Sept. 16, 2026
RENTER BEWARE: DO NOT Rent From Vrbo Before You Hear This Episode!
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RSS Feed We recorded this episode as a public service to anyone who is considering using Vrbo for their next vacation. Sadly, we were loyal customers for several years, renting through Vrbo multiple times a year. However, when we had such a difficult experience at a home over the summer, the homeowner refunded a percentage of our prepaid rental fee, only to have Vrbo, days later take $5,000 from us without asking, and without explanation. After hours on the phone, multiple calls, and multiple emails where all parties agreed we had NOTHING to do with an insurance claim, Vrbo has still refused to return money that wasn’t never meant to be charged to our our credit card. Everyone who is thinking about renting a home, needs to hear our story first.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:02
Speaker 1: This is not like us, and I don't know if we have ever done something like this. But folks, do not rent from Verbo before you hear what we are about to say. And with that, welcome to this episode that we didn't intend on doing and thought it might be light and thought it might be fun, but I just had another 45-minute conversation With Vrbo, refusing to give us an amount of money, a significant amount, robes, that they stole from us.
00:00:40
Speaker 2: They actually did. I didn't think this was possible.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: It's possible. And they won't give it back.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: We have been using Vrbo for the last four years.
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Can again.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Religiously. We actually, as of this recording, we're actually staying in a Vrbo this upcoming weekend.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: Accidentally. Those.
00:00:59
Speaker 2: It was booked a long time ago, but I can assure you, we can assure you that after this experience, we will never, ever, ever, ever book from Vrbo again. And honestly, I would say we were booking Vrbo's at least three to five times a year for the last four years and have been big fans of Vrbo. But I didn't realize, and we'll ask you, did you realize that Vrbo... can just take your card and charge it without asking. After you've already paid your full amount, you've already stayed at your vacation rental, and say there was an issue with the house that had nothing to do with you that the homeowner didn't actually charge you for, in fact, gave you a refund because it was such a hassle. And Vrbo, instead of accepting responsibility for the insurance policy that they give homeowners, passed on the fee to us and charged us without any warning, without any explanation, and now without any recourse. They charged our card $ 5, 000, and they won't give our money back, even though the homeowner- They won't give it back. I have multiple, we're going to read this, has said- They refuse to give it back. Do not charge the renter. This has nothing to do with the renter. This has to do with the insurance company.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: To be clear here, folks, this is, and again, we have, this is actually, Robes, a fairly worthy warning that people need to hear. Okay, we are blessed that we don't, our bills are still being paid and $ 5, 000 is gone. That at this moment, we don't have any confidence we will ever see again. Vrbo has literally stolen our money. And every time we talk to them, they repeat that they've stolen it and that they're looking into it.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: We have written affirmation, confirmation from them saying, we believe we made a mistake. I've been told by Omar that they made a mistake. You've been told by Shefali and someone else. Ethan. Ethan, that they made a mistake. And we've been told we're going to get our money back. And then we never get it back. And then when we call them back, we're told... What are you talking about?
00:03:26
Speaker 1: Okay, and again, we want to make sure this isn't just some conflict or disagreement over overpayment, over you charged me the wrong amount. The transaction was done.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: We left the home.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: And Verbo took our money. Okay, Robes. And folks, this is, we try to explain it the best we can. But homeowners have insurance policies.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: Correct. Right? Yes.
00:03:59
Speaker 1: For if something happens to their home, when you as a renter rent, you're paying an amount that just goes towards paying for insurance. If the owner then has a problem with the home, the owner can trigger that insurance, which then, verbo, covers the damage done. Up to $ 5, 000. Do I have that right?
00:04:23
Speaker 2: That's correct.
00:04:24
Speaker 1: So what happened in our instance is that the homeowner triggered that insurance. But instead of charging the homeowner or charging Vrbo the $ 5, 000, they take it from us. And Vrbo won't give it back to us. It's where we are. Robes, it's one of the worst feelings in the world when somebody owes you money. when it's money that is yours and you can't get it if somebody won't give it to you. Robes, this is a company that's laughing in our face repeatedly. It's putting up stupid ass commercials about you get the whole place We have been robbed of $ 5, 000.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: And if they can do it to us, they can and will do it to anybody.
00:05:12
Speaker 1: How many people are getting hit? I think most would notice a $ 5, 000 hit.
00:05:16
Speaker 2: We got an email saying, we're charging your card $ 5, 000. And it was obviously, I was super confused, immediately contacted the homeowner because here's the deal. We actually had a pretty horrific stay. And we're not blaming the homeowners, but something happened. This is an older home. This was very expensive. It is the most expensive Vrbo experience we've ever had because we decided, you and I sat down and we said, we want to take a couple weeks and relocate. We're in an apartment in Manhattan. And we saved up money and we said, let's just do this. Let's just bring all the girls. Let's get a home. and let's spend some real family time and invest some of our hard-earned money into this home. And for the last several days, we were living in a, I hate to say cesspool, but the pipes and the plumbing basically had a leak or burst coming down through the ceiling, water was coming up from the floor, and we lived for four days with sopping wet floors, workers in and out of the home. And it was such a disturbance in our last four days of our vacation that we ended up not really even spending that much time in the home. It started smelling dank. Where we were sleeping was literally almost underwater. And the homeowner actually recognized what was going on and gave us a couple of different issues. In total, what amounted to $ 5, 000 as a credit because of all of the hardship and disruption we faced while staying at his home.
