VRBO scammed us and refused to reimburse us! We booked a place over a month in advance in Costa Rica. When it was coming up to our stay, we reached out to the landlord for arrival info (exact address and how to get in), and we did not hear back for multiple days. We eventually tracked down our hosts’s WhatsApp number and called them through WhatsApp because they never responded through the VRBO app. The host denied the fact that we had a booking with them, even though we provided our booking id number. The host also denied that we paid, and demanded that we meet up with them across town from the rental property to pay before we could stay. We refused and argued our best to try to explain that we had paid well in advance, but had no luck. We tried to get support through the VRBO app’s chat, but we were in a foreign country with unreliable internet and the app kept glitching and cutting out, then our conversations were not reloading, so after retrying multiple times to access support, we had to give up, and easily booked a place through bookings.com, but for more money. When we returned to Canada a few days later and tried to pursue our reimbursement that we deserved, VRBO support argued with me for hours, refusing to help because it was after the fact and we did not rebook through them. They ignored my requests for a reference number for my claim, and finally after literal hours, they gave me one and agreed to look into it further. I received a follow up email asking for the best time for them to call me, which I provided, and I have not heard back. I have emailed repeatedly and nothing. So we are out a few hundred dollars, it is their fault, and they are doing nothing to fix the fact that their site is scamming their customers.
