

The property I reserved was property #2557364 in Fort Worth, TX. The communication from the property host was mostly unresponsive before my check in day and spotty while at the property. The first thing my wife noticed when we entered was the house WAS NOT PROPERLY cleaned. We found dust and cobwebs in far too many places. Then we opened the back door and were appalled to see trash strewn all over the back yard with chickens walking through it! I have a picture to support this assertion. The furniture was in sad shape and one side of the reclining couch was broken. The TV in one of the bedrooms had no remote and there was no way to turn it on. The refrigerator had paper taped over the ice dispenser and had no way to make ice. There were no instructions in the house about how to work anything. But, the worst issue of all (and that is saying something) was the noise. The house is on the corner of a very busy street and the bedrooms are right next to the street side. The horrendous noise from the traffic lasted all night and made it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to sleep. The place was so bad we could not stay the second night that we had reserved and paid. This place SHOULD be an EMBARRASSMENT to vrbo!

We booked a condo in Maui April 2020. Due to COVID we were unable to go! The VRBO Host, Wen is her name!?! [protected]. She has said she will refund us but has yet to do it! VRBO said they can do nothing about it! Completely disgusting that they have no consequences for people who don't honor agreements within the VRBO Company! This will definitely hinder our use of VRBO from now on! People work extremely hard for a living and this is truly sickening that we have such dishonesty! This was neither our fault or Host but now since she has stolen our money it is definitely HER FAULT AND VRBOS! GROSS

This complaint is regarding advert reference [protected] by Brigette Barre and Guidon Umlaf.I am contacting you as Property Manager and also on behalf of the owner. I have already been through the procedure on line and the holiday maker has contacted you to change the rating, heading and content. The heading is deception. The property has internet accessable in every room and outside. The elderley grandfather did not successfully check on either the source for the television or the internet name. Despite several visits to the property bu ourselves and also instructions been left at the property he contin ued to call us ion. ON leaving theere was 40GB still available. They had two grandchildren who used 80GB in a week.
We are 5 star rated our other partners.
You willsee my comments on two reviews.
We have since installed unlimited internet. This did not deserve this damming review.
The guest has since contacted Abrtiel to change the review in writing but the review still appears on Vrbo.
Regarding road noise you will see my comments. This property fronts onto the road into the village but has 6000 su meters of land which is unoverlooked and backs onto countryside.The advert description is accurate and fair. We have never recived such comments before and request that our advert is taken down. We were also asked for €500 refund in order to not write a abd review.
Wendy Williams Director A Place in the Vendee

I rented a condo in Hawaii for a week. The door came off the track in the hallway very easily. I was charged by the condo owner $ 50. I didn't think that was quite fair.

Also the condo owner said the condo smelled like vomit. None of us were sick when we stayed there. We cleaned the condo. I felt like the condo owner didn't acknowledge what I said in my email reply.

On May 18, 2021 I made a reservation for a home owned by Arian Adorno, property #4698960ha on VRBO. The property is in Southwest Ranches, FL. On May 19. 2021, I received an email saying my reservation was confirmed. I spoke to Arian a couple times following my confirmation with questions about the property. I made 2 payments for the reservation - May 18, 2021 and September 20, 2021, which fulfilled my monetary obligation for the rental period of November 19 - 29, 2021. On October 20, 2021, I sent Arian a message through the VRBO reservation asking him 2 questions. On October 22, 2021 he responded the following " Hello, I'm sorry I don't know how this reservation was confirmed but unfortunately this house won't be available (you can cancel to receive your money back you should do it ASAP. Since we had spoken several times, I immediately called him. He told me he had no idea how the enervation was confirmed. He said there are 2 calendars and there must be a glitch because the people in the house had rented for the entire month of November. There was no glitch, he double booked using VRBO and Airbnb. I immediately called VRBO to complain and request my money back. The agent wasn't interested in my complaint since we hadn't stayed at the property. He said I would receive my money back, which I have. He then wanted to know if he could help me find another VRBO property to rent, I replied no thank you. I'm thankful I sent him that message with questions, or my entire family and I would have arrived with no where to stay.

Formal complaint VRBO holiday home platform
Property_ID: 10192494ha
Location: Arcos de La Frontera, Andalusia, Spain
Property address:
23 Av. del Santiscal
El Santiscal, AL 11638

On July 29th 2021 we arrived at the villa, owned by mr. Philip Lee.
We planned to enjoy the villa from 29th of July till 5th of August and paid the total amount of 1259GBP for the villa plus 279GBP for the casita, the additional building to ensure our 3 oldest kids had enough space.

