Complaint Review: VRBO

I booked a rental on VRBO for "the barn" in Cottonwood, AZ.  In the profile for the rental, the OWNER's cancelation police stated, "100% refund for cancellation more than 60 days before check-in date."  I booked the rental Aug 1, immediately had issues with the owner, so I canceled Aug 4 for a planned October 15th stay, which was more than 60 days.  The owner only refunded $158.00 out of the $374.00 deposit because she claimed that her own policy superceeds the one posted on the VRBO ad--which was only provided to me AFTER the booking, which I booked based on the advertised policy. We emailed back and forth about the policy and she still refuses to give the refund. This is false advertising and completely dishonest--to me it is theft. But the reason why I am making this report about VRBO is because of the way the case was handled.

I called VRBO to make a complaint and all three people that I spoke to agreed with me that she needed to give a full refund based on what they were seeing on her profile. The only way to see the rental agreement in which she has her own cancellation policy is to book the rental--so there is no way to know about it or agree to it. They said she would be contacted, etc, and after a week the owner was still refusing to give a refund, and she had not even changed the wording of the cancelation policy to accurately inform renters of the policy prior to booking.  When I emailed the owner about this, she forwarded me her emails back and forth from VRBO, and here are some exerpts from these emails:

OWNER:

" I was advised by a VRBO rep, when VRBO added its forced-choice policy , that I could continue my own policy if I clearly stated my policy on my rental agreement and in my house rules and that my owner';s policy supersedes VRBOs cancellation policy. I have that clearly stated in the first paragraph of both my rental agreement and house rules and in my first emails to booked guests and it's on the website. I was assured by a VRBO rep as recently as yesterday that a guest must agree to the rental agreement before booking which assures me that the guest knew the cancellation policy."

Actually, the only policy visible to the renter upon booking is the 100% refund above 60 days.  But the important thing here is that VRBO is aware that Mary's policy that she is holding the renters to is NOT the same policy that is advertised on the website on which the renter's choice to book is based, and they are ok with it!!!!

Here is more from the email:

OWNER:

 "Attached are copies of my rental agreement and a copy of the house rules--both of which are agreed to, according to your rep, before a booking can be completed with "Book Now"; it also appears on the website in the rates field. I have been assured by two representatives that I have done all of the right things. Part of the problem, of course, is the forced choice policy itself."  

Even if I agree to abide by the terms of a rental agreement when I click "book,"  I was not provided with the rental agreement prior to booking, I received it by email from the owner AFTER booking, so policies contained in it cannot conflict with the policies that were chosen to appear on the website.  This is even stated in VRBO's cancellation policy conditions: "Please note that if you choose to upload a rental agreement, it must not conflict with the cancellation policies you have selected [to appear on the website]."

So here's the worst part:  VRBO knows that this woman's profile is extremely deceptive to users, they are not accepting any responsibility for this and they are even allowing her to continue renting out her place using the same deceptive profile.  Here is an excerpt from their email to her:

VRBO:

"We have made thorough notes of your comments and explanation of this unfortunate situation and now consider this case closed.
All feedback is forwarded to owners, and we understand there are going to be miscommunications and unintentional circumstances that arise. At this time your account is still in good standing.

Keep in mind complaints are not visible to the public. Travelers are not allowed access to complaints on your account due to privacy laws."

Misunderstanding?  You mean misrepresentation.  And you're not going to do anything about it?  Suspend her account and do not allow her to rent to any more people until 1) she fulfills her legal obligation and refunds my money and 2) changes the language on her profile so that it is very clear to the renter what the actual policy is prior to booking.  

So I called the represenative again and here's basically VRBO's stance.  First of all, they can't make her pay me back because she is a private business owner just using VRBO to conduct her own business.  VRBO has nothing to do with it.  B.S.  VRBO gets a cut of every transaction she makes (includind deposits kept from cancellations). It's not a free site.  Therefore, they are business partners.  If they know what she is doing is deceptive, the had better stop it immediately and refuse to continue doing business with her until she makes good on her contractual obligations.  They can indeed suspend her account and not allow her to rent to anyone until this situaiton is corrected, but they won't.  What they did instead was told me to call Visa and constest the charges.  So it's Visa's problem? This, by the way, is  the Book with Confidence Guarantee™ from HomeAway.  First you have to delay everything by waiting for the VRBO reps to do nothing about it.  Then you need to contact your credit card company to fight the charges, which have already been paid while you were waiting for VRBO to be responsible.  Geez.  Thanks for the guarantee.  Needless to say I plan to keep pursuing this until the responsible parties pay.