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. 
As told to Flipkey in prior conversations the account held by this bank is completely closed, therefore there is no other card for the bank to route the money to. This was told to the customer service agent by phone, and I was advised that once the funds return from the account (due to no other card or linked account) that they would be returned to Flipkey, but that no other options for receiving my money were available. When asked if I could provide another bank account number or request a check I was firmly told no, that I would not receive my money. I was told that issue was filed with their financial department and received an email indicating that they would not accept another account number to send the funds to. I just want the money that is rightfully owed to me to be returned. I don't feel like I should have to beg for my money to be returned to me, especially when I gave the ample warning of the account closure to prevent any issues from arising. Their customer service and financial department are not resolving the issue at all.
Regards,
[redacted]

Dear [redacted],Thank you for your message and for bringing this important is[redacted] to us. We would like to reiterate that further to our previous correspondence, unfortunately on this occasion we are unable to provide assistance with refunding your money as you made a wire transfer outside of our platform. Whilst we understand that this situation is unfortunate and inconvenience for yourself we can not provide a resolution to this. We take matters of fraud very seriously. We will never advise any traveller to make a bank transfer off our website and if you do choose to make a payment off our system, then to make it via Credit Card or [redacted] due to the protection they offer. Unfortunately banks transfers offer very little protection in the unlikely event of an is[redacted] such as this occurring. We would always recommend a traveller to make a payment via our online booking system as we offer our industry leading Payment protection scheme in the unlikely event an is[redacted] occurs. It is unfortunate to hear that FlipKey were aware of this situation and advised you to make this payment, however as this payment was made of our system we are unable to facilitate a refund for you. Please feel free to reach out to our trust and safety team on the following number [redacted]. We hope that this will be resolved soon for yourself and please do let us know if there is anything else we can help with.  Best Regards [redacted]-TripAdvisor Customer Care

Hello [redacted],  Thank you for reaching out to us via Revdex.com. We are sorry to learn of this poor experience.  After reviewing your internal case, I can see that we processed a full refund back to you to the amount of $322.89 USD. This was processed on 20th December 2016, please allow 3-5 working...

days to receive the refund. [redacted], the responses that you received from the owner is not a reflection of the service we strive to provide to our customers. Following making us aware of your concerns we have removed them from our platform to ensure no other holiday maker endures the same negative experience. We have reached out to you directly to offer re-booking, should you allow us to rectify this experience, our dedicated team will be here to assist you find a property and owner that will meet your needs and provide you with a positive booking experience.  We hope the resolution here is acceptable for yourself and look forward to receiving your response. Best Wishes,The FlipKey Team

Hi [redacted], Thank you for speaking with me today regarding your booking #[redacted] which was unfortunately cancelled by the property manager. This is absolutely not the experience we intend for any of our travelers to have, and we are reviewing the conduct of the advertiser you booked with. We...

take booking cancellations seriously and we understand these cancellations come at a great impact to our guests. We would like to review the documentation for your alternative accommodations you have booked, and I am following up with a separate email directly. Feel free to reply to that email once it is received. Your case number is [redacted]. Thank you again for speaking with me, and I look forward to providing further assistance. Best regards,[redacted]Senior Customer Relations Executive

Dear [redacted],   Thank you for contacting us through the Revdex.com. We understand that you have previously updated your tax form with us and can confirm that we have facilitated the above payment to your nominated account. Unfortunately, the payment was blocked and that the request for further...

documentation was raised by our processing bank, Bank of America.  In order to ensure compliance with economic sanctions laws and regulations, the Bank conducts an ongoing scanning process (adopting a risk-based approach) of all transactions it processes. In the case of the mentioned transaction, the Bank of America requires that certain information is provided to them before the payment will be released to you.  In order for the Bank to complete the release of funds, we therefore require that you supply the following details:    • Full Name  • Full Address & Country of citizenship  • Nationality  • Date of birth  • Place of birth  • Purpose of Payment  • Occupation    Please note that this is a requirement made by OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) and the Bank (our payment processor) and not by any of the [redacted] Vacation Rentals companies.  A member of our finance team has provided the above information to you via email sent to you on 25th August. Please kindly reply to that email with the required information so we can supply this to Bank of America accordingly.   Best wishes, [redacted] Senior Customer Relations Executive

Dear [redacted], Thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us and for bringing this important concern to our attention. We are sorry to hear about your experience and can understand your  frustration and empathize with  you as we understand it is frustrating for owners to...

cancel at the last minute. We would like to reassure you that we are here to help and would like to provide a solution to your concern. We find it unacceptable for owners to cancel at the last minute.We have checked your account and can confirm that you will be refunded in full under the peace of mind guarantee for which you can find further details in the link provided below. This amount has already been released on 26th February. Please allow up to 3-5 business days for the money to be reimbursed back to you.  Please also find attached our customer care form in the link below if you have any further questions. You may also get in touch with our dedicated customer service team on 1-877-FLIPKEY.  https://help.holidaylettings.co.uk/articles/FAQ/What-is-TripAdvisor-Payment-Pr...⇄ hope this has been helpful and provided some clarity in helping you. Please let us know for any further queries. FlipKey Customer Care

