Complaint Review: Steven Carter Dana Point Vacation Rental California USA - Internet

This is an official complaint against a California Real Estate agent Steven Carter who rents his vacation property in Dana Point, California.

Real Estate agent's name: Mr. Steven Carter

State: California, USA

 Short description of background:

• On November 11, 2014 my wife called Mr. Carter and paid him via PayPal $1,081 US to reserve his rental property in Dana Point, California. My wife asked Mr. Carter twice about the cancellation policy and Mr. Carter said it should be on his website. His two websites are as follows:

            http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p256678 - reviewsPage2

            http://www.vrbo.com/247238

• We trusted Mr. Carter and gave him the money via PayPal. Shortly after I sent an email to Mr Carter telling him that we could not find the cancellation policy in his website and asked him to direct us to that information (this email has been saved). Mr. Carter has not even responded to that email. Eventually we found that the cancellation policy was not on the website as Mr. Carter claimed.
• On November 14, 2014 I was diagnosed with a heart condition. During the following 3.5 weeks I called several health insurance companies to see if they could insure us while we stayed in the US since we live in British Columbia, Canada. I found that no health insurance company would insure a newly diagnosed heart condition like that.
• On December 03, 2014 my wife called Mr. Carter and told him the facts and cancelled our trip for the month of March 2015. Mr. Carter informed my wife that no refund will be given. His reasoning was that we reserved the unit and now he would be out 50% the rental amount if he can not rent his condo. It is worth to mention here that we cancelled after three weeks of the reservation essentially leaving Mr. Carter three days short of  three more months still to try to rent his condo. We also sent a letter to Mr. Carter requesting a refind which we filed under the title of  'Jan 03 2015 letter to Steven Carter'.
• On December 05, 2014 we filed a complaint with our financial institution PC Financial by completing their complaint form and attaching our 'Jan 03 2015 letter to Steven Carter' document. We filed this letter under the title of  'Letter to PC Financial'.
• On December 06, 2015 we responded to Mr. Carter's January 03, 2015 response and outlined the consequences if he does not refund our $1,081 deposit. We filed this letter under the title of  'Jan 06 2015 Response to Steven Carter'.
• On December 08, 2015 PC Financial refunded the Canadian equivalent of our $1,081 US down payment. In addition they have contacted PayPal.
• PayPal informed me on January 13, 2015 that they turned the case over to their fraud specialist (PayPal  Case ID is available if required).
• On January 21, 2015 my PayPal web page indicated that Steven Carter reversed our payment to PayPal and the case was closed. I sent and email to PayPal asking what were the details of the closure. I received an email from PayPal which I summarized in a document titled 'Steven Carter - PayPal payment reversal - Jan212015'. This document is also on file.

 The bottom line: 

1. We received our down payment after more than two months of hassle, so we do not have any demand for monetary compensation.
2. Our bottom line is that both PC Financial and PayPal agreed with our complaint and forced Mr. Carter to reverse the payment to PayPal which in turn reversed the payment to PC Financial which in turn refunded our money.
3. We are submitting this complaint because my wife and I feel that Mr. Carter's business practices are unethical and misleading. He follows deceitful tactics when renting out his vacation property. We want to ensure  that other potential renters are warned to make sure they get Mr. Carter's cancellation policy in writing. We would like to see Mr. Carter change his practice of not showing his cancellation policy on his 'vrbo.com' website  and of burying his recently added cancellation policy (only after our complaint) on his 'homeway.com' website in a lower level web page in the "Instant Quote" section. In addition, we feel that his cancellation policy should be clearly visible on both websites. When customers ask him verbally for his policy of 'cancelled bookings receive no refunds' he should tell customers this at the time of the initial booking when asked so they can make an informed decision either to rent or not.
4. In reality, Mr. Carter should not have such an unfair policy in the first place. He should  not essentially take money from potential customers without providing any value, especially when the cancellation is made nearly three months before the actual commencement of the rental period. If Mr. Carter's cancellation policy is so simple as 'cancelled booking will not receive a refund' why did Mr. Carter not say it when my wife asked him on the phone before the booking and why did he tell her on another phone call that February 1st was the deadline for cancellation when he had no intention of refunding our down payment under any circumstances. Why did he say his policy was on the 'homeaway.com' website when it wasn't there. When we were in the process of booking his unit, I sent him an email asking him to direct me to his cancellation policy since it could not be found. He didn't respond to my email about where the policy was located. By the way, his cancelation policy still is not written anywhere on the 'vrbo.com' website, which advertises the same rental unit.

I already sent a written complaint to the Department of Consumer Affairs, Bureau of Real Estate, Government of California. In addition, we are in the process to complain against MrSteve Carter officially on the 'vrbo.com' website.

Warning to Potential customers: BEWARE and get the cancellation policy in writing BEFORE the booking or do not have any business with Steven Carter.