FlipKey, Inc.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted]. Please add your rejection comments below. 
On April 20, 2016 at 12:17 PM I received a booking request for 2 adults to stay at my cabin for the dates April 29, 2016 to May 1, 2016. On April 20, 2016 at 3:11 PM (approximately 3 hours later), I accepted the booking request for 2 adults. On April 20, 2016 at 3:35 PM (24 minutes after I accepted) the person who made the booking request emailed a message that read, “There will actually be 5 of us staying that weekend, not just 2 of us. Hope that's okay!” This was not okay with me for a number of reasons. I accepted and agreed to rent to 2 people, not 5 people so I immediately tried to cancel the reservation. My cabin is very small. It is on a septic system with limited capacity. I do not allow parties or rent to large groups. As stated, before I immediately tried to cancel through Flipkey, but could not get a hold of anyone until the next morning. The morning of April 21, 2016 I called Flipkey and spoke with a customer service representative who did not speak English very well. It was very difficult to explain the situation to her. But the fact is that I was charged $150 for canceling a guest who breached the rental agreement after only 24 minutes. This amount was deducted from another reservation. This is a terribly unfair, punitive business practice and I request that the $150 be refunded.
Regards,
[redacted]

Dear [redacted],Thank you for raising your concerns to us through the Revdex.com and we are sorry to learn about your experience.Due to the Christmas bank holidays, we experienced some delays in processing payments. However, we can confirm that the $1005.89 disbursement has been released to you yesterday and...

you should receive the funds on your bank account within few business days.Thanks for your precious cooperation and we are sorry for the delay.Best regards,The Customer Relations Department

Dear [redacted],Thank you for contacting us via the Revdex.com and we are sorry to hear about the issues you have been experiencing.We understand that your complaint is regarding booking [redacted] which has been cancelled by yourself. We are sorry to learn that you had to cancel your booking, however, in the...

event that you proceed with a cancellation, the home owner's cancellation policy is applied automatically.As this is under the home owner's discretion, we are unfortunately unable to override this and we will therefore have to advise you to reach out to the home owner directly to discuss a potential full or partial refund of your funds.Should you have any issues doing so, please do not hesitate to contact us via our contact form online so we can assist you further.Best wishes,The FlipKey Team

I write to you in regards to complaint ID# [redacted] with customer [redacted]. As this complaint remains on our account as unresolved, I would like to present evidence and substantiation for this complaint to be re-examined. The customer originally contacted us on March 12, 2016 to file a complaint about a property they reserved for check-in on 3/11/16 and check-out on the morning of 3/14/16. They stated the reserved property was materially misrepresented on the FlipKey site as a 5th floor unit and they were directed to a 3rd floor unit upon check-in. They also stated there was no hot water in the unit. Upon reception of this contact, FlipKey blocked the funds due to the owner and attempted phone contact with both parties. The customer was unreachable via multiple calls and FlipKey Customer Support emailed them offering our assistance. On that same day, we reached the owner who confirmed they would be in contact with the customer immediately to help resolve any issues. On March 13th, the customer responded to our email confirming they were in the correct unit for their stay and would be continuing their stay. As such, the funds were released to the owner and FlipKey emailed the customer to advise us if they needed any further assistance. The customer responded that day with a complaint regarding the owner’s attitude toward them after a complaint was filed but confirming they were finishing their stay. No formal request was made for a refund at that time. On March 17th, the customer emailed us stating they were requesting a partial refund for 1/3 of rental cost. In accordance with our Payment Protection Policy which can be found here, we are only able to process refunds in the case the property is materially misrepresented or the guest denied access to the unit. We also stipulate that a guest must not reside in the unit overnight. As the above conditions were not met and contact was made after funds had already been disbursed to the owner, the customer was advised to contact the owner directly to discuss their request for a refund and we provided them the full contact details to reach the owner. The customer did not respond after our email on March 17th, 2016. I have attached evidence of the guest correspondence to this email. Can we have this complaint evaluated for changing to a resolved status? Thank you for your assistance and please let us know if anything else is required to process this.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted]. Please add your rejection comments belowI am not wasting my time with a lengthy response. Flip Key will no longer get my business. It's obvious that this company is not professional or reasonable enough to admit when they are wrong. Again, I am grateful that [redacted] has corrected this unfortunate situation. Thank you Revdex.com for allowing me an opportunity to voice my concerns against this unjust and impractible company.
Regards,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does satisfy my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint #[redacted]. I understand that by choosing to accept the business response that my complaint will be closed as resolved. 
Regards,
[redacted]