00:06:58
Speaker 1: But this is not a matter at this point. We have no beef with Verbo about the house.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: No.
00:07:03
Speaker 1: We don't have any issue at this point with Verbo. We got the refund. This was a crappy experience. It sucked. We'll move on.
00:07:10
Speaker 2: Fine.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: We didn't have an issue at that point with Verbo. We leave in robes. Now, this seems like a scheme almost that we thought the homeowner was up to something. And triggered something and did something behind our back to trigger it to make sure we got charged and he didn't get charged.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: Correct. So we actually sent a very direct text to the homeowner basically saying that we were accusing the homeowner of sticking us with their bill. And he very clearly wrote back and said, I said, we must have received this message in error. Surely you did not give us a refund for $ 5, 000 and then go behind our backs and charge us through Vrbo for the $ 5, 000 back. He writes back, Amy, you did receive that message in error and we are not trying to trick you. I spent three hours on the phone with Vrbo escalating this issue and asked the representative to convey our concerns to you. And he said, I will just copy and paste our message sent to Vrbo so that you have a record of exactly what we communicated and so that we can be fully transparent. So he sends me a copy of the email to Vrbo. Hi, Omar. I just spoke with Helen, a supervisor, and we talked through the issue. We have always had damage protection coverage of up to $ 5, 000. When I submitted this claim, it was my understanding that this coverage was still in place. I have since learned that somehow Vrbo changed our coverage to card on file, which was our card, without any notification to us. Helen is currently researching what happened, but in the meantime, she asked me to forward you the receipts and documentation for the damage claim. In doing so, I want to make it perfectly clear that I expect Vrbo to cover the $ 5, 000 damage claim and not charge the traveler. If our damage protection coverage would change without our knowledge, this needs to still be Vrbo's responsibility. If you speak with the traveler, which is us, please convey this to them as well as I'm sure they are quite upset. And I want them to understand that I am asking Vrbo to resolve this issue and cover the claim rather than holding them personally responsible for the $ 5, 000. And by the way, babe, that was a full month ago. A full month ago.
00:09:36
Speaker 1: Two calls. A full month ago, I was on the phone with Verbo for an hour and nine minutes on August the 27th. As of this recording, it's September the 16th, and I was just on the phone again for another 43 minutes. And it's sitting in the same place, nothing, nowhere, getting you nothing, giving you nothing. The same thing both times. The hour nine call, they went through, actually got the owner on the phone on the other end, confirmed once again, and got off the phone and he said, yep, five to seven days. That was 18 days ago.
00:10:09
Speaker 2: They said we would get our $ 5, 000 back in five to seven business days, 18 days ago.
00:10:15
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, the problem that's triggered this now is that yes, I should have, but we should have been able to call, and they said, oh, crap, it wasn't processed. Oh, crap, this got lost. No, no, no, no, no, no. The woman gets on the phone and actually tells me she's reviewed the whole thing, and she'll have to go back and get back to you to tell you whether or not we think we're going to give you your money back. She is not confirming what the owner has confirmed and two previous of her employees have confirmed. What they've told us is that they're going to give us the money. Robes, I don't... This is a... This is bizarre. With Verbo, the behavior of a... Do they know? Is this supposed to be? Is this funny? Like, is this a part of making money? Is to screw people over like this? I wonder.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I just think everyone who has ever rented a Verbo or is thinking about renting a Verbo needs to know because my big whoa moment was that Verbo... could just charge a card that you had on file with the homeowner when and however.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: We didn't authorize that.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: They want to. They didn't ask. They didn't check. They told us after the fact, and I checked our bank account, and they took $ 5, 000. I didn't know that a business could do that. I didn't know that that was... standard practice for Vrbo, but I just feel like everyone should know because basically if you stay in a home, if that home has an electrical issue, if that home, I don't know, what if you, what if there was storm damage while you were at the home? If there was a, any sort of issue with that home that had nothing to do with you, you, we have learned can be held responsible for thousands of dollars for a home you don't own. that you did not damage, and that you have no responsibility to, and yet Vrbo can still take your money. I just got an email from Vrbo. Shall I read it? This will be the first you're hearing it. This is right after you got off the phone. Dear Amy, this is Shefali.
00:12:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Shefali wasn't feeling me, was she?
00:12:31
Speaker 2: Well, it's just my name is on the reservation, so that's probably why.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: Oh, no, no, no. I'm saying she wrote immediately.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: Dear Amy, yes. This is Shefali, supervisor with the Vrbo Resolutions team. Thank you for your patience. We're not feeling patient.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: If I hear that one more time.
00:12:49
Speaker 2: We are not patient. That's actually almost dumb.
00:12:51
Speaker 1: It's insulting.
00:12:51
Speaker 2: At this point, passive aggressive. We would like to let you know that we are currently working on your refund request regarding the refundable damage deposit that was charged to your reservation. At this time, we have contacted the host. and strongly suggested that they process the refund directly back to you as soon as possible.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: No, no, no. Thank you for doing that. Verbo, please get it together. That is horse shit. They charged us.
