VRBOReviews 2,004

We have a horrible problem with VRBO and the rental with Mark and Linda Lee of 4249 Briar Creek, Dallas Texas *******. We rented their condo in Austin (1200 Castle Hill) for 4 days last month. When we got there, someone else was in the condo. They double booked it. I have a contract, confirmation emails, and cancelled checks for the payment in full plus $300 deposit. Linda Lee has admitted she double booked it writing. It was Formula 1 week so we were lucky to find a hotel room at the last minute but it cost us an additional $1000. Linda Lee would not respond to my emails, texts or phone messages for 2 weeks. She told me two weeks ago she mailed the check but it hasn't come. Beware of VRBO and renting from Mark and Linda Lee. VRBO will not accept my review since we didn't stay there! Beware... some owners commit fraud.

I once used their site to research some local properties for visiting friends. I do not even recall signing up to receive their emails, but after receiving MANY, I have been trying for 2 months to opt of of their mailings and I continually receive them. I have written to every email address they have to no avail. Tomorrow I will be lighting up their phone lines until SOMEONE listens to me!

Such a simple task, which they can't even seem to handle. I would hate to have actually BOOKED something through their site :/

VRBO would not allow us to post a negative review on their site. I believe that they only allow positive reviews to be posted. We chose our St. John Villa (Heavenly Villas) based on the five star ratings they had on their site and found the villa to be hot, bug-infested, and noisy. It nearly ruined our vacation.

Instead of allowing us to warn other travelers, VRBO removed our review for no reason. Beware! Do your homework before relying on VRBO.

Review for property *******

We booked unit 61 for a weekend. When we were all set to go we got an email from owner saying this unit won't be ready and it won't be available that week. It was also mentioned that the advance amount will be credited back next day. We had to cancel that trip as there were no other options provided.

As I did't see the credit for a week, sent couple of emails but there was no response. Tried to call different #s provided. None of them picked my call. I had to dispute the transaction after calling the credit card company.

Finally I saw the credit in my online statement yesterday.

I thought the owner is responsible for arranging a place if the booked one is not available for any reason. Also there was no cancellation fee.

I have used this website in the past to find lodging. I will rethink that action as after staying at a very mismanaged property/mold, etc... I tried to write in a negative review. The owner disputed this review. After several phone calls and an email requesting 3 or more types of documentation - rental agreement, picture inside the property, receipt, etc. (1 of which should be more than sufficient). I found that the "customer service" at this company is almost completely totally lacking, in specific Ron was unhelpful and rude on call. I would avoid this company and try for other companies that are showing up trying to do this process right. Beware Homeaway, VRBO, and vacation rentals.com are all the same company.

I have stayed at several B&B's over the years but never once wrote a reveiw about one. I recently wrote a favorable review and one that was slightly less than satisfactory. They immediately posted my favorable review but then would not post the unsatisfactory review without me sending the receipt. They knew that I stayed there because they sent me the email to review it. I understand now why there are not many negative reviews on their site.

I am done with VRBO. The owner wrongfully withheld the deposit for 3 months, for no reason. It was a huge time suck and hassle to get it back: multiple emails and phone calls, had to get VRBO's claim form notarized and supply them with copies of my cashed checks. Finally the owner sent it--pretty much on their own as VRBO never took the listing down.

But here's the rub--when I try to warn others of this owner's poor business practices by posting a bad review--after multiple emails and postings and revisions to try and comply with VRBO's owner-biased review system--VRBO still doesn't post it. And VRBO has all the evidence from the email trails between me and the owner as well as all my documents they made me provide. They say their policy is that reviews "must substantially relate to the stay."

Well, I don't have to pay a deposit at a hotel for my "stay"--that's substantial. So guess what--no more VRBO for me. They suck.

Mark,
Tempe

Horrible customer service - they purchased all other competitive rental websites out there and increased 500% their listing rating. The website and dashboard are down constantly or freeze, no customer service... if you finally get a response (if you are very, very lucky w a 20% chance) it is mostly "sorry, we are working on the issue" or "yes, we increased our rates significantly but added features". Really, for whose benefits? Clearly not the listing owners but their own benefit to enrich them further. Hate it...

This was the absolute worst experience I have ever encountered with an online resource. I submitted the following inquiries:

172 inquiries for a vacation rental in Destin, and I Received back 28 RESPONSES out of 172 inquiries. That is 144 no response and a huge waste of my time.

In the past, VRBO was a wonderful resource, however, it is becoming a total waste of time. Half of the homes/condos that I researched were already booked but the left you to think it was still available for rent. I would never waste my time inquiring about a rental property that is obviously not available over my travel dates and no, my travel dates were not flexible. The amount of hours I spent searching was outrageous in compasion to the response rate, very disappointing, there has to be a better way. I had more success on Flip Key and Home Away with far less inquiries, time and effort.

Although I like what VRBO does for my rentals bottom line it is unfortunate they are allowing Brokers to advertise and lie about the location. My rental is located on Anna Maria island which includes 3 towns in it. Bradenton Beach, Holmes beach and the small town of Anna Maria. The most desirable is the town of Anna Maria. So the brokers lie and say thier rental is located in the town of Anna Maria instead of Bradenton Beach or Holmes beach because they know it is more desirable. Unfortunately they have overloaded the Anna Maria page with these false listings.
It is a shame that VRBO has allowed these broker to lie to the public with the false assumption that they are dealing with the owner but it is more disapointing that they are allowed to mislead us into thinking the property is located somewhere it is NOT.
If VRBO is so greedy that they need the money so bad and then don't care what is posted this site will disolve in time because the public will be fed up with being lied to and the honest owners that have followed the rules of proper location
Will be lost in the shuffle.
VRBO check your listings 50% of them listed for the town of Anna Maria are false

Agree with previous reviewer that bedandbreakfast.com reviews are of questionable reliability. I would not use this site alone but check other travel sites first to make sure things jive. There have been reports on Trip Advisor of properties with glowing reviews on bedandbreakfast.com but not so positive reviews elsewhere, and of course it was the latter that turned out more accurate.