Dear [redacted],   Thank you for your message.   Once again we are really sorry to hear that you booked another property as you thought this booking was not confirmed. Unfortunately, in this case your booking request [redacted] has been correctly sent and accepted by the owner. We are sorry but, as previously mentioned, if you need to cancel the booking the cancellation policy will be applied. We would kindly suggest you to contact the owner in order to check if he will be willing to waive the cancellation policy, we did already contact him asking for it and we are waiting for his reply. Regarding the [redacted] online reviews, we do read them and we are in all the forums in order to receive all our customers’ feedback to constantly improve our service.    Many Thanks   [redacted] – [redacted] Customer Care

Dear [redacted], Thank you for reaching out to us through the Revdex.com. We are sorry to hear that you're receiving unwanted calls.  As this is very unusual, we would like to investigate this further for you. A member of our customer relations team has reached out to you directly so we can collect...

some additional information. Kind regards,TripAdvisor Rentals Support

Hi [redacted],   Thank you for your message.   We are really sorry to hear that you had this problem.   Unfortunately, in this case you decided to pay outside the platform and for this reason you were not covered by our Payment Protection. We always advise to never pay by wire transfer...

and in these case we always advise to get in contact with the bank to try to recover the funds lost and we recommend to get in contact with your local Police to report the incident.   Once again apologies for any inconvenience caused.   Many Thanks   [redacted] – TripAdvisor Customer Care

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted]. Please add your rejection comments below. It has been over 6 months since we were due our money from FlipKey.  Our banking information has not changed  as we have been with the same bank for over 7 years.  Flipkey updated their programming, or so we were told, in January and that is when our payments stopped.  I can get a notarized letter from our bank stating that our banking information has not changed, therefore if Flipkey claims that they do not have the correct information then it is their mistake and not ours.  I have called numerous times to verify the information that they have, but keep getting the runaround that I cannot be transferred to their Finance Dept. because they don't talk to customers.  This is ridiculous!  We are asking for immediate payment in the form of a cashiers check for $4226.81
Regards,
[redacted]
[redacted] Rentals

Dear [redacted], Thank you for reaching out to us via the Revdex.com and we are once again sorry to learn about your experience.We have reviewed your case and previous communication with us and can confirm that you are currently already in touch with our customer relations team. Please can we kindly refer...

you to our most recent email sent to you today (25th January 2016) should you have any further questions. Should you have any further issues responding to this email, please reference your case number [redacted] within which we have been addressing your complaint. Best wishes,The FlipKey Team

Dear [redacted],  Thank you for your message and for taking the time to bring this to our attention. We are sorry to hear that you feel you have been experiencing problems with your booking. Your quote was already sent out and cancelled therefore you agreed to the cancellation policy when...

these were issued. We understand your point of view and appreciate that this can be misleading. Please get in touch with our customer service team 1-877-FLIPKEY and feel free to give them a call to discuss this in further details.  Best Regards [redacted]TripAdvisor Customer Care

Hi [redacted], Thank you for contacting us via the Revdex.com. We are sorry to hear that you had to cancel a booking due to an overlap with another booking.  We apologize for any frustration you had during this process, as our global agents are trained and have the capabilities to assist...