00:13:26
Speaker 2: Verbo charged us, not the host.
00:13:27
Speaker 1: Go back to him. So go get your money from somebody who didn't take it from you.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: He didn't take it from us, and he's made it very clear.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: How would you like to respond to that?
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Oh, it continues.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: Please.
00:13:39
Speaker 2: We are actively following up with them and seeking an update on the status of your refund. They are literally telling the host that they have to pay us the $ 5, 000 that they took from us. If the host does not provide a resolution with a reasonable timeframe, Vrbo will review the case and take ownership of the matter to determine the appropriate next steps and assist in reaching a resolution immediately. We've had this conversation with them.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: For a full- Can you hit reply? Let's do this right now. Can you hit reply to her? Robes and Verbo, if this is, please stand by your customer service and that's fine. And I know we're blessed. Thank goodness our bills are still being paid. This is so infuriating to be treated this way. This is so infuriating. Well, this is... It's comical at this point. All right, Verbo.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: Look, I think everyone's gotten the runaround from their cable company, but this is a significant amount of money.
00:14:36
Speaker 1: Shevali?
00:14:37
Speaker 2: You want me to.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, write this. Shevali? Whatever her name is.
00:14:40
Speaker 2: Fine, but Shevali. But every time I write them back, they never respond.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: Okay, Shevali. Just letting you know.
00:14:45
Speaker 2: Shevali.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Your response is not only unacceptable, but frankly shocking. You, Verbo, took the money... and are telling us to go get it back from someone else, we absolutely will not be reaching out to the owner, and we expect once again for you all to give us the money that you took from us, and we expect it immediately. I await your response. What are we supposed to do? This is now comical. Verbo, y'all are, this is, do they still do those commercials? Verbal. You get the whole place to yourself. What is that thing? The thing they do? I just, just to be warned, just a heads up. Will we get our money back? I really doubt it at this point. They literally have stolen money. Do we have a case?
00:15:37
Speaker 2: Well, no, I actually think at this point we need to get a lawyer. And honestly, if anyone.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: I don't want a lawyer. I want a police officer. I want... Sweetheart, isn't this grand theft? What is the amount of.
00:15:49
Speaker 1: Robes, you have been stolen from you from a company that admits they stole it and are laughing at us. They literally told us to go somewhere else to get this money back. Okay, Robes, you good?
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I didn't, you talked too fast, so I'm having to like, do what I'm doing.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: Okay, well, it's all right then. So Rose, how are we supposed to handle this to this point?
00:16:23
Speaker 2: I would say that....
00:16:26
Speaker 1: No, you check out on me. I'm trying to get you to stay here with me. You're checking out on me.
00:16:29
Speaker 2: I would say that we, I do think that we need to, first of all, this episode, we're going to put it out. We're going to tag them. I'm going to put the, we don't do a lot of social media. I'll put this out on social media because I feel like at this point, it's the only way you can get companies to actually pay attention to you is to To flood social media, to let other people know what your experience is, to let other people know that you've been fighting for a full month to get money back that was never supposed to be taken from you. And the fact that they're giving us the runaround and that they're doing it to us, they're obviously doing it to other people.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: This is a part of their business model.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: The only recourse I can think of is to publicly blast this out as much as possible and let folks know just buyer beware or renter beware, I guess, is what this should be. That should be the name of our episode.
00:17:15
Speaker 1: Does Airbnb have the same policy? And we just haven't gotten hit with it.
00:17:18
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's something that we absolutely need to check out because that was obviously what I wanted to do next was to just simply and solely and strictly use Airbnb. We like the idea. We love it. We love staying in homes and apartments rather than hotels. We love the idea of feeling like we're locals wherever we go. There's something really fun and unique about that experience. And it's sad to think that the company that's managing Vrbo is also willing to operate like this and to be deceptive and to make it incredibly difficult to actually speak to someone, get resolution. I mean, the fact that we... And look, we're... We are and have been investigative journalists for most of our career. We know how we've been tasked before in local news departments to get people's money back for them. We actually, I would say, have a lot of experience in tracking people down and figuring out how to get resolution and coming to conclusions and getting to the truth. And if we're having this much trouble for the past, it's been... nearly six weeks, and we still, every time we call, when we talk to someone at Vrbo, it's as if it's the first time they're ever hearing about it, when we know, based on emails and documentation from our own experience and the homeowners, that at least five to six different verbal representatives and managers or supervisors have overseen this process and they're all going like this, deliberately trying to avoid responsibility or taking any kind of accountability.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: That email is, that is exhibit A. We haven't been off the phone with her for 30 minutes and she sends an email completely, completely, Opposite of everything she told me on the phone. She telling me our team is looking at it to get this to you and to do all this. She writes us and say, good luck getting it from the owner. That was it. Good luck. Let us know how it goes. Verbo, that's awful. I mean, damn, Verbo. I mean, fine. Okay. I mean, thank goodness. And again, this isn't a matter of it. There are some things in your life robes that just irk you. Rub you, this isn't the biggest thing in the world. It's the biggest issue in the world. It's not, we'd argue, not that big of a deal.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: In the world.