Hello [redacted],  Thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us and for bringing this important concern to FlipKey. We are sorry to hear about your experience and that you have been unable to get in touch with our team. We would like to reassure you that our customer support team is...

here to help you and find a resolution to the problem you are facing. Unfortunately we are unable to locate your FlipKey account, please can you provide us with your account ID so that we can get our team that specializes in this concern. As soon as we get your necessary details we can get our property management team to reach out to you as a matter of urgency. We look forward to hearing from you soon.  Best Regards FlipKey Customer Care

Hi [redacted],Thank you for taking the time to put forward your complaint. We have called you today, July 13th 2016 and following our conversation we have confirmed that we are in discussions with the owner,  following your complaint of the property as you feel it is misrepresented.  We...

have now presented the photographic evidence to the owner, we have also confirmed that we may need up to 4 weeks to resolve a Payment Protection claim before any settlement is decided. We will also send you an email through our Customer Support confirming that we've spoken today. Many thanks,[redacted] - TripAdvisor Customer Care

Thank you for providing that information. Our Trust and Safety team is currently investigating this rental agreement and has requested further details from you. Please continue corresponding with our team and we will update you as we gain more information. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

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 has contacted us requesting to receive funds for a booking they accepted via FlipKey’s payment system, in the amount of 665.14 USD and to have their account reactivated. This booking was paid on May 22, 2015 for a stay from Sun 31 May 2015 - Tue 30 Jun 2015 (30 nights). The funds were initially released to the owner’s account on Jun 1, 2015. A chargeback was filed by the guest with their card provider, however, on or around Jun 17th, stating this was an unauthorized transaction. FlipKey reviewed the transaction information and found this was likely a fraudulent transaction and accepted liability to have the funds reversed to the buyer. Due to the above notification about a fraudulent transaction taken through this account, FlipKey’s Trust & Safety Team reviewed the customer’s account and it was determined the account must be permanently closed as a fraud risk. FlipKey Customer Support has advised the customer that we have deactivated the customer’s account due to some inconsistencies in the account. We are not able to share further information about the deactivation process or criteria for deactivation with the customer, as these are highly sensitive internal security protocols used to prevent fraud on our site. We also do not continue communication with owners who have been determined as fraudulent users on our site, as they are deemed a security risk and have been banned from our site in accordance with our Terms & Conditions found here. I have attached evidence from our internal system regarding the Chargeback raised by the guest, confirmation of fraud, and proof of the refund on the transaction to the guest. I would like to quickly clarify the meaning of the term ‘friendly fraud’ shown in one of these screenshots, as has it relates to our response. This term refers to our Trust & Safety Team finding the fraudulent (and subsequently refunded) transaction mentioned above involved collusion between the guest who used fraudulent details and the customer (who filed the complaint with the Revdex.com). Due to the sensitivity of the information raised here, this should not be provided to the complainant for any reason. Based on the above, can we have this complaint evaluated for changing to a resolved status? If any other information regarding the case is required, please let me know and I will follow up accordingly. Thank you for your assistance.

We do sincerely apologize for the delay of funds to Ms. [redacted]’s account. The issue she has experienced with the return of her damage deposit is a very unfortunate case of data loss on her booking details. We were not able to automatically refund the deposit after...

her check-out, as our typical policy allows. In her situation, we had to investigate the status of the funds and escalate this to our engineering team for a resolution. At this time, the technical error has been resolved and will not affect any other return of funds. We have been in touch with Ms. [redacted] regarding the next steps our Finance team will require to process a manual refund.  Again, we recognize this is a very unfortunate situation and are working diligently to return the funds to her as soon as possible.

Dear [redacted], Ref. [redacted] Thank you for your message. We are sorry to hear that you experienced these problems with this booking. We checked your case ([redacted]) and we see that you have been in touch with our Customer Relations Team in the past and that now the issue had been...

resolved. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any further assistance. Many Thanks, [redacted] – [redacted] Customer Care

