VRBO.com

Here for similar reasons as everyone else. The owners of my rental location were kind enough to issue a full refund during this Covid 19 issue. However, VRBO has not put the money back on or credit card. It has been over 3 weeks now. I have called them twice, and they continue to give me the run around. Today I will be disputing the charge with my credit card company and opening a Revdex.com complaint. The call center is clearly being trained to repeat the same lines over and over. Give me MY money VRBO. You have lost a TON of business. Oh yeah, and why on EARTH did you jack up your "service fees" 2 years ago saying it's so that you can provide 24 hour support for anyone having issues? You're not doing anything to help us! Its a SCAM, you are just another greedy company taking peoples money.

Like a lot of other people, I'm experiencing MAJOR issues with VRBOs response to cancelled trips due to COVID-19. I'm in a state with a "Stay at home" order unless it's for essentials until the end of April. My trip was planned for the middle of April, and the last time I checked, a vacation would not be considered an essential. I'm literally being ordered by the Government to stay at home, but I'm still being required to pay thousands for a trip I CAN NOT go on due to a global pandemic that has killed 45,500 people so far. Now I completely understand that this is affecting everyone, but to make people pay any part of a trip that they can not go on due to government restrictions and a global pandemic is just insane to me. I work in Hospitality. I understand the loss on the business side, but that did not stop us from doing what was right and refunding individuals, conventions, schools, whatever it may be, their full amount since they can't travel anymore. Not traveling right now is not only a government mandate for some states, but is the responsible and considerate thing to do in general for yourself and the entire population. The fact that VRBO is refusing to step in like airbnb did really shows that it is ran by heartless, selfish people that only care about their profit. Refunding just the tax/service charge is not "doing you part" to fix this. To say they "rely" on the cancellation is a cop out. We all rely on a lot of things.. like having a paycheck from our jobs for the foreseeable future, but 3.3 million Americans have lost their jobs due to this pandemic and no longer have that paycheck to rely on. This is not a normal situation that falls under the cancellation policy they rely on so much. If your response back to this is the same one you are copying and pasting that says "this is a two sided marketplace" and "they rely on cancellation" or anything along those lines, please do not waste your time. The only response I'm interested in is why VRBO refusing to step in as a company to show any bit of empathy for their travels and help them? or Why they think they are more important then the rest of the hospitality industry that is doing their part and refunding groups that fall under the government restrictions, despite it causing them a loss in the millions and shut downs? You are not a "host". You are not a hospitality company. You are just a typical corporate entity that only cares about yourself and your money, even when people are dying.

Choose another vacation rental service. Vrbo and HomeAway are trying to have it both ways. Publicly, they are advertising on social media and their website that they are this great company who is all about the traveler and that their owners are encouraged to offer full refunds for those affected by COVID-19. Privately and after hours spent on hold and discussing our situation, they are slow to take any real action to help travelers and appear to take every opportunity to protect their owners. My group is at $3000 for a trip we had to cancel after the State of California issued a stay at home order. The owner, ***, kept it all.

I booked a vacation rental, but due to covid-19, I had to cancel. The owner issued the refund immediately on 3/21/20. I called VRBO because 5 days passed and still no refund. They stated give it 7days and should be there. Today is day 7 NOW They say 3weeks! People are struggling for money being out of work and this business wont release funds as their own policy states !

VRBO is dragging their feet in issuing my a refund for my trip. The responses I am seeing on other comments relative to VRBO point out the two-sides of things relative to the host and the traveler. I want to point out that the hosts (or home owners) chose to take this risk. The travelers are booking a home like a hotel room. It should be the hosts who should shoulder most of this, not the travelers. Vacasa is not giving refunds at all via an abrupt policy change, so I have opted to dispute payment through my credit card. I may do the same for VRBO in light of not seeing a refund I requested a week-and-half ago when the refund policy was in place.

I recently cancelled my vacation rental due to covid 19. I was told I would get a refund in 5-7 business days. Well that has come and I have not received my refund. I am now told it will be 10-15 days to get my refund. Do they not understand basis accounting. That money is not theirs to spend until I check in, so a refund should be a quick matter. I am not sure I will ever use them again.

Due to the Coronavirus we are unable to travel to our vacation destination and use the rental property we paid for. VRBO is doing nothing to help us receive a refund. The owner will not refund us. We paid for goods/services we are unable to receive at this point due to federal laws and restrictions. I am appalled at the response of this company. *** has done a superior job handling this unprecedented event. My family and friends have vowed to never use VRBO again.