00:19:46
Speaker 1: It's not. But you know what? We also had a story. to tell. And I don't know who else and how many others are getting screwed by this company. Because this isn't random and we got this unlucky.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: No. And I think that, look, you can do everything right. And We are not litigious people. I've never sued anybody in my entire life. Obviously, there have been plenty of occasions when I could have and maybe should have.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: We have to sue to get our money back.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: But it's folks, so much of us, I think most people aren't, I'm going to sue you, I'm going to get you. You just want things to be fair. And we know life isn't fair and things happen and mistakes get made and clerical errors happen. But when you have someone, a company like Vrbo... repeatedly not taking accountability, giving you mixed messages, giving you mixed signals, having different managers, different supervisors telling you completely different outcomes, promising you completely different things, sending you emails that don't jibe with the conversation you had, it does feel like there is a deliberate attempt to deceive, to confuse, to delay, and to.
00:21:02
Speaker 2: Be anything but transparent. And this is certainly not a company that we will ever do business with again. And we would just encourage anybody, seriously, at the very least, the biggest mistake we made, which we are going to rectify immediately is have, we unfortunately paid for this Vrbo on our debit card. So the money is gone. Like there's no, like if you put it on a certain kind of credit card, you could use your credit card, the muscle from them to reject the funds or retrieve the funds. When you have it taken from your checking account, ain't nothing you can do about it other than to sue at this point.
00:21:37
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? Verbo has stolen money from us, and they're laughing at us with Chevalli sending emails saying that money we took from you, go try to get it from somebody else. That's the kind of dismissiveness we have gotten throughout the process. Actually, this is... Verbo, this is sad.
00:21:56
Speaker 2: Babe, this is a really important email that I read because I actually have in writing Verbo talking about making a mistake. Listen to this. This was dated August 20th. Okay. So again, almost a month ago. Dear Amy, this is Wimolin from Verbo. Thank you for your patience as we work on your case. I guess they always start like that. Yep. We are reaching out to inform you that we have received a report concerning the damage protection settings on your recent booking. The host reported that the protection was originally set to third-party insurance with a $ 119 premium and a $ 5, 000 coverage, but was changed without authorization to a credit card hold, which was our credit card. So, as a result, the $ 5, 000 was automatically charged to your card. We are currently investigating... whether this change was caused by a system glitch. I have this in writing. If the investigation confirms the unauthorized change, Vrbo should take proper action on this. Should. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this matter. They literally said, looks like it was a glitch on our part. The $ 5, 000 should have been applied to their insurance and and instead was charged to your card.
00:23:22
Speaker 1: When do you let this go?
00:23:23
Speaker 2: You don't let it go.
00:23:24
Speaker 1: You can't let them take $ 5, 000. What is somebody supposed to do? They stole $ 5, 000 from us. I mean, it's not the end of the world. There are bigger problems in the world, right? But beware, folks, and we have to say it. I mean, it's not we won't. We can't. It's impossible. We cannot ever use verbal again. And they seem okay with that. And that's fine. They've got plenty of customers. Big business. I guess they're doing great. But they don't seem to give a damn about losing a customer after they robbed us. We got your $ 5, 000. We don't ever have to have you rent with us again. That is incredible. That is incredible. But, folks, just be careful. Please, Vrbo, if you're renting from Vrbo, please... I don't know what to warn people to do, baby, because if they decide to do this, you're going to be in this exact same spot fighting for money that they're going to tell you you're not going to get back.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: It's crazy. And by the way, when it says, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, I immediately responded and said, can I please get an update? No response. I emailed again, no response.
00:24:32
Speaker 1: All right, Verbo.
00:24:33
Speaker 2: So that's Verbo. That's how they're operating right now. And we just felt like, honestly, as a public serviceâ We needed to let people know that this can happen. Obviously, it has happened, and it's almost certainly going to happen again. We just hope it doesn't happen to you.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: All right. Well, there won't be an update on this because I am confident we're not going to get our money. We have to sue Verbo. Sue Verbo to get money back. I don't know. At what point, though, is it this is not a dispute over money?
00:25:02
Speaker 2: No, they just took money that they weren't supposed to take. They just took it. That we had nothing to do with. It was about their insurance issue. It had nothing to do with us. And somehow now we're paying for the homeowner's insurance coverage.
00:25:18
Speaker 1: All right, so folks, be warned, beware. We will not be giving... That's just $ 5, 000 gone. It's just no matter what, baby, that's good. That's just hard to stomach. It's somebody doing that.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: Again, we are lucky enough that it isn't life changing, but it is still in principle, just so, so, so, so disappointing at the least and beyond frustrating. And, and it's hard not to get angry. I know it's good to have the perspective of where this falls in, in tough, Tough times, but it's still just something that shouldn't happen. And we just wanted to help prevent it from happening to any of you all who are listening.
00:26:02
Speaker 1: We don't do this a lot. I think we have a couple of restaurants like this, but it's how many companies that we just know we refuse. We cannot use this company again. That's, I hate that.
00:26:14
Speaker 2: We're big consumers. We love to enjoy our time off, whether we're eating or- you know, traveling, and it's just, how you treat your customers, no matter who you are, it matters, and eventually it will catch up to them.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: You know, kindness is one thing. It also helps to not rob them.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: Or lie to them, or give them the runaround.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: There's that, too.
00:26:36
Speaker 2: Or make it incredibly difficult to talk to anybody.