As mentioned by the other reviewer, they don't seem screen positive reviews... a look at a couple of random properties shows several one- or two-liner 4 and 5 star reviews but no reviews with under 4 stars. Hmm... On the other hand, if you rate anything under 3 stars on any aspect, you get an e-mail, "Please supply us proof of stay in the form of your accommodation receipt or documentation of your payment to the property". The fact of the matter is, most people when confronted by the extra requirement -- and potential invasion of privacy that this represents -- would probably back out.

I don't know that I believe that false positive reviews don't happen... see Yelp and their decision to apply filters that apply to both positive AND negative reviews. It does seem suspicious that bedandbreakfast.com filters only negative reviews. Then again, since bedandbreakfast.com has a certain financial stake in selling gift certificates that can be applied to some properties listed on their site, it DOES make sense they would promote positive reviews and discourage negative reviews, though. Again, hmm...

I answered an ad VRBO had posted stating a rental price that was well below market. A gentleman named Josh wrote back quoting a significantly higher price but it was in line with market. When I called to book it as instructed I spoke to Adam and he quoted me an even higher price. I questioned the higher price and he said that he would check it out and call me back but never did.

I called and got a hold of josh and he gave me a line about my day being a high demand day so they decided to change the price and would not honor the price he put in writing. They are completely a scam!

vbro.com did not allow a negative review to be placed on a property that we rented in Lakehead, CA. Our review followed the guidlines that vbro.com provided and it was still rejected because it was negative. Take a moment to look at their reviews; they are almost all very positive and don't seem to be written by actual customers.

The owner of the rental property kept our deposit and made numerous false claims to justify keeping it. He also exaggerated almost everything about the property. We documented his lies in emails etc. Do not rent this property.

Jones' Shasta Lake Retreat
Lakehead, California Vacation Rental by Owner Listing *******

Sea Bright, NJ VRBO ******* - The owner of this house neglected to inform us that this house is literally ON TOP of bar called Donavon's Reef -- that plays music on the beach from 10am until 2:00am -- and has live bands beginning at 10pm on the weekends and 6pm on weekdays. This is very very annoying & makes it impossible to have a discussion in the house, let alone sleep. When we arrived the house was not clean. There are no window coverings in the bedrooms so the sun wakes you at 6:00am. There are no supplies -- no toaster, no coffee maker, no dish towels, no night stands, no coffee mugs, no wine glasses, no hangers. The downstairs AC did not work. The upstairs toilet overflowed. When we contacted the owner to let him know about the issues, he responded with "what did you expect? This is a summer rental, not the ritz." I have had very good luck on VRBO in the past and I also rent a condo on this site, so this experience was very disappointing. Watch our for this owner, Louis Carran.

Property/Unit: ******* - "Gorgeous Palm Valley Condo with Fairway, Water Mountain Views

"We have rented many units the the Palm Springs area and this unit rates on the bottom of the list. There were 2 couples renting this unit and from the beginning there were alot of rules & regulations including payment. And there was a security deposit on top.

The unit was ok except for a few things: Beds are hard, TV is old, the guest bathroom was dirty, took awhile to get the internet working, bedroom furniture very old, and there is a train that shakes the unit. (we were not told about that)

The good things: View of the golf course, use of the gold cart.

Disturbing is that it took over 2 weeks and many emails and phone calls to get our security deposit back.

I will not rent from this owner again.

VRBO was bought by a large company. This is a site for vacation renters to advertise on. It used to be a great site, but now, they hold vacational rental owners HOSTAGE with their reviews. Anyone can write a bad review even if they have not stayed in the property, and they can write anything they want. The owners pay for advertising but cannot control what some random person writes, true or not. This is unfair. The property owners are the CUSTOMER. Yes, there should be some control - verifying that the property actually exists, etc., to avoid fraud, but not just any ridiculous complaint. We are small business owners. One bad review ruins us, and since VRBO/Homeaway/VacationRentals is now a monopoly, we have no "real" choice for somewhere else to advertise. Every time a site gets popular, this company buys it up, so even though there are other sites, all the good ones are bought up by this company. Bad business.

One thing I have noticed on VRBO is if you have a bad rental, the owner can take it down and it is nearly impossible to locate bad rentals. So I figured, I would list one excellent rental and one bad rental. I am not advertising for either. I just want to avoid you to be aware of my experience and you can decide for yourself.

Bogota Vacation Rental by Owner Listing ******* - Excellent. This owner knows how to operate a rental. Top notch. I recommend this rental for your trip to Bogota. Only problem, it stays booked, so you need to look far out to get into this location.

Bogota Vacation Rental by Owner Listing ******* - Is not what is described! Completely misleading. They are nice until you get there and realize, you were mislead. They will come up with every excuse to avoid allowing you out of the rental. I advise you stay away from Bogota Vacation Rental by Owner Listing *******.

If you have other reviews, please feel free to comment. I frequently visit Bogota and am always looking for new places to stay.

The problem with VRBO is bad listing are removed by the owner, so you have no real review of complaints only compliments.