Travelers beware. I used VRBO to book a house for my sons spring break trip. We were supposed to leave Wednesday, April 1st but, that obviously isn’t happening. I am located in Michigan and we are on "lockdown" until the end of April now (initially it was through April 13th). I contacted the property management company, Luxury Villas World, to see if we could reschedule. Nope, they would only allow me to cancel, with NO REFUND! That is their cancellation policy, I get that. But, how do you not allow people to reschedule during a time like this? I contacted VRBO directly and was told it’s up to the homeowner. Now VRBO has put out a statement saying that homeowners must work with renters to change their dates. If that isn’t possible, they are to refund 50% of the money. I reached out to the PM company again to change the date, they tell me “sorry, you cancelled.” I ONLY cancelled because they wouldn’t work with me on changing the date. So, I would stay away from any home owned by *** & *** and/or managed by ***. They do not care about their customers. The house is located in *** property ID - ***. They have definitely inspired me to never rent from them!

This company is the absolute worst. They have horrible service and are a completely unnecessary and useless company. When there are issues the company advises you to contact the property manager/owner. Which leads one to question, why did I use your service? They broker homes through other websites such as Expedia, again when there are issues passing the customer to the source.
What is the service fee really for?
My recommendation, go direct to the source since that is all VRBO will do when there is an issue.

VRBO has to review their policies and raise to the occasion during these times! Rented a house in *** to go to *** tennis tournament and because that was cancelled and the state that we live declared state of emergency (COVID-19), we did not have any choice but to cancel the trip. The owner did not agree to postpone the reservation, or to refund the money or at least part of it, did not even refund the cleaning fee! Opened a case with VRBO and they said that they strongly advised the Owner to refund the entire amount. When talked to property manager, she said that VRBO stands with the owner... This is unacceptable! VRBO is promoting bad citizenship! This is not a fair business!

PSA!
The actions a company takes during this COVID-19 pandemic speaks volumes to their values and treatment of employees and customers. As a frequent traveler, I’d like to shed light on Vrbo COVID-19 profiteering SCAM and encourage friends to book with *** instead.
Like many others, due to travel bans our trip was cancelled. *** a cruise, *** tours, airlines, and most hotels have issued full refunds and or a travel credit.
Under the disguise of offering “full refunds”, *** (*** instructs Vrbo's customer service persons and Vrbo *** on Vrbo's strategy to profit from reservations canceled by the COVID-19 travel bans. After contacting Vrbo's customer service representatives we were denied the refund unless the Vrbo *** agreed to a COVID-19 refund. The *** denied the refund citing Vrbo's COVID-19 Profiteering SCAM as instructed by ***. The *** indicated that COVID-19 presented a unique profit opportunity for Vrbo and Vrbo's ***. The *** stated that he had already denied refunds for three months of reservations under Vrbo's COVID-19 Profiteering SCAM and intends to use the money profited for personal interests.
Our reservation included a cleaning fee of 70 EURO, a service fee of 69 EURO, and a lodging tax of 71 EURO totaling 210 EURO for fees in addition to the rental price. Vrbo will not refund these fees even though these business expenses will not be incurred by Vrbo or Vrbo's owner. This is the unique aspect of Vrbo's Profiteering SCAM. Clearly, it is Vrbo's intent to profit from the hundreds of thousands of reservations canceled by the COVID- 19 travel bans.
*** requires all of their hosts/owners to provide full refunds due to COVID-19.
Upon further research, the hashtag *** has been trending as well as hundreds of thousands of comments and posts from others involved in the Vrbo scam.
I understand that the COVID-19 outbreak provides an opportunity for Vrbo and *** to profit in the short term from the COVID-19 outbreak. However, I believe that Vrbo's business strategy will result in long term losses as Vrbo continues to abuse regular and long-term customers. I will never book with Vrbo again and advise all others to discontinue business with Vrbo.

VRBO and the owner of 4***, are AWFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We canceled a reservation from 3/20 - 22 due to the virus and neither will give us a credit...
This was a bachelorette party and NO ONE wanted this to be canceled...
SHAME ON THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do NOT use VRBO for any bookings. They do not protect the customer at all! We booked a rental in New Orleans and due to the Coronavirus can not travel - dates March 26-29, height of Coronavirus in United States. The main person who booked in our group is also a Physician and is on the front line of treating Coronavirus patients. The owner of the unit is not responding at all and VRBO has taken a hands OFF approach and said any refunds are at the owners discretion. The owner is not responding and at this point our group does not want a future booking with this person due to the way he has treated our group during this process.
Im amazed that VRBO is taking the stand they are. This is absolutely not a company to book any travel with in the future. I highly recommend you STAY AWAY from VRBO.