Dear [redacted],We forward to you the reply that has been sent on the 20th of March, at 1.50 pm GMT, to the email address you provided at the moment of the booking:“Thank you for taking the time to write to us via the Revdex.com. I want to begin by saying how sorry I am to see your booking was cancelled by the advertiser. I do see the homeowner informed you via a direct message that she was no longer able to honor your booking. We take cancellations very seriously and are continuously reviewing and improving our related processes to prevent cancellations as best as we canIf we are reaching a point where there is nothing further we can do to prevent the cancellation, our dedicated team of agents immediately reach out to you and do their best to assist in these circumstances and to help you find a new alternative. The team also evaluates the owner’s accounts, which will be closely monitored thereafter. This way we can lodge complaints directly against the advertiser’s account, which may result in account suspension moving forward. In this case, the complaint has been logged which will have a negative impact on his listing. The account will be also be monitored manually and will be terminated should any further issues occur.We can see that members of our team have tried to help you regarding finding you a suitable alternative, but we understand that these did not meet your requirements and that this therefore regrettably did not substantiate.Our payment protection policy and terms of conditions cover the booking payment made through our platform but we are unfortunately unable to accept any liability for indirect costs you have incurred as a result of the cancellation and rely on travelers to ensure sufficient travel insurance cover is purchased.As an advertising platform, we don’t manage bookings ourselves and your booking contract, therefore, lies with the individual homeowners themselves.We regret the advertiser was unable to honor your booking as originally agreed, and we do hope we are able to assist you in the future. If we can be of any further assistance in any way, please let us know.Regards,[redacted] Rentals Support”We thank you once again for sharing your thoughts about your experience.Regards,[redacted] Rentals Support

We are sorry to hear that the refund was not processed in time for [redacted] to enjoy a vacation and that this has caused her such frustrations. Unfortunately the refund processing time is very standard for any e-commerce credit that a consumer is due. There is not any way that FlipKey can expedite a refund for a reservation, regardless of the urgency, otherwise we would have been more than happy to assist.  Once the funds are released from our system, the processing time cannot be altered. We understand that this is very unfortunate and do sincerely apologize the reservation was not able to occur and that we could not further assist her in this matter.

At this time we can confirm that the review has been removed from both FlipKey and [redacted]’s live listing for Mr. [redacted]. Our engineers did encounter a data error preventing the timely removal of this review. Mr. [redacted] has been provided updates  of the progress and final confirmation of the removal. We sincerely apologize that this technical error did impact his account and our engineers are working to prevent this from occurring in the future.

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.  I did report it to the police and they said I should report FlipKey to the Revdex.com due to the fact that someone contacted me through their website. Going to the bank would not do anything since the check was cashed as soon as the person received it. Also, FlipKey was aware of a hacking situation and never reported it to me until several weeks after I sent the check to the owner that I got from their site. I did not know that you were only able to do payment a certain way on their site. I had never used a site like this before for rentals.
Regards,
[redacted]

Dear [redacted], Thank you for raising your concerns about your reservation to us through the Revdex.com. We are truly sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction. One of our support representatives has sent you an email to address your concerns. We thank you for sharing your thoughts.  Regards,...

[redacted] Rentals Support

FlipKey does not own or manage the properties that are listed on our site, so we do apologize for any confusion that Ms. [redacted] experienced due to this owner's behavior. At this time, her reservation has been fully refunded to her [redacted] account and she is able to search for...

alternate properties.    There are various reasons an owner may choose to remove themselves from our site, and they are not required to contact FlipKey to deactivate their listings. Very often an owner will continue honoring future bookings and manage their reservations from the account. Therefore, Ms. [redacted] was not notified by FlipKey that the account was offline as we do hold account holders responsible for managing their reservations. The owner was provided detailed instructions several times regarding the cancellation process and how to provide Ms. [redacted] with her refund. Unfortunately the owner remained unresponsive to those instructions and the booking was not cancelled immediately. If the booking had been cancelled, a refund would have been provided within the timeline our support agent provided. However, that refund can only be processed once the owner cancels the booking through their account. We provided the owner a specific time-frame to contact us, as we typically cannot cancel a booking within the owner’s account without their consent. Since the owner remained unresponsive, we did determine action needed to be taken and we cancelled the reservation on Ms. [redacted]’s behalf. A full refund was immediately processed and the funds are now visible in her account. We do apologize that this owner caused such an inconvenience to Ms. [redacted] and that her case was not resolved immediately. Ms. [redacted] has been contacted directly regarding the refund and is aware of the cancellation.

Dear [redacted],we are sorry to hear that you had to cancel your booking due to health reasons, as we can only imagine how disappointing this must be. We appreciate your frustration in regards to not having received a refund of your payment when this was cancelled. However, just like any travel products, vacation rentals on our website also have a cancellation policy. When confirming your booking, you have the opportunity to review the owner's cancellation policy before submitting your payment. The cancellation is set by the individual advertisers, with whom your booking contract is with and is automatically applied in the event of a cancellation.In this case we would suggest reaching out to the owner directly in order to discuss a potential refund, as this is ultimately under their discretion.Should you experience any issues in contacting them, we are more than happy to be of further assistance in establishing the communication amongst each other and helping you reaching an amicable agreement.Best wishes,The FlipKey Team

The forms have now been provided to Ms. [redacted] so that she may complete the required information to begin processing the manual refund. Once the forms are returned to us, we can process the refund for her. We do acknowledge the terrible inconvenience this has caused her and will be processing the refund as swiftly as possible.