00:26:40
Speaker 1: All right, folks. We appreciate you letting us vent a little, and I hope you maybe got something out of that. People rent all the time. Please. We're not telling you not to rent from Vrbo. That's on you. But if you're going to, you need to know these folks will rob you and won't give you your money back. And we'll call it a glitch. We're out of here.
Speaker 1: This is not like us, and I don't know if we have ever done something like this. But folks, do not rent from Verbo before you hear what we are about to say. And with that, welcome to this episode that we didn't intend on doing and thought it might be light and thought it might be fun, but I just had another 45-minute conversation With Vrbo, refusing to give us an amount of money, a significant amount, robes, that they stole from us.
00:00:40
Speaker 2: They actually did. I didn't think this was possible.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: It's possible. And they won't give it back.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: We have been using Vrbo for the last four years.
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Can again.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Religiously. We actually, as of this recording, we're actually staying in a Vrbo this upcoming weekend.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: Accidentally. Those.
00:00:59
Speaker 2: It was booked a long time ago, but I can assure you, we can assure you that after this experience, we will never, ever, ever, ever book from Vrbo again. And honestly, I would say we were booking Vrbo's at least three to five times a year for the last four years and have been big fans of Vrbo. But I didn't realize, and we'll ask you, did you realize that Vrbo... can just take your card and charge it without asking. After you've already paid your full amount, you've already stayed at your vacation rental, and say there was an issue with the house that had nothing to do with you that the homeowner didn't actually charge you for, in fact, gave you a refund because it was such a hassle. And Vrbo, instead of accepting responsibility for the insurance policy that they give homeowners, passed on the fee to us and charged us without any warning, without any explanation, and now without any recourse. They charged our card $ 5, 000, and they won't give our money back, even though the homeowner- They won't give it back. I have multiple, we're going to read this, has said- They refuse to give it back. Do not charge the renter. This has nothing to do with the renter. This has to do with the insurance company.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: To be clear here, folks, this is, and again, we have, this is actually, Robes, a fairly worthy warning that people need to hear. Okay, we are blessed that we don't, our bills are still being paid and $ 5, 000 is gone. That at this moment, we don't have any confidence we will ever see again. Vrbo has literally stolen our money. And every time we talk to them, they repeat that they've stolen it and that they're looking into it.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: We have written affirmation, confirmation from them saying, we believe we made a mistake. I've been told by Omar that they made a mistake. You've been told by Shefali and someone else. Ethan. Ethan, that they made a mistake. And we've been told we're going to get our money back. And then we never get it back. And then when we call them back, we're told... What are you talking about?
00:03:26
Speaker 1: Okay, and again, we want to make sure this isn't just some conflict or disagreement over overpayment, over you charged me the wrong amount. The transaction was done.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: We left the home.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: And Verbo took our money. Okay, Robes. And folks, this is, we try to explain it the best we can. But homeowners have insurance policies.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: Correct. Right? Yes.
00:03:59
Speaker 1: For if something happens to their home, when you as a renter rent, you're paying an amount that just goes towards paying for insurance. If the owner then has a problem with the home, the owner can trigger that insurance, which then, verbo, covers the damage done. Up to $ 5, 000. Do I have that right?
00:04:23
Speaker 2: That's correct.
00:04:24
Speaker 1: So what happened in our instance is that the homeowner triggered that insurance. But instead of charging the homeowner or charging Vrbo the $ 5, 000, they take it from us. And Vrbo won't give it back to us. It's where we are. Robes, it's one of the worst feelings in the world when somebody owes you money. when it's money that is yours and you can't get it if somebody won't give it to you. Robes, this is a company that's laughing in our face repeatedly. It's putting up stupid ass commercials about you get the whole place We have been robbed of $ 5, 000.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: And if they can do it to us, they can and will do it to anybody.
00:05:12
Speaker 1: How many people are getting hit? I think most would notice a $ 5, 000 hit.
00:05:16
Speaker 2: We got an email saying, we're charging your card $ 5, 000. And it was obviously, I was super confused, immediately contacted the homeowner because here's the deal. We actually had a pretty horrific stay. And we're not blaming the homeowners, but something happened. This is an older home. This was very expensive. It is the most expensive Vrbo experience we've ever had because we decided, you and I sat down and we said, we want to take a couple weeks and relocate. We're in an apartment in Manhattan. And we saved up money and we said, let's just do this. Let's just bring all the girls. Let's get a home. and let's spend some real family time and invest some of our hard-earned money into this home. And for the last several days, we were living in a, I hate to say cesspool, but the pipes and the plumbing basically had a leak or burst coming down through the ceiling, water was coming up from the floor, and we lived for four days with sopping wet floors, workers in and out of the home. And it was such a disturbance in our last four days of our vacation that we ended up not really even spending that much time in the home. It started smelling dank. Where we were sleeping was literally almost underwater. And the homeowner actually recognized what was going on and gave us a couple of different issues. In total, what amounted to $ 5, 000 as a credit because of all of the hardship and disruption we faced while staying at his home.
00:06:58
Speaker 1: But this is not a matter at this point. We have no beef with Verbo about the house.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: No.
00:07:03
Speaker 1: We don't have any issue at this point with Verbo. We got the refund. This was a crappy experience. It sucked. We'll move on.
