I looked at their Better Business Bureau info online. Although I am not a big fan of BBB, I see HomeAway has an A+ rating, despite 127 one star reviews from consumers on their own site. A complaint there does force them to respond, and it’s worth the effort. But I think the BBB system allows them to indicate that the matter is being addressed and that is ok with BBB.

Unfortunately, w are at a point in time where frauds (partly due to the internet and the digital society) are more rampant than ever, and government shows little interest. I would write up one complaint, submit it to BBB, the Florida AG office (which may require an online form: Florida Attorney General - Citizen Services Contact Form), and most TV stations in Florida have a consumer person so copies to them also might be a good idea.

Have a good trip north.

Maybe this? https://www.abta.com/help-and-compla...stomer-support

Would it matter that they're in the UK?

Hi Elizabeth, no I never did get the difference between what we sent HA and what I was refunded. I gave up not without a fight. Someone from Chris Elliot poked around, contacted them, but must have decided it wasn't newsworthy. I got a private message from travelscams.org and he asked if he could do a story, and I said go for it.

VRBO hasn't changed.........
 

Thank you so very much for posting this sad, frustrating, and incredibly informative conversation. I sincerely appreciate your efforts to share this experience, while simultaneously trying to manage it. As you can see, 2 years later, it's still being shared and read!

In celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary, we are trying to rent a villa/farmhouse for the month of June, 2022. We would like to host family and friends throughout the month. We're looking at the entire area between Lucca and Florence.

Last weekend, I started scanning the VRBO website. (Before reading your post.) As I proceeded, I took notes on rentals that might work for us. First I read the description and price, then I looked through the photos, then I identified the location on Google maps, and finally, I identified the location on Google Earth, "street view". I noticed 2 listings in Vorno......Completely different locations, different pricing, but same photos and descriptions. When I looked on Google Maps, there was no structure at the site of one of the listings. So I wrote to the "owner/manager" of the 2 listings, asking which one was the accurate location, and where was the information for the mystery listing? The owner/manager identified the legitimate rental (which I had already done via Google Earth), and stated that the mystery rental was a "computer error". However, the mystery listing hasn't been removed......It's still there. In addition, the reservation calendars for both listings show that they are completely booked from today through May 31, 2022, coincidently becoming available on June 1, 2022.

This appears to be another scam, but VRBO has done nothing to remove the mystery listing. In all fairness, I haven't reported it. However, I would hope by now, that VRBO (and all of these vacation rental sites)would have a computer program that cross-references listings. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case..........

Thanks again for sharing your horrible experiences, but saving travelers much pain, disappointment and frustration!

"In all fairness, I haven't reported it." . . . why on earth haven't you reported it??

That post doesn't make sense to me. If the owner said the supposed fraudulent listing was a "computer error", then maybe it was. And if the booking info was the same, maybe somehow one listing got started with the wrong address and wasn't taken down or the same booking info shows on both. In fact, if the owner said that, they are aware of both listings and thus I'm presuming they are both on VRBO.

So if the charge is one owner has two listings on VRBO himself and one is fraudulent, then I would notify VRBO also. May not do anything, but not sure how you could expect them to otherwise. Or maybe the charge is the owners has both listings so they are probably both fraudulent?

I don't even know how owners get the location listed on VRBO, but it's a map so I can see how that could be entered erroneously.


Google streetview isn't dynamic, they shows photos from a long time ago and some places could not have had a structure then that do now. The photo for my house is from many years ago on Google streetview, a lot of the area structure and trees aren't even the same now.

bacieabbraccio I did most of the "investigations" related to the original post and unearthed many more HomeAway (now using the parent name VRBO) fraudulent listings a couple years ago. The red flags generally were low prices, large places that could accommodate lots of people, zero reviews, highly professional photographs, almost always lifted from a real estate listing, and often not even located in the same country. I uncovered many, as shown in this thread, and HomeAway showed little interest, as with the original poster, in doing anything about it.

Having said that, I took a quick look at listings in this part of Tuscany and did not see any obvious fake listings that seemed to fit the old pattern. If you want to share the listing here or via private message, I would be happy to provide an opinion.

The bottom line with all these scams is first to do business only directly with VRBO, airbnb, booking.com and the like. Do not make any payments outside of those systems. As with the original poster, he ended up out currency exchange fees of a couple hundred dollars (and I would have demanded a return of those, even if a small claims court filing was required). Of course, had the original poster showed up, with his guests, and not found the property he thought he had rented, this would have been disastrous for him. There was a network news report on the many rental scams that have left people without a place in the US to stay at this summer as domestic travel, and hotel rates, have exploded.

I haven't reported it yet, because I haven't had the opportunity to do so. I have a health issue that raised its ugly head, right after I made the post. So I've been unable to report it at this time. I have all intentions of doing so. And I disclosed that I hadn't reported it, yet, to be completely transparent.

