Vrbo Reviews 119,051

Booked an apartment in Tenerife based on star rating , pictures and description. Misrepresentation of the truth with cleanliness, broken items, non-existent, or unusable items being only part of problem. Contacted host who did supply a few items that were missing but he was quite dismissive citing that the apt had had a full refurb in last two months.
Contacted Vrbo following day to voice concerns and sent several photos. They offered some small compensation which we were not happy with. This got escalated up to a senior who offered slightly more. We are still not happy with this figure as it does not represent what was essentially a spoiled holiday. Vrbo appear to have blocked all further emails and have deemed the matter closed. Doubt we will ever use Vrbo again or recommend to anyone. Add on to review following the Vrbo reply message below which looks good, again they did not grasp what the customer reported back in a detailed letter and Photograph's. In the end we had no choice but to accept the compensation amount being offered which was 480 euro's.. This does not change our advice to all looking at booking through Vrbo. DONT DO IT. The false apartment information and photo's that conned us is still on their website. Shame on them and the Host who advertise a five star apartment which was at best a 2-3 star and certainly not worth the 2377 Euro's paid.

This complaint is in regards to VRBO not holding their host accountable for an owed refund. We originally booked a property April 3rd-10th in Panama City Beach. A few weeks before our trip, we added 2 days, now the reservation being April 1st-10th. What should have been the first red flag is the host charging an extra person fee, when the home sleeps 8 and we have 5 guests. The host did refund the $21.21 before we arrived, after noticing. No where in the listing is this extra person fee listed for 5 guests. We arrived the evening of the 1st. Upon arrival, the only complaint was the smell of cigarette smoke coming from another unit and the lack of drinkware. That wasn't a huge issue. In the middle of the night, my grandmother went to the kitchen for a glass of water and killed 4 cockroaches. The next morning, when it was light and we were able to see, we noticed 2 different dead cockroaches and that the home had black mold in the vents, windows, and bathrooms. Between the mold and roaches, I reached out to the host. She offered a $300 refund. I declined and stated that we wanted to vacate the property, due to it being inhabitable. The host then tells me to contact VRBO directly. I do so. This agent speaks with the host and informs the agent that she will charge us for one night and the cleaning fee. Unfortunately I agree to this and the agent informs me that I will be refunded $1,630.76. The next day I am refunded a random amount of $1,151.00. This doesn't make sense, so I reach out on VRBO chat again and was told once again that they will take care of being refunded the correct and agreed upon amount. 5 days later I use the chat feature on VRBO again to check up on the remaining $ that is owed. I informed the agent that I have the original screenshots of the daily amount being $144. In the refund description, the host has stated that the nightly price was over $600, resulting in a lower refund to be provided. The agent stated that this was great evidence and the "smoking gun" for my case. The chat agent calls me and transfers me to another agent in a different department. This new agent contacts the host and she is unwilling to uphold her end of the agreement. VRBO just flat out doesn't care, offers me the service fee of $165 refunded and a $100 One Key credit. I declined and let him know that I will be contacting the attorney general and the health department and will now be requesting the full refund, due to the headache of all of this and having to find a rental in extreme short notice, during spring break. After this, I now know that VRBO does not care about their customers and will let their hosts scam people, even when the host is in the wrong and has mold and cockroaches in the home. After this mess is rectified, I will be deleting my VRBO account and warning everyone that I know to stay away from this company for not upholding their "Book of Confidence Agreement."

Don’t recommend them, they don’t hold themselves accountable and they do not care about their customers. Being a customer I lost thousands of dollars on their platform and they said it’s not them. Liars! Avoid VRBO at all cost

Just the worst vacation ever! Rented a home in Crown Pointe, Naples, FL. Older home. Checked in to find no internet at all! Host response, internet outage out of my control. Exterior Front Door frame completely rotted and door was about to fall out. Host response, be careful door might fall out! Next problem, pool green, low on water day 4. Pool equipment and hot tub equipment no longer works and needs to be repaired! No warning about repair from Host or how long it would take. It took 1.5 days to fix. VRBO made no attempt to try and fix or even deal with the problem. I will never ever use VRBO again!

