HomeAway

This website SUCKS for listing owners! Also it seems to be a good tool for to get direct access to owners renting their properties, the customer service is HORREND for owners listing on this website. The site is constantly down, does not work 100% properly for listing owners, has many glitchas - and technical support/ customer service NON-existent. The only thing excistent is their steep annual rate hikes by up to 300% after they purchased all other rental listing companis in thsi market;-(

Similar to some others on this site, we were scammed and Homeaway refuses to accept any liability. My sister-in-law booked what we thought was a great long weekend. Nearly a month later, Homeaway sent a "sympathetic" email about how the home owner's email had been hacked, but how they are not responsible. My sister-in-law checked with the owner and sure enough they had no idea who she was (i. E. our money is gone and we have no place to stay).

Based on the info we've since dug up, this has been a problem for a couple of years, but other than a few "look out for phishing" notices on their site, they won't do anything about it. When my sister-in-law emailed the homeowners to reserve our spot, she had no reason to think the people who responded were scammers. This wasn't one of those Nigerian prince deals. This was a seemingly legitimate transaction. Homeaway is a big company with a ton of money, but they refuse to reimburse the supposedly small percentage of people who have been victimized. Nice customer service, Homeaway. Real nice.

I shared the experience of the posters above. I notified HomeAway of a property that I thought was fraudulent (luckily, I sent them no money) and haven't heard anything from their customer service. They did send out a notification to the email address that sent the original inquiry that there was a potential issue with the property. HomeAway's customer service still has not acknowledged the issue.

HomeAway is doing the absolute minimum about a problem that is extensively discussed here and on their own forums. At this point, they are not a trusted marketplace, though they take pains to appear so. At least with Craigslist you know to be careful.

We were victims of a scam through a listings on HomeAway. Scammers are intercepting emails to the owners posted on the Homeaway site.

We have found that HomeAway is unresponsive and are concerned that others could suffer our same fate.

Please review our experience below and other similar situations at http://community.homeaway.com/message/*******#*******.

On Saturday, Dec 2, our daughter emailed the property owner of Homeaway to request a reservation using the link through the Homeaway.com website. A response was received that day from Holidays Agency LTD <*******@gmail.com> asking for our address and number in party information for the contract. None of the emails we received from them were signed with a name.

The afternoon of Sunday, Dec 3, our daughter replied to the email with the requested information and a response was received early Monday, Dec 4, with a rental agreement and refund information letter attached. The refund letter requested our bank account information so they could refund our deposit through bank transfer. They also told us we must respond within 72 hours to guarantee the price. The contract had an official looking seal with a Carefree Rental Guarantee logo.

On Tuesday, Dec 6, our daughter noted that the contract had the address incorrectly listed as a rental property in Rhode Island instead of Fort Lauderdale. She emailed a request for a corrected contract which was received that day.

On Wednesday, Dec 7, we did some online checking of the owner's name, Holidays Agency Ltd, etc. The owner listed on Homeaway had an international phone number and, as we were away from home, our cell phones did not have overseas calling capability. We then arranged with our bank to transfer the money as the terms of the contract requested. That afternoon we purchased the Carefree Rental Guarantee insurance online and in navigating around the Homeaway website we came across a Community message posted that same day regarding a scam that sounded frighteningly like our situation. (link above)

We immediately contacted our bank to attempt to halt the bank transfer and contacted the Homeaway help line. Within an hour our daughter received an email cautioning her about a possible scam involving the property and advising her to contact the owner again through the Homeaway website to confirm we were dealing with the correct person. The next morning Thursday, Dec 8, we received a response from the owner saying the property was already booked for those dates. Clearly we had been dealing with a scammer instead of the owner

On Monday, Dec 12, we received an email from Holidays Agency to "confirm the booking period and the payment". We responded with regrets we must cancel our reservation and requested a refund via certified check and have received no response.

Homeaway is investigating. We are out $3800 and are sadder, but wiser.

Homeaway is simply a place for an owner to post whatever information they want to regarding their property. This information could be totally false, misleading or accurate. There is no way to verify the information. The homeowners can delete any review they do not like so all you read are these glowing reviews. My last experience renting through homeaway.com has left a very bad taste in my mouth. The property was not as described and the owner kept saying the her description was accurate. No one in my party agreed with her. When waiting for my reimbursement she charged me $15 for not emptying the bathroom waste can, $10 for a coffee table not being in its exact original location, $10 for not starting the dishwasher and $25 for excessive dog hair. Nothing was in the contract warning me that I could be nickeled and dimed out of any of my reimbursement. Suggest you first go to a google site that allows you to see the property, close up, from an orbiting satellite. It is at least a chance to see if there is any misleading claims going on. This was property number *******.

