Flipkey may be worse the vrbo
 

I've spent the past week trying to negotiate and communicate directly with a property on Flipkey. They refuse to allow one on one communication. They refuse the owner to receive my phone or email address or theirs to me. The owner is canceling their account. I don't have a rental and they don't have an income.

Owners please build a webpage in which renters can communicate directly. Airbnb, vrbo and flip key have all overstepped with their authoritarian presence.

I don't know the first thing about flipkey (I actually hadn't heard of it as an alternative to airbnb and vrbo before today). Obviously, I know what you don't like about flipkey. What is it you don't like about vrbo and airbnb?

I guess I'm wondering why you need to talk one on one with the property? Assuming it's like airbnb they can message you and you can message back...

I don't like to go thru third parties with personal information. The owner has closed their account with flip key due to their refusal to allow us to communicate independently.

Dear

Thank you for attempting to reply to my request for information. Unfortunately, Trip Advisor has hidden the information you provided and is not making it available to me. I am therefore restricted to correspond with you via this "chat".

I have attempted to respond to your reservation request but keep receiving the following message from Trip Advisor: "We were unable to deliver your message to ."

This seems to be a recurring issue with requests we have received from Trip Advisor. For that reason, we have decided to stop listing our home on Trip Advisor and instead will use another option.

I am sorry that we were unable to communicate with you. We would have liked to have you as a guest at J House. Hopefully, you will be able to find our listing on the other site.

I have never had that problem with flipkey so it must be a new policy.

Must be a new policy as we have used them several times. I have figured ways around the airbnb policy. Do your email like this jim3320 @ yahoo. com or email. One house we rented was 1500 for rental fee and airbnb had my money for ten months. If you have a question while there that needs answering right away it is horrible. I needed help with the garbage pick up and how to operate the washing machine. Someone had moved the instructions for the house and tags for the garbage bags that allowed drop off at the dump. We had a party at house we rented before a wedding and had a lot of garbage. The owner lived an hour away and was able to get in contact with me after several days.
Last rental in Ireland the guy emailed me to email him at the hotel that owned the rental apartment. Darren owned both. He asked for 100.00 deposit and said to pay once there. He answered all my questions via email about the apartment. Five females and I needed answers. :)

I'm pretty sure the idea of hiring a rental management company is for owners to turn over the responsibility, and NOT have to communicate directly with renters.

That's what I though too, tabernash2...

Also, when I looked into airbnb you could ask questions about things like garbage and deposit. I asked about the arming situation and the set up and had no problem communicating through the owner. I thought you were actually encouraged to only communicate within the system because it protects the renter (if the renter shows up and the owner lied, airbnb can refuse to release the payment to the owner.) I could be wrong, but it kind of sounds like a BS answer from the host.

Admittedly, though, I never got past the inquiry stage. It felt like I had to "compete" for the place, and that's too much work. I just prefer typing in my credit card and going.

The parking situation, darn you autocorrect!

I mean for one thing they claim they attempted to respond to your reservation request and the system refused to deliver their response...yet they could send you a response telling you they couldn't deliver their response? That's just fishy to me.

Thanks macross, I did type out my email address and phone number, but flip key/tripadvisor refused to forward it to the owner as well as refusing to forward me their information they wanted to share.

The owner is no longer listed thru them as of this morning because of this.

marvelousemouse and tab, you have no pony in this show. The owner asked me to send contact information as they wanted to communicate one on one without the middle party.

Geez. It was just curiousity. If flipkey has that policy, and neither you nor the hosts like the policy, why use flipkey?

"marvelousemouse and tab, you have no pony in this show."

So you posted on a public forum for what reason, exactly, Inababy?

PS. I guess the "pony" I have in this show, is my years of experience in managing several rental properties.

But, I forget the source. It's Inababy, afterall.
Rational people need not reply.

I admit that I think vrbo is gouging and/or skimming these days, but I never had a problem communicating with owners.

Maybe (just maybe/possibly) the owner had 'issues' dealing w/ the OP and figured it was easier to blame it on Flipkey?

oops -- omitted the :-"

;)

I think you might be on to something, janisj.

I love VRBO as you communicate with the owner most of the time. We had the best guy in Dublin last trip. He owns two apartments and he was so easy to work with. Deposit when we booked and the rest of the money 30 days before. With the house rental in NY someone had taken all the house info and the garbage tags. He wanted to talk to us and we googled his name and got his phone number to work out several problems. The info had his number but was missing. I rented in Paris, Edinburgh and Boston with flipkey. You communicated with person.
Garbage has never been an issue but this place had no garbage pickup which we didn't know about due to the instruction manual being gone.

Agencies are super easy and like working with them also. VIP is one of my fav places to rent from.

<I think vrbo is gouging and/or skimming>

What does this even mean - they're a business and they're charging people for using their services?

I think this thread has jumped the shark.

I'm not sure it was on the right side of the shark to begin with;)

hahaha. Good point, mmouse.

I too have some issues with some of these online "agencies".

When I am renting a unique space, I too like to actually speak with an owner whenever possible; I would also think that it might make an owner more comfortable to actually speak with potential renters.

