Vrbo property number 275956Owner Dan Woodley - 703-329-0138
Http://www.vrbo.com/275956
My friends and I booked a rental property in jaco beach to arrive and find out it was double booked. Owner said it was an oversight and not his problem, condo management office said he has done this before and were very nice, but still put us out of luck. I wrote a review on VRBO and it was rejected. Here is their response. Draw your own conclusions. I know I'll never use their site again... (Start at the bottom, note that only after an owner receives multiple complaints that are all kept non public will they be considered for removal. What a joke)
Final reply to VRBO:
I will file a complaint but I will also be suing for cost recovery and fraud. If VRBO has received one other issue with this property, which I believe you have per the property managers, it is fraud that you did not allow disclosure of such an event so it could be considered when booking. I'll post this email chain to popular travel forums and let people decide for themselves if VRBO and HomeAway are honest businesses. I will also be copying the departments of real estate and district attorneys in every state so they are informed and can make their own decisions on your sites fraudulent practices.
As for me, a letter will be coming to your corporate offices shortly from my attorneys.
Thanks for your time.
On Wednesday, January 2, VRBO Customer Support wrote:
Sir,
We suggest you file a property complaint because that is the best way to keep track of owners who are double booking. If an owner receives too many complaints, they are removed from our site. Since you did not stay at the property you cannot leave a review per our guidelines. Every property is individually owned and managed on our site and VRBO has no control over when an owner acts this way, except when we receive a complaint.
Best Regards,
Cs
Original Message &
From:
Sent: 1/2 12:23 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: VRBO Property Case
That's ridiculous that you hide this information from public view. And actually since per the property managers where I was supposed to stay this has happened a few times before with this owner VRBO seems liable in hiding material information, which I believe is called fraud. I'll be sure to forward this to my attorney as well as post on every public travel forum I can find so that other travelers are aware of the fraud you are committing. There is no trust in your system if you let owners get away with such behavior. I know I'll never use it again and once this is clear many people won't.
Alternatively if you would like to have someone from the executive or senior management team contact me my number is xxxxxxx.
On Wednesday, January 2, VRBO Customer Support wrote:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for contacting VRBO.com Customer Support.
Our guidelines state that a guesthad to have stayed at the property in order to submit a review.
We suggest that you report your experience as a complaint instead. Complaints and Reviews are separate avenues for dissatisfied travelers and are processed by different departments. When the Trust and Security department receives a formal complaint, they document the travelers and vacation rental owner's or property manager's information about the stay. Then they give the owner or property manager an opportunity to resolve the dispute.
All of the documentation related to formal complaints is strictly internal and is not made available for public view.
If you would like our Trust and Security department to report your poor experience as a complaint, please do so via the help form here:
Help. Homeaway.com/KnowledgeSupport? Brand=VRBO
You can review the complete reviews guidelines here:
Homeaway.com/articles/
If you need further assistance, please visit our Help page at the link below to find commonly asked questions and answers.
Http://help. Homeaway.com/? Brand=vrbo
Thank you for using VRBO. Comoffering more than 150,000 rentals in 100 countries worldwide.
Best regards,
Cs
VRBO.com Customer Support
I booked and paid for the room to find out the owner had double booked the property and we had nowhere to stay. Thats the kind of review and information that other travelers should know. Why would it not be posted? If you dont allow travelers to post about negative experiences with the owner it really undermines the purpose of your site, but I suppose Ill know never to use it again if thats the case and make the situation known through other means of such a policy. Im sure most folks arent aware of that policy. You are hiding material information from prospective customers by doing this.
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