2/2: continuation: Called vrbo again, agent said needs his supervisor (not again!) to solve it. I was put on hold waiting for the supervisor for about 40 mins!! After a very long conversation on trying to solve it, supervisor trying to call anyone in Jeeves, he finally got a QR code that we can use in the gate. I told the vrbo supervisor his name is Muhammad to call me around 10:40pm because that’s our eta in the property just to make sure all of us can get in using the QR code. He promised he will, but he NEVER did! 2 cars were able to use QR code (mine and another 1 of my guests) because the guard was occupied. Unfortunately when my guests’ last 2 cars tried, they were stopped by the guard and that was just the start of the second nightmare! Apparently, this community-Champions Gate (where the property is) have very strict rules that all drivers must be listed and given to them and they said the owner only sent my name to them which allows me to enter with 1 car! We offered so many temporary and considerable solutions because it was freaking almost 1am and we were all tired! We even told them we will leave all the drivers licenses, vrbo spoke to them as well (yes I called vrbo again because they did not call me!) but to no success! They want all the other cars to park OUTSIDE the premises! There was no safe place to park nearby!! They said to park them by the Publix store, they said they won’t be towed. But we cannot take the risk! We rented these cars and we are responsible for them. There was long and frustrating conversation to the community’s security supervisor, he only folded when my sister in law demanded a written statement that they (the community-Champions Gate) will be responsible to anything that will happen to our rented cars when parked outside the premises. That was when they let us all in but still didn’t give the 3 cars parking pass! That was 1:57am!!! Imagine that long hours of nonsense, preventable waste of time! And then I told the vrbo agent that I had been talking to that night that they need to solve the problem the moment Jeeves’ cs opens which is 8am because although we were allowed to get in and park by the property’s parking, the guard said the 3 cars can still get towed because they don’t have parking pass that should be displayed by the dashboard of each cars. He promised they will solve it 8-9am and call me once it’s resolved. Guess what? They never called me!! These people are liars and frankly so hard to understand and they also have hard time understanding everything because they obviously are not in USA (I’m guessing India) and they only learned English to get the job!! I woke up 10:20, checked my vrbo property owner chat, NO ONE replied to all my messages from last night’s nightmare (coz I dis sent a lot of msgs)! Called Jeeves cs, they had no idea of what happened to me and my guests and vrbo didn’t call them! I called and solved the problem, not vrbo, not the property owner!

I am writing to file a formal complaint about VRBO’s payout process, high fees, and extremely poor customer service.
I have now completed two bookings on the platform. For the first one, I had to wait the full 30 days as a new host. For this second booking, I was told I would have to wait another 3 to 5 business days after disbursement. When I called my bank today, they confirmed there are no pending deposits from VRBO. If the payment had been sent today, I would have received it today — but nothing is showing up.
VRBO’s standard process is to release payouts approximately one business day after guest check-in, yet the money takes 5–7 business days (or longer) to actually reach my bank. On top of that, hosts are charged a 5% commission fee (on the rental amount plus any mandatory guest fees like cleaning) plus a 3% payment processing fee on the total guest payment (including taxes and refundable damage deposits). This adds up to roughly 8% in total fees per booking, plus whatever service/booking fees the guest pays. These extra fees just to receive my own money feel ridiculous and excessive.
When I ask representatives or supervisors why the payouts take so long and why VRBO cannot match Airbnb’s next-day payment model, they dance around the question and never provide a clear or satisfactory answer. It really seems like VRBO has very little respect for hosts. We put in significant time, energy, cleaning, preparation, and effort to welcome guests and maintain our homes, yet the platform does not honor us with timely payments or transparent support.
This has been a complete nightmare, especially for hosts who need reliable and fast access to their earnings. As a direct result of these ongoing issues — slow payouts, high additional fees, lack of transparency, and unhelpful customer service — I have already blocked all of my dates for the rest of 2026 and 2027. As soon as my current guests check out on April 13, I will be canceling my entire VRBO account and will not be returning.
I would not recommend VRBO to any other host who is looking for timely payments or good support. Airbnb pays hosts the very next day with far fewer complications, and VRBO should be striving to do better instead of making the experience more difficult.
Please escalate this complaint immediately to your leadership or executive team for review.
Thank you,

My mom rented a property and when got there the nightmare started. From not being able to get into the property and on. The first thing was that the host was not responding to her emails until we contacted VRBO directly and it was past the check in time. After he gave my mom the lock box code, we went to the property and couldn't get in. He eventually sent his dad and the nightmare continued to unfold, he opened the door and all you smelled was mold. The house was nothing like it looked in the photos posted online; tape was all over the light switches, old dirty furniture inside of home it wasn't cleaned it was awful. Immediately we asked the man to contact his son he did, and we let him know that we would not be staying at the property especially in the condition it's in. Afterwards my mom contacted VRBO for a refund they stayed they could only give her $144 credit to her account after she spent $1500 for the rental. Vrbo contacted the host and he stated that he wouldn't be giving her a refund. I don't think that is right not only is the host wrong for taking someone's money fraudulently, but Vrbo should offer some kind of refund or compensation when this happens.