Home Away seemed like a legitimate business and got us in contact with a renter for a property for a family trip from the US to Buenos Aires. We signed a contract with Home Away's help 2 months prior to our departure and took Home Away's "Rental Guarantee". When the renter backed out 1 week prior to the rent date and has bounced the check refunding the 2200. 00 dollar rent Home Away refused even to allow us to write a bad review about the property because we did not stay there!
We will continue to fight Home Away for reimbursemnet under their "guarantee" program but hold out little hope. Contacting them is difficult and when contacted they are rude and unhelpful.
This company protects the interests of property owners only.Do not rent from them. If things go south, they will not be there to help.
Hank West

HomeAway.com and their subisidary VRBO.com are engaged in false advertising. They want guests to believe that renting direct from owners will allow the owner to reduce the fee by eliminating professional managers. But owners who use the service want to eliminate the commission and get the money themselves. Guest and owner can't both get the same money. So that is the false premise.

Several years ago HomeAway raised $450 million dollars to buya nd buildng VRBO.com, CyberRentals.com, A1Vactaions and others. This has has been a disaster for advertiers (Owners and Managers). By overloading their sites with listings, the sites become unusable. Ad rates have sky rocketed but guest inquiries and guest qualifications have plummetted.

The only goal the HomeAway managers have, is to build up the thing big enough, go public, and cash out. They are not in it personally for the long haul. They are Internet geeks who don't understand the basic business premise that they must produce economically for advertisers. Hey even teenagers working at McDonalds understand it better than that.

Stay as far away from this company as you can.

HomeAway provides NO cutomer support to renters. You are on your own. I rented a property in Austin in May, 2010. Ten days before my vacation, I contacted the rental company, Vacation Homes Austin, and they told me the house was no longer available. The owner of the company, Lisa Walls, refused to respond to me by email or phone. Her associate, was the only person who ever responded to me. I contacted HomeAway via their website customer service form. I said it was an emergency due to the fact that my vacation was a week away and I had no rental property. I heard nothing. I called HomeAway and the only thing they offered to do was send Vacation Homes Austin an e-mail to contact me. Needless to say, that did not help me. I was forced to take an alternative property offered to me at the last minute. Eventhough I left the property clean and undamaged, and the rental company confirmed this, I am still waiting as of June 12,2010 to receive my $500.00 refund. HomeAway does not seem to vet the people who advertise on their site. Also, they have no incentive to remove bad rental companies from their site, they would only lose money. Finally, HomeAway will sell renters insurance to cover their lost expenses if a property owner pulls their property, but you have to pay HomeAway for that insurance. They have you coming and going and they do not give you any service whatsoever. This company is seems to care nothing for their renter customers. I guess they think their market is so big that it doesn't matter how they treat their customers. Amazing.

Vacation rental owners BEWARE OF HOMEAWAY's FATAL FLAW -
( homeaway.com, vacationretals.com)
I was a happy customer of Homeaway until I found out their fatal flaw!
As owners we charge security deposits to cover damage done by guests. I am now fearful to deduct the cost of damages done because of their ability to then retaliate an post negative reviews about your property. Homeaway allows these slanderous reviews to be posted and gives owners almost no consideration.
Owners are coerced into waiving fees for damage done because of the fear of retaliation. By allowing this, they cripple the owners ability to enforce their rental agreements. As an owner we pay to advertise on the site.
THINK ABOUT IT THIS WAY
Imagine the Ad that HOMEAWAY ran on the SUPERBOWL being followed by all of the complaints submitted to the BBB or posted on the internet about them?(There are many)
I am sure they would not be happy about that ~ in fact, I Know they would not. Why is there not a section to post reviews about HOMEAWAY on HOMEAWAY'S website if they so strongly believe in the idea? Why don't they have a section to warn other owner's about bad guests? "Guests from hell?" Believe me, I wish I had been warned about these two.
We are the customers.
It is very upsetting that we, the customers who pay to purchase ads, are not given more consideration and have no control over what is posted on the ad page that we are paying for.
This is a problem.
The only recourse an owner had is to cancel the ad and to lose the money they paid to run it for an entire year. Homeaway does not issue refunds for the balance of unused time if you do this.
Reviews from guests that are TRUE and well founded and who honor the terms of the rental agreement are one thing but only twice in five years has damage been so extensive that we retained a security deposit. Both times the guests posted disparaging and libelous remarks. These were the only negative reviews posted about our Three Million dollar property ever. They were unfounded, untrue and outrageous and very damaging.
When a guest defaults on their rental agreement by damaging or destroying property they should lose any other rights associated with the rental. I find it outrageous that Homeaway should then allow them to further damage an owner by posting slanderous remarks.
Further, Homeaway is an advertising venue. The ads are paid for by the owner of the property advertised ~ not by the guests. If I run an ad on TV, a magazine, newspaper, and most other internet venues, etc. they do not include opinions from any person who happened to want to share one without permission of the advertiser. That means I, THE CUSTOMER, am paying HOMEAWAY to advertise false and misleading information about my product. I do not think reviews should be included at all in a advertisement paid for by a customer.

Please, don't take my word for it, Please check the BBB and other internet sites to see the many other similar complaints from disappointed Vacation rental owners.