00:07:10
Speaker 2: Fine.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: We didn't have an issue at that point with Verbo. We leave in robes. Now, this seems like a scheme almost that we thought the homeowner was up to something. And triggered something and did something behind our back to trigger it to make sure we got charged and he didn't get charged.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: Correct. So we actually sent a very direct text to the homeowner basically saying that we were accusing the homeowner of sticking us with their bill. And he very clearly wrote back and said, I said, we must have received this message in error. Surely you did not give us a refund for $ 5, 000 and then go behind our backs and charge us through Vrbo for the $ 5, 000 back. He writes back, Amy, you did receive that message in error and we are not trying to trick you. I spent three hours on the phone with Vrbo escalating this issue and asked the representative to convey our concerns to you. And he said, I will just copy and paste our message sent to Vrbo so that you have a record of exactly what we communicated and so that we can be fully transparent. So he sends me a copy of the email to Vrbo. Hi, Omar. I just spoke with Helen, a supervisor, and we talked through the issue. We have always had damage protection coverage of up to $ 5, 000. When I submitted this claim, it was my understanding that this coverage was still in place. I have since learned that somehow Vrbo changed our coverage to card on file, which was our card, without any notification to us. Helen is currently researching what happened, but in the meantime, she asked me to forward you the receipts and documentation for the damage claim. In doing so, I want to make it perfectly clear that I expect Vrbo to cover the $ 5, 000 damage claim and not charge the traveler. If our damage protection coverage would change without our knowledge, this needs to still be Vrbo's responsibility. If you speak with the traveler, which is us, please convey this to them as well as I'm sure they are quite upset. And I want them to understand that I am asking Vrbo to resolve this issue and cover the claim rather than holding them personally responsible for the $ 5, 000. And by the way, babe, that was a full month ago. A full month ago.
00:09:36
Speaker 1: Two calls. A full month ago, I was on the phone with Verbo for an hour and nine minutes on August the 27th. As of this recording, it's September the 16th, and I was just on the phone again for another 43 minutes. And it's sitting in the same place, nothing, nowhere, getting you nothing, giving you nothing. The same thing both times. The hour nine call, they went through, actually got the owner on the phone on the other end, confirmed once again, and got off the phone and he said, yep, five to seven days. That was 18 days ago.
00:10:09
Speaker 2: They said we would get our $ 5, 000 back in five to seven business days, 18 days ago.
00:10:15
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, the problem that's triggered this now is that yes, I should have, but we should have been able to call, and they said, oh, crap, it wasn't processed. Oh, crap, this got lost. No, no, no, no, no, no. The woman gets on the phone and actually tells me she's reviewed the whole thing, and she'll have to go back and get back to you to tell you whether or not we think we're going to give you your money back. She is not confirming what the owner has confirmed and two previous of her employees have confirmed. What they've told us is that they're going to give us the money. Robes, I don't... This is a... This is bizarre. With Verbo, the behavior of a... Do they know? Is this supposed to be? Is this funny? Like, is this a part of making money? Is to screw people over like this? I wonder.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I just think everyone who has ever rented a Verbo or is thinking about renting a Verbo needs to know because my big whoa moment was that Verbo... could just charge a card that you had on file with the homeowner when and however.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: We didn't authorize that.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: They want to. They didn't ask. They didn't check. They told us after the fact, and I checked our bank account, and they took $ 5, 000. I didn't know that a business could do that. I didn't know that that was... standard practice for Vrbo, but I just feel like everyone should know because basically if you stay in a home, if that home has an electrical issue, if that home, I don't know, what if you, what if there was storm damage while you were at the home? If there was a, any sort of issue with that home that had nothing to do with you, you, we have learned can be held responsible for thousands of dollars for a home you don't own. that you did not damage, and that you have no responsibility to, and yet Vrbo can still take your money. I just got an email from Vrbo. Shall I read it? This will be the first you're hearing it. This is right after you got off the phone. Dear Amy, this is Shefali.
00:12:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Shefali wasn't feeling me, was she?
00:12:31
Speaker 2: Well, it's just my name is on the reservation, so that's probably why.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: Oh, no, no, no. I'm saying she wrote immediately.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: Dear Amy, yes. This is Shefali, supervisor with the Vrbo Resolutions team. Thank you for your patience. We're not feeling patient.
00:12:47
Speaker 1: If I hear that one more time.
00:12:49
Speaker 2: We are not patient. That's actually almost dumb.
00:12:51
Speaker 1: It's insulting.
00:12:51
Speaker 2: At this point, passive aggressive. We would like to let you know that we are currently working on your refund request regarding the refundable damage deposit that was charged to your reservation. At this time, we have contacted the host. and strongly suggested that they process the refund directly back to you as soon as possible.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: No, no, no. Thank you for doing that. Verbo, please get it together. That is horse shit. They charged us.
00:13:26
Speaker 2: Verbo charged us, not the host.
00:13:27
Speaker 1: Go back to him. So go get your money from somebody who didn't take it from you.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: He didn't take it from us, and he's made it very clear.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: How would you like to respond to that?
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Oh, it continues.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: Please.