Exploring the place we had to figure out that it was heavily deteriorated and totally polluted. In total we have made 26 photos to illustrate the state we found the property in.
Basically the spaces/facilities that you could label as "decent" were the pool, the living room and the garden. The rest was at an absolute unacceptable level of hygiene, safety and/or quality.

Main kitchen:
The main kitchen wasn't cleaned for a log period; all devices, such as watercooker, coffee-machine, refrigerator, oven, microwave were filthy and food remains were all over/in them.
The functional kitchen furniture, such as tables, chairs were also dirty, clearly not cleaned at all.

The main bathroom:
There were cockroaches at the floor, the toilet was polluted, the shower cell deteriorated and dirty, shampoo/soap leftovers from previous visitors were left behind.

Airconditioning and utilities:
During the first day, the main electricity of the villa went down and we couldn't recover or reset it. During our search for a resettable fuse box we found out that the overall wiring and systems were totally unsafe. Open ended cables all over the place, open junction boxes with unisolated wires could have electrocuted someone easily. Imagine our 7 year old daughter would step on an unisolated power cable left openly at the floor of the pavement around te house. Not even mentioning the risk of fire by short-circuiting.

The casita:
The little bathroom in the casita was unusable because it was deteriorated and incredibly dirty. The shower head was spraying all over the place, except in the shower area.
The towels provided were worn out, had holes in them and blood stains were found on some.

The refrigerator was covered with fungus all around the door seal. No one would put any food in there.
The beds were way too short for normal European people up to 185cm tall. Lying yourself being on the bed for a 180cm tall person would mean that you had to put your feet outside the bed.
The springs in the matrasses were poking in your body so sleeping was impossible anyway.

The airconditioning wasn't working and the fan spreaded a very unpleasant air that wasn't good to breath in.

Finding this place in te described conditions we immediately tried to contact the property owner, Philip Lee. When he responded after half a day trying to call and Whatsapp him, he initially seemed to be willing to listen and resolve the acute problems with the electricity and airco systems, sending the Spanish housekeeper.
They inspected the airconditioning of the casita and were able to get the main electricity of the villa back on again. The casita's airco would be repaired the next day, we were told. The latter didn't happen, unfortunately.

After some family evaluation among the 6 of us we concluded that staying for the planned duration, would ruin our vacation completely. On day 3, the kids hadn't slept at all because of the failed airco and the poor beds of the casita.
We had sent the photos to Philip Lee where he started to deny the situation, treating us with more outdated promoting videos to prove we were wrong. We kindly asked for a decent settlement of our cost, leaving it to him what exact amount he would refund to save our holiday. We urgently booked a property somewhere else when concluded we needed to leave asap, so we have faced double cost until this point in time.

Our aims:
During the ongoing discussions with Philip Lee, asking him to settle for our financial damage, he finally promised twice to discharge us with a refund. Unfortunately until this point in time he has let us down and we can't conclude anything else than this property owner can not be trusted.
The videos and photos at the VRBO site are absolutely not in line with the photos and videos we have made. The property is not worth the money charged for it and we would like to see VRBO taking the responsibility to save other prospects running into the same situation.
We explained to Philip Lee that we are not the type of people that try to claim money back in our favour against the cost of an honest property owner. But Mr. Lee has proven to be distrustful person, fooling a well-paying client with an unacceptable level of quality and empty promises.

We thank you for confirmation on how VRBO will handle this case. We are more than happy to elaborate further on the case with additional evidence and communication threads of required.

Sincerely,

Wilco Hekkert
Gradi van Ittersum
+[protected]

This company is a joke. They make it very easy to take your money, but they make it very impossible to address any complaints.
We have a reservation in Destin Florida and paid $60.00 for dog fee, our died 5 days before vacation started and we would refunded $60.00 for pet fees. After we reach out to them 6 times for our refund and
filled out proper paperwork, still no refund.
Avoid this company.

We booked a condo on Anna Marie island Fla for 2/2022. Paid and also secured everything thru VBRO. Then they send a message telling us the host has decided they want to use their condo ! No help or suggestions for something else. This is devastating to us.

What can we do
Kay snd Tom Bylenga
[protected]
VBRO #20062
Bradenton beach