owners with their queries.  We confirm that you have received assistance from several agents with regards to this booking cancellation.   In the event of an owner cancellation, a cancellation fee is assessed per cancelled booking.  Information regarding owner cancellation and the fee are detailed in our Terms and Conditions, which you agreed to previously and you can find these terms within your owner account page. This is located under clause 4.6, which grants us the ability to issue this penalty.   4.6 In the event that You cancel a Booking for any reason, We may impose a fee (the “Cancellation Fee”), which We will either charge to You directly or withhold from Your future disbursements, at Our sole discretion. This is because cancellations can have serious implications on a Traveler’s trip, and cause Us to incur costs. You will be notified of the situations in which a Cancellation Fee applies before You decide to cancel. You accept that the Cancellation Fee represents a genuine pre-estimate of Our loss that is necessarily incurred in dealing with Travelers’ complaints resulting from Your cancellation, and the sourcing and securing of appropriate alternative accommodation on their behalf. For the avoidance of doubt, once You accept a Booking, You are under an obligation to fulfill it. If You breach this obligation and cancel a Booking, then We may impose the Cancellation Fee.   We apologize if this comes to you as a surprise since you agreed to our Terms and Conditions on April 28 2017.   The amount of the cancellation fee is a genuine calculation of the loss that is incurred in handling the guest’s complaints resulting from your cancellation, which includes the cost of the rehoming process for the guest.  The cancellation fee is collected either as a payment completed by the owner by cancelling the booking from your account or as a credit that is applied to your account, which is deducted from future disbursements until the credit is paid off.   While we understand that you feel that guest has not endured any loss, the guest’s expectations and experience with their reservation was negatively impacted because the dates were unavailable to her.  This may have also affected any travel arrangements they have made because of the owner cancellation, which may likely incur additional costs and expenses to the traveler.  As mentioned previously, the funds from the cancellation fee are used to offset the additional cost of a new booking the traveler must now make.   We confirm that you made attempts to resolve this booking shortly after it was confirmed by adjusting the dates on the reservation via a booking amendment, however we see that the guest declined the changes because you were unable to honor the original dates of the booking she requested for.  When an owner accepts or confirms a booking, we expect owners to check their calendars and availability before sending a quote.  We offer calendar syncing tools that can help you manage multiple calendars on different platforms and we’d be happy to assist you in setting that up to your TripAdvisor Rentals calendar.   After further review of the case, we understand you are unhappy with the cancellation fee and we would like to resolve this amicably.  We understand that this is your first cancellation you’ve had through our site and that you contacted us within a just a few hours of the booking being confirmed.  As such, we would like to offer a waiver of the cancellation fee as a one-time courtesy as a way to appreciate your help to re-homing and working with us.  We will not offer any further waivers, as this represents a one-time exception to our policy. The fee will be removed from your account within a couple business days. Thank you again for taking the time to reach out to us, and we look forward to bringing you many happy bookings. Best regards,[redacted]Senior Customer Relations Executive

The funds for the reservation were released on June 9th and, due to typical processing time, they will not be seen by her bank as of yet. Warning us previously of the account closure would not have allowed us to take any different action. We are required to send the funds back to the same credit card that was used for payment. Once the processing time is complete, the bank will have the option to route the funds to a new account. As previously stated, this is a common process and our Finance team has indicated that it is very rare for a bank to be unable to receive the refund and distribute accordingly. However, our system will be notified if the bank is not able to process this refund. Once the funds say ‘fail’ in our system, then our Finance team will be able to inform Ms.  [redacted] of any other option to receive the money. [redacted] will be guaranteed a refund, regardless of the final payout method, and we will keep track of this case so we can follow up with any next steps. We ask that Ms. [redacted] please reply to her case email in 10 days if she does not see any refund on her account.