Most of these online sites are now blocking direct communication between owner and renter primarily so that people will not try workarounds to eliminate the website fees. This I completely understand and am fine with as long as the fee structure is reasonable. But, in the case of VRBO anyway, last year VRBO started charging renters an additional fee (on top of the large listing fee that owners already pay). This new fee does absolutely nothing for the renter and just lines the pockets of VRBO. Do a bit of research, and you'll find a ton of info about owners and renters who are furious with VRBO because of this gouging I am assuming that Flipkey is now having similar issues and owners are getting fed up.

The situation with vrbo is even worse then that julies.

Not are they only double dipping, charging on both sides. Their guarantee policy means that a renter can ask for a full refund for any bogus reason. That means that the owner is not only out the fee, they have to pay for the property to be cleaned, are then fined by vrbo and subjected to being dropped to the bottom of the listings in their area.

Moderators, you deleted the cowardly lion? That was what you found offensive? Yet the threesome can degrade my thread all they want?

Finding workarounds for fees that are outlined in the terms of agreement is in fact a violation of the terms of agreement. Again, really, why use a site if you disagree with their policies? The fees are how you pay for their service. If you aren't paying the fees, they don't want you using their service.

I am enjoying how we've been promoted from "interfering" to "degrading". What's the next badge you'll award? I'd like to know what I'm working towards...

While you are enjoying yourself…

You make me sad.

I find many apartment owners use multiple sites also.
What was wrong with the Wizard of Oz link? SMH over this thread.

>>What was wrong with the Wizard of Oz link<<

Possibly nothing but I've seen others deleted that were just links with no explanation. Maybe it was caught up in all the deleting of ads lately. Maybe post it again and see what happens . . .

Your whole thread was motivated from a dark place...you didn't want advice at all, you wanted commiseration. On the fact that flipkey didn't let you or your prospective host violate their own rules. Which I'm no fan of flipkey but I kind of feel like giving them a standing ovation after this.

Sf, if you read any recent threads about vrbo, you'll find out that they changed their policy. They used to charge a fee to the owners for a listing service, and then with little fanfare, decided to keep charging owners (different levels per annum) and now in addition renters (a sliding percentage fee). So yes, skimming and gouging.

Is that really skimming and gouging? Or is it just doing business?

It's not "double-dipping" if it's not charging the same group two times for the same thing.

Yes it is skimming and gouging, imo. I didn't use the phrase double dipping.

marvelousmouse on May 1, 17 at 3:36pm
Finding workarounds for fees that are outlined in the terms of agreement is in fact a violation of the terms of agreement. Again, really, why use a site if you disagree with their policies? The fees are how you pay for their service. If you aren't paying the fees, they don't want you using their service.

I agree. It doesn't serve any purpose to keep whining about the charges. Just don't use that company. Problem solved.

I completely agree with tabernash, whether or not I like the fact that they charge fees to both "landlords" and "tenants". That's their business model, like it or not. If not, don't use it.

sylvia,the OP used term "double dipping".
If you feel they are "skimming and gouging", don't use them.
Problem solved.

To me, as a longtime user of VRBO this is outright price gouging. It used to be that the owner paid a hefty fee to VRBO as a listing website. Then, a year ago VRBO decided to keep charging owners the same listing fee as before. But, suddenly renters were also charged a hefty fee. And, as a renter I get absolutely nothing more than I did before this fee was added. I looked into this in depth when I first found out, and discovered that as a renter there is no advantage whatsoever to me for the money I pay for that additional fee.

In the past five or so years VRBO (and its owner Homeaway) essentially gobbled up all of their smaller former competitors. So, there are not a lot of alternatives out there, and saying don't use VRBO if you don't like them is easier said than done.

Julies- I can understand your perspective. But the advantage to you as a renter is so that you can keep using vrbo. I mean, there is no advantage to consumers to pay an increase resort fees or credit card fees or nearly any other kind of fee. It's a profit for the company in question. They've got a right to charge it and they continue to do so because people pay it even if they don't like it.

I also get the takeover issue. But it's not like like you don't have other options. You can rent through a property company. You can stay at a hotel or hostel. You can camp. Vrbo will continue to charge those fees because people pay for the experience and the convenience of renting apartments. Your complaints sound like the people who complain that cities like NYC or SF or Paris make short term rentals illegal. Like those cities are actively impeding tourists' ability to visit those cities.. They're not. They're trying to eliminate the problem caused by people who don't want to pay taxes- hotel taxes, commercial business taxes, whatever.

I guess I really don't get why someone would see those fees and automatically come up with a way to not pay the fees but continue to use the service. Because that's what vrbo is trying to stop here. I would see the fees and either say either "I don't want to use vrbo anymore because it isn't worth paying those fees" or "well, I'll pay the fee because I still like the service". For one thing, I'm assuming you can get kicked off of vrbo as either renter or owner if you are caught violating their terms of service.

Good points, mm.

If you are going to contest all the fees we get charged-- start with resort fees.

Yes, that is the top of my list as well. And it's like they're a virus. One place starts charging it, soon spreads to every hotel in the area.