00:13:39
Speaker 2: We are actively following up with them and seeking an update on the status of your refund. They are literally telling the host that they have to pay us the $ 5, 000 that they took from us. If the host does not provide a resolution with a reasonable timeframe, Vrbo will review the case and take ownership of the matter to determine the appropriate next steps and assist in reaching a resolution immediately. We've had this conversation with them.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: For a full- Can you hit reply? Let's do this right now. Can you hit reply to her? Robes and Verbo, if this is, please stand by your customer service and that's fine. And I know we're blessed. Thank goodness our bills are still being paid. This is so infuriating to be treated this way. This is so infuriating. Well, this is... It's comical at this point. All right, Verbo.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: Look, I think everyone's gotten the runaround from their cable company, but this is a significant amount of money.
00:14:36
Speaker 1: Shevali?
00:14:37
Speaker 2: You want me to.
00:14:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, write this. Shevali? Whatever her name is.
00:14:40
Speaker 2: Fine, but Shevali. But every time I write them back, they never respond.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: Okay, Shevali. Just letting you know.
00:14:45
Speaker 2: Shevali.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Your response is not only unacceptable, but frankly shocking. You, Verbo, took the money... and are telling us to go get it back from someone else, we absolutely will not be reaching out to the owner, and we expect once again for you all to give us the money that you took from us, and we expect it immediately. I await your response. What are we supposed to do? This is now comical. Verbo, y'all are, this is, do they still do those commercials? Verbal. You get the whole place to yourself. What is that thing? The thing they do? I just, just to be warned, just a heads up. Will we get our money back? I really doubt it at this point. They literally have stolen money. Do we have a case?
00:15:37
Speaker 2: Well, no, I actually think at this point we need to get a lawyer. And honestly, if anyone.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: I don't want a lawyer. I want a police officer. I want... Sweetheart, isn't this grand theft? What is the amount of.
00:15:49
Speaker 1: Robes, you have been stolen from you from a company that admits they stole it and are laughing at us. They literally told us to go somewhere else to get this money back. Okay, Robes, you good?
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I didn't, you talked too fast, so I'm having to like, do what I'm doing.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: Okay, well, it's all right then. So Rose, how are we supposed to handle this to this point?
00:16:23
Speaker 2: I would say that....
00:16:26
Speaker 1: No, you check out on me. I'm trying to get you to stay here with me. You're checking out on me.
00:16:29
Speaker 2: I would say that we, I do think that we need to, first of all, this episode, we're going to put it out. We're going to tag them. I'm going to put the, we don't do a lot of social media. I'll put this out on social media because I feel like at this point, it's the only way you can get companies to actually pay attention to you is to To flood social media, to let other people know what your experience is, to let other people know that you've been fighting for a full month to get money back that was never supposed to be taken from you. And the fact that they're giving us the runaround and that they're doing it to us, they're obviously doing it to other people.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: This is a part of their business model.
00:17:04
Speaker 2: The only recourse I can think of is to publicly blast this out as much as possible and let folks know just buyer beware or renter beware, I guess, is what this should be. That should be the name of our episode.
00:17:15
Speaker 1: Does Airbnb have the same policy? And we just haven't gotten hit with it.
00:17:18
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's something that we absolutely need to check out because that was obviously what I wanted to do next was to just simply and solely and strictly use Airbnb. We like the idea. We love it. We love staying in homes and apartments rather than hotels. We love the idea of feeling like we're locals wherever we go. There's something really fun and unique about that experience. And it's sad to think that the company that's managing Vrbo is also willing to operate like this and to be deceptive and to make it incredibly difficult to actually speak to someone, get resolution. I mean, the fact that we... And look, we're... We are and have been investigative journalists for most of our career. We know how we've been tasked before in local news departments to get people's money back for them. We actually, I would say, have a lot of experience in tracking people down and figuring out how to get resolution and coming to conclusions and getting to the truth. And if we're having this much trouble for the past, it's been... nearly six weeks, and we still, every time we call, when we talk to someone at Vrbo, it's as if it's the first time they're ever hearing about it, when we know, based on emails and documentation from our own experience and the homeowners, that at least five to six different verbal representatives and managers or supervisors have overseen this process and they're all going like this, deliberately trying to avoid responsibility or taking any kind of accountability.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: That email is, that is exhibit A. We haven't been off the phone with her for 30 minutes and she sends an email completely, completely, Opposite of everything she told me on the phone. She telling me our team is looking at it to get this to you and to do all this. She writes us and say, good luck getting it from the owner. That was it. Good luck. Let us know how it goes. Verbo, that's awful. I mean, damn, Verbo. I mean, fine. Okay. I mean, thank goodness. And again, this isn't a matter of it. There are some things in your life robes that just irk you. Rub you, this isn't the biggest thing in the world. It's the biggest issue in the world. It's not, we'd argue, not that big of a deal.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: In the world.
00:19:46
Speaker 1: It's not. But you know what? We also had a story. to tell. And I don't know who else and how many others are getting screwed by this company. Because this isn't random and we got this unlucky.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: No. And I think that, look, you can do everything right. And We are not litigious people. I've never sued anybody in my entire life. Obviously, there have been plenty of occasions when I could have and maybe should have.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: We have to sue to get our money back.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: But it's folks, so much of us, I think most people aren't, I'm going to sue you, I'm going to get you. You just want things to be fair. And we know life isn't fair and things happen and mistakes get made and clerical errors happen. But when you have someone, a company like Vrbo... repeatedly not taking accountability, giving you mixed messages, giving you mixed signals, having different managers, different supervisors telling you completely different outcomes, promising you completely different things, sending you emails that don't jibe with the conversation you had, it does feel like there is a deliberate attempt to deceive, to confuse, to delay, and to.