I am experiencing the same thing all of you are or have. Let’s get together and let the world know what horrible people VRBO and their “Host” (what an oxymoron) are. No one should be allowed to treat other human beings the way we are being treated during this world Pandemic. VRBO is disgusting. If I treated my customers like this I would be out of business very quickly.

Very poor customer service an unreliable response by vrbo an lack of refund when they said that my refund was already deposited back in my account.

I would like to warn others of the lack of support from VRBO during the COVID crisis and announce that they do not support the US government employees working oversees.
I would like to express my horrible experience with VRBO. I had to cancel my trip to NY and NJ because of the COVID and the property owner said she could only refund half of my money. I cancelled the reservation March 15th. We were scheduled to visit NY from March 27 - April 9 and rented this home from April 4th - April 7th.
First of all...when I tried to book the reservation through the VRBO site it would not take my address because I work for the U.S. Government in Bogota, Colombia and the address for my credit card has an AA (America Armed Forces) as the state and this is not an option on the VRBO website when I attempted to pay. I then called VRBO two times and spoke with two different representatives who also tried to enter my payment information and the AA option was not available, so again I could not pay for the property through VRBO. The second representative I spoke with advised me to pay directly to the property owner, which I did! I am now regretting taking the advice of the VRBO representative because the property owner is now not refunding the full amount. I called the property owner on Thursday, March 12, 2020 to cancel the reservation but she did not answer my calls. I then wrote a message to her on the VRBO site and and then finally answered my call after calling several times. She said "too bad" for the situation and that she could only refund half of the $1,000 I had paid her because she said VRBO has many restrictions and would not allow her to refund the entire amount. She said it was "fair" to refund half of the amount...which is not fair at all!! She said she would give me a $500 credit for when I can come and stay, but I do not want to stay at this person's home after she has lied about the refund situation! Also, if I did stay to get the credit in the future I would have to give her my money directly again since I cannot pay through the VRBO website or representatives.
I also want to be able to write a review on this property for the way I have been treated but there is no option for me to leave a review and VRBO said in order to write a review I need to check into the location...this is totally unacceptable and VRBO should be ashamed.

I would like you to know what has happened to us concerning a rental in Albuferia Portugal. The rental no. Is *** owner's name is Carlos P. We rented this for 3 weeks in April, things started to get very bad concerning the corona virus in Europe. I contacted Carlos to tell him that my mom is 83 years old and I was worried about bringing her there. I let him know that I wanted to cancel. He wrote me and told me not to cancel as the disease would be probably be gone by the time we got there. I let him know we were not coming as I was concerned about my mom. He then told me that I was at 48 days and his cancellation was 60 days to get your deposit back. Even under a world crisis he won't give me my deposit back. He said that if he rents it out he might, well I have checked and he has rented for 2 weeks and still has not even contacted me. I can not believe with everything the way it is , that this man could actually what hes doing. Making money off a WORLD CRISIS. JANICE!!!!

Beware of VRBO. Cancel because of coronavirus. No refund! They will not refund your money or even help you get a refund if you have to cancel. We booked a stay at a home in Del Ray Beach (Property No. ***) the week of 3/31/20. Sadly we had to cancel because we cannot leave Illinois due to “ Shelter In Place” plus beaches and restaurants are closed so no food and no where to go would be terrible. I cannot even begin to express my total disappointment with VRBO. The owner of the rental Ann was very rude, sending many texts (before I blocked her) stating that this is not her problem, no refund, too bad! I contacted VRBO and while they claim they opened a case, I spoke with a woman yesterday who said their hands are tied and basically “so sorry!” $1,600 bucks gone, with no recourse. I’ll spend more money having my attorney draw up a complaint but it’s worth it given this company and this homeowner are so terrible and during such a stressful time for our country. Do not use vrbo. We will never ever use them again and we will tell everyone we know, whenever we have a chance to bad mouth this company and the renter who refuses to refund our money.

Property owners (Property # ***) will not issue a refund, credit, or change in dates due to COVID-19. Homeaway (VRBO) is not assisting renters with refunds or any other form of compensation considering the crisis that is happening in the world right now. They state that they have an emergency policy in place due to COVID-19, but it is not being enforced and many customers are not even getting back a full refund of their fees, taxes, or cleaning fees. Please do not book with VRBO or any of its affiliates.

VRBO are lazy, filthy crooks. They put the money you entrusted into them directly into the property owners hands. If you need to cancel your trip because of an emergency (say like a global pandemic), well then you are out of luck if the property owner wants to keep your money. I will never book through you again.