Terrible customer service on the chat site and directly talking to customer service

We booked a property advertised as a 3-bedroom home, which also appeared in search results when filtering specifically for 3-bedroom properties. Upon arrival, it was clearly misrepresented — there were only 2 actual bedrooms, and the third “bedroom” was a Murphy bed in a shared living space. The listing also claimed laundry was available, which was not the case.

The property was also not in acceptable condition. The bedsheets appeared unclean with visible stains and did not seem freshly prepared, which raised serious concerns about sanitation.

We documented everything with screenshots of the listing, photos of the property, and messages with the host. The misrepresentation was clear.

Despite this, VRBO’s support process was extremely frustrating. Email support was unresponsive even after multiple follow-ups. I had to call twice, and on the second call spent over an hour on the phone.

At one point, a support agent stated that the listing had not been changed, even though I have screenshots showing the laundry amenity was listed and later removed. This was extremely concerning.

Ultimately, VRBO refused to issue a full refund and instead offered a minimal partial refund that was not even a third of what we paid. A follow-up call days later simply repeated the same outcome, further wasting our time.

Between the inaccurate listing, unsanitary conditions, lack of accountability, and hours spent trying to resolve this, the experience was extremely disappointing and costly.

Property was in very poor condition. Underground parking promised, but not provided. Amenities that were advertised in listing were not present. VRBO refused any compensation, they will always side with the host. They are only concerned with there service charges and the host.

I agree, the property was not as disclosed it was worst experience of my life. Next to a gun shooting place.

True reviews are not being posted. We had a very bad stay and vrbo would not give us a refund. The property was not as the pictures show. The pool was green and the house had fleas. When we look back at the review we noticed the last review was written in 2025. When we post our review on vrbo they kick it back to us and told us we have to rewrite it. In our review we wrote about the poor customer service.

We have not been paid by Vrbo because a document is missing. The problem is that their website is not working properly and it’s not possible to upload the document. They do not respond to emails and customer service cannot help either. I would not recommend doing business with this company!

Another 1 star review for VRBO that should be zero stars. I recently purchased a beach condo. Someone just knocked on the door asking if we were done cleaning! We explained that we lived here part time, they said they had rented it on VRBO and had documentation on there phone for this address. They were obviously disappointed and we were a little freaked out that someone could be renting our condo. We called every VRBO number we could find. All off shore customer service of course. Nobody could tell us if our address was listed as a rental. How is that even possible that they can't see if my property is in their system? Since we only plan to live here part time, we would like to get to the bottom of this and clearly VRBO could not care less.

We rented a house on hayling island for a family get together there were 9 of us found a lovely house which we booke through VRBO. On the day of check in we were all packed and ready to leave when we were told the house was no longer available no real excuse. VRBO did try to find an alternative as it was easter weekend there was nothing available. They had been unable to reach the host Georgina she was not answering calls. This left us totally frustrated how can a host just cancel a booking on the day we were all so disappointed.

Terrible service. Wrong advertising. Scammers!

I hav booked 2 weeks in tignali and also paid the 1. rate. . Now I cannot find the reservation whne i sign in to my site.
When I use the chat then the question is that the reservation id cannot be found. In the reservation-mail a phonenumber is written, but the number has been cansled. So in practice it is not possible to get in contact with the compagny.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST COMPANY I HAVE EVER KNOWN. THEY STOLE MONEY FROM US, TOOK THE DEPOSIT, DIDN’T GIVE US THE ACCOMMODATION WE PAID FOR, AND CHANGED THE DATES ON OUR CONTRACT AFTER WE HAD SIGNED IT.

THEY ARE SCAM ARTISTS - PROTECT YOUR MONEY AND DON’T EVER LET ANYONE BOOK THROUGH VRBO. THEY ARE THE WORST PEOPLE I HAVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE, AND THE COMPANY DOES NOT TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY TRANSACTION THEY DO WITH ITS CROOKED HOSTS. WE ARE SUING THEM WITH PROOF OF EVERYTHING THEY HAVE DONE.

PROTECT YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY, NEVER BOOK WITH VRBO EVER IN YOUR LIFE. THEY BLOCK BAD REVIEWS

Their customer support is as useful as a waterproof towel

VRBO won’t let me rent a place near our house to host family overflow, because their computer algorithm thinks we must be throwing a big party there since it is so close to our own home. When I talked to a customer service manager to try to get it resolved last time, he said that he can’t do anything to override their computer system. Not sure what good a manager is that can’t override a faulty computer program.