00:21:02
Speaker 2: Be anything but transparent. And this is certainly not a company that we will ever do business with again. And we would just encourage anybody, seriously, at the very least, the biggest mistake we made, which we are going to rectify immediately is have, we unfortunately paid for this Vrbo on our debit card. So the money is gone. Like there's no, like if you put it on a certain kind of credit card, you could use your credit card, the muscle from them to reject the funds or retrieve the funds. When you have it taken from your checking account, ain't nothing you can do about it other than to sue at this point.
00:21:37
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? Verbo has stolen money from us, and they're laughing at us with Chevalli sending emails saying that money we took from you, go try to get it from somebody else. That's the kind of dismissiveness we have gotten throughout the process. Actually, this is... Verbo, this is sad.
00:21:56
Speaker 2: Babe, this is a really important email that I read because I actually have in writing Verbo talking about making a mistake. Listen to this. This was dated August 20th. Okay. So again, almost a month ago. Dear Amy, this is Wimolin from Verbo. Thank you for your patience as we work on your case. I guess they always start like that. Yep. We are reaching out to inform you that we have received a report concerning the damage protection settings on your recent booking. The host reported that the protection was originally set to third-party insurance with a $ 119 premium and a $ 5, 000 coverage, but was changed without authorization to a credit card hold, which was our credit card. So, as a result, the $ 5, 000 was automatically charged to your card. We are currently investigating... whether this change was caused by a system glitch. I have this in writing. If the investigation confirms the unauthorized change, Vrbo should take proper action on this. Should. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this matter. They literally said, looks like it was a glitch on our part. The $ 5, 000 should have been applied to their insurance and and instead was charged to your card.
00:23:22
Speaker 1: When do you let this go?
00:23:23
Speaker 2: You don't let it go.
00:23:24
Speaker 1: You can't let them take $ 5, 000. What is somebody supposed to do? They stole $ 5, 000 from us. I mean, it's not the end of the world. There are bigger problems in the world, right? But beware, folks, and we have to say it. I mean, it's not we won't. We can't. It's impossible. We cannot ever use verbal again. And they seem okay with that. And that's fine. They've got plenty of customers. Big business. I guess they're doing great. But they don't seem to give a damn about losing a customer after they robbed us. We got your $ 5, 000. We don't ever have to have you rent with us again. That is incredible. That is incredible. But, folks, just be careful. Please, Vrbo, if you're renting from Vrbo, please... I don't know what to warn people to do, baby, because if they decide to do this, you're going to be in this exact same spot fighting for money that they're going to tell you you're not going to get back.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: It's crazy. And by the way, when it says, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, I immediately responded and said, can I please get an update? No response. I emailed again, no response.
00:24:32
Speaker 1: All right, Verbo.
00:24:33
Speaker 2: So that's Verbo. That's how they're operating right now. And we just felt like, honestly, as a public serviceâ We needed to let people know that this can happen. Obviously, it has happened, and it's almost certainly going to happen again. We just hope it doesn't happen to you.
00:24:47
Speaker 1: All right. Well, there won't be an update on this because I am confident we're not going to get our money. We have to sue Verbo. Sue Verbo to get money back. I don't know. At what point, though, is it this is not a dispute over money?
00:25:02
Speaker 2: No, they just took money that they weren't supposed to take. They just took it. That we had nothing to do with. It was about their insurance issue. It had nothing to do with us. And somehow now we're paying for the homeowner's insurance coverage.
00:25:18
Speaker 1: All right, so folks, be warned, beware. We will not be giving... That's just $ 5, 000 gone. It's just no matter what, baby, that's good. That's just hard to stomach. It's somebody doing that.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: Again, we are lucky enough that it isn't life changing, but it is still in principle, just so, so, so, so disappointing at the least and beyond frustrating. And, and it's hard not to get angry. I know it's good to have the perspective of where this falls in, in tough, Tough times, but it's still just something that shouldn't happen. And we just wanted to help prevent it from happening to any of you all who are listening.
00:26:02
Speaker 1: We don't do this a lot. I think we have a couple of restaurants like this, but it's how many companies that we just know we refuse. We cannot use this company again. That's, I hate that.
00:26:14
Speaker 2: We're big consumers. We love to enjoy our time off, whether we're eating or- you know, traveling, and it's just, how you treat your customers, no matter who you are, it matters, and eventually it will catch up to them.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: You know, kindness is one thing. It also helps to not rob them.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: Or lie to them, or give them the runaround.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: There's that, too.
00:26:36
Speaker 2: Or make it incredibly difficult to talk to anybody.
00:26:40
Speaker 1: All right, folks. We appreciate you letting us vent a little, and I hope you maybe got something out of that. People rent all the time. Please. We're not telling you not to rent from Vrbo. That's on you. But if you're going to, you need to know these folks will rob you and won't give you your money back. And we'll call it a glitch. We're out of here.