As recommended by Revdex.com I have attempted to contact Flipkey four separate times.  First two attempts did not produce any contact, third attempt I could not understand the Flipkey responder, and the fourth attempt – with broken English – told me they had no record of any rental agreement with us and suggested I contact Customer Support at Flipkey.  Via this e-mail I am contacting Flipkey and the Revdex.com.  I will contact the Attorney General’s office via U.S. Postal Service. The attached demonstrates that a rental transaction was entered into on 14 January 2015 with Flipkey.Complaint remains the same as entered on 14 July 15.  Renter has failed to return $800 deposit after he said he would not rent the property to us
Regards,
[redacted]

Dear [redacted], Thank you for raising your concerns to us through the Revdex.com. We are sorry to hear about your dissatisfaction with your [redacted]s account, since this was migrated to [redacted]. Please be assured that we have raised your complaint to a senior member of our account...

retention team who will be reaching out to you directly to discuss this with you.  Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Kind regards,[redacted]Senior Customer Relations Executive

We are sorry to hear about **. [redacted] negative experience with this rental. Our Trust and Safety team did investigate the situation with this owner and **. [redacted] and determined that a refund could not automatically be granted under our Peace of Mind Guarantee due to the following...

conditions:  Listing which has such Material Differences or Defects to the as-described and advertised Listing that you rented, where: you are unable to rent the Listing as intended; you refuse to occupy the Listing; you document the material differences between the actual Listing and the Listing on FlipKey; and you notify the Supplier and FlipKey on the first day (check-in date) of your expected rental term. “Material Differences or Defects” shall be determined in FlipKey’s sole discretion and, among other exceptions, shall not include the refusal to occupy the Listing based on the cleanliness of the Listing; minor differences in the location of the Listing to area attractions or maintenance issues with amenities or services.Also, processing a partial refund to a guest is not an option that an owner can control within their account. Any partial refund must be done directly to the guest.  In this situation, the owner attempted to send a check to **. [redacted] as a goodwill gesture for her concerns.  However, **. [redacted] contacted the owner and indicated, due to a delay in mail, they would be filling a charge-back with her card company. Once the owner learned of the chargeback, he assumed he would be liable and he stopped the check from being cashed.  At this time, any further dispute between the two parties will need to be conducted between them, as FlipKey does not have possession of the funds and the claim is not valid under our Peace of Mind Guarantee.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response submitted by the business and have determined that the response does not satisfy or resolve my issues and/or concerns in reference to complaint # [redacted]. Please add your rejection comments below. Regards,
[redacted] Attached at the bottom of this letter you will see my last correspondence with Flip Key in which they never responded back to me!  I don't know what AMMENITIES they are talking about....the owner offered a REFUND if I LEFT!!!! That is the only reason why we left..not because of some amenities that flip key keeps saying. This is their way to try to get out of this complaint. AGAIN I paid my Money to FLIP KEY NOt the owner so I expect a refund for the nights I did not use and was offered a refund!!!!!

Dear [redacted]   Thank you for your response and we are sorry to learn that you remain dissatisfied with our response. Having re-reviewed your account with our retention team, we are unfortunately not in a position to allow you to continue advertising with us on the annual subscription. The free listing is indeed a free advertising model as you are able to list your property on our website for an indefinite period free of charge. We only charge an industry standard 3% commission fee per booking, which is common practise and completely transparent on our website. Having said the above, we have taken the decision to offer you a pro-rated refund of the unused time of your subscription. In order to bring this matter to a swift conclusion, we have sent you an email directly with the details of this offer and information required from you in order for us to proceed with this. Please reply to the direct email, should you have any further questions.   Best wishes, [redacted] Senior Customer Relations Executive

Dear [redacted], Thank you for raising your concerns about your reservation for the property VA Beach 1 br home just 3 blocks from the Ocean!’ to us through the Revdex.com. At [redacted] we want all of our travellers to have the best booking experience and we are sorry if the booked accommodation...

did not meet your expectation. We understand that you decided not to spend the entire stay at the property because the house had stairs. One of the Customer Relations representatives for [redacted] Vacation Rentals has reached out to you via email today to address your concerns in regard to your reservation. Regards,[redacted] Rental Support