I use GoogleStreet because it gives me an idea of what the surroundings of the property look like, which might not be visible in the photos.....Such as I found in the property in question. The photos show a beautiful pool area below the villa. In addition, the property has a low stone wall encircling it. However, by checking GoogleStreet, I saw that the pool is indeed below the villa, however, it's below the front of the villa. On the other side of the wall, right near the pool, is the road that leads to town. So the pool area is right next to the road! I would have never seen this in the photos. GoogleStreet is just one of the tools I use when searching for accommodations. I like to take a multi-level approach.

The main points that I was trying to make.......I'm incredibly surprised that VRBO hasn't installed some kind of program that would identify/red flag cross-listings. It would be in their best interest to have a filter system in place because it would greatly reduce their risk of litigation and//or negative publicity. It's just beyond me that this issue continues........

Finally, as much as I would rather work with a private property management company in securing a rental, those companies mostly have a very strict "No Cancellation" policy. A friend of mine in Florence told me that it was because so many people were forced to cancel reservations during the first shutdown. Given that this virus is so unpredictable (and I do have an underlying health condition), I would rather secure a rental through AirBnB or VRBO, where the cancellation policies are more flexible. (In addition to securing travel insurance,)

Thank you, Whitehall.....I would be interested in seeing the network news report, or any further information, regarding these incredible scams!

As I indicated in a private message, it is much safer to find a property with some reviews (hopefully good ones). In the dozen or so fraudulent HomeAway listings in this thread, none had any reviews, nearly all had been on the site for a few months or less, and a simple reverse image revealed that the properties were from real estate listings, often in other countries. With this latest property in question, it had none of the telltale signs and there was a similar airbnb listing with one review and a host that has been verified and around for a few years. Probably not fraudulent, as I indicated privately, but I wouldn't be excited about booking a place that appears to have such little interest. I have a couple of airbnbs rented next week in Italy, to add to the many dozen we have stayed out, and we have never encountered a problem. Airbnb lists reviews in chronological order, without hiding bad reviews like booking.com does. We recently stayed in a terrible US vacation rental, based on only looking at the "relevant" reviews that are the default on booking.com. They clearly want to keep their landlords happy and hide reviews like ours that reported the filth and bugs that we (and many others) have reported at this property. Next time on booking.com we will sort the reviews and spend a little more time. We generally stay away from VRBO after the terrible experience with HomeAway a couple years ago. They not only did not make simple efforts to detect fraud at least at that time, but they seemed to show no interest when the original poster or I uncovered examples. I believe the network news report was on NBC Nightly News last week.

Thank you sooo very much, Whitehall, for all of your help! I still find it odd that there are two different locations/listings on VRBO for the same set of photos. Especially after having pointed this out to the owner/agent, and the only thing that was adjusted was that the two different pricings were made equivalent. I also find the calendar to be odd......Completely booked until June 1, the first day of my intended reservation. However, the manner in which you investigated the listings has given me new tools to use as I proceed with this process. And I sincerely appreciate the AirBnB recommendation......No more VRBO! Grazie Mille!

I'm surprised that this thread keeps going but sad that this problem still exists. You'd think that two years later VRBO would have developed better screening programs. I can't imagine a family saving their money, looking forward to needed vacation, only to show up at a place that doesn't exist. My experience as I recall was mostly incredible frustration at incompetence and seemingly lack of caring by VRBO. If I recall, Whitehall detected the fraud in about 10 minutes, yet it took several weeks and many hours of explaining things for VRBO to acknowledge it and refund me. Shame on them but so grateful for all the folks here to stepped up and helped out.

Our trip was fun. We (me, wife, three kids and their three partners) went to Zurich, stayed at Storchen Hotel, visited Lucerne, then took the Bernina Express through Alps to Lake Como (Lenno).

My wife and I leave for a new vacation Friday (postponed from last year) to Denmark, Belgium and Holland. Our new challenge is interpreting the conflicting and convoluted Covid info from the airlines and CDC. Of course we had booked non-refundable hotels so I had to beg them to allow us to stay at their hotels a year later. All but one said OK. Fingers crossed.

Mike

Mike, safe travels to you and yours. We fly to Rome on Sunday and also are hoping for the best. We have travel insurance that covers Covid, just in case. Your hotels should be safe from fraud. One of our airbnbs is for one month, so we are hoping our research will pay off. (On that Sunday morning, when you made your initial post on this thread, I doubt you would have thought it would generate nearly 80,000 page views).

Same to you, Rome sounds awesome, and warmer weather for sure. Six hotels and one Airbnb scheduled. Bon voyage!

The trip we had to cancel last Spring due to COVID, was supposed to be 5-7 days in Milan & Venice, then a 10-day road trip through Switzerland. So happy to hear that you had a wonderful experience.(We also love traveling w/our 2 adult daughters!)

Hope you're upcoming trip is also successful! And again, thank you for sharing your experience with VRBO each step of along the way.......I was incredibly clueless!

Dear Kisses and Hugs, bon voyage to you also!