Hi there,**I’m writing you today out of frustration and what stems from a feeling of complete helplessness. I am a young professional who travels for business within the country on a biweekly basis for work, and internationally several times a year. I’ve booked stays through companies of a similar nature dozens of times and never had so much as a single negative experience. I booked with VRBO for the first time on March **th, ****.**With COVID-** being announced as a pandemic by the WHO this past week, I quickly made moves to contact my Toronto host, Kareem (property ID *******), optimistically requesting my reservation be rescheduled from a March **-** stay, to June **-July *. What ensued was a long stream of messages back and forth over the course of * days, wherein Kareem advised me I was free to move the reservation to a later date, while denying he was able to make any changes to the reservation on his end. Believing perhaps he did not understand how the platform works (guests in fact do not have the ability to change reservations, only hosts are able to do this), I did my best to “customer-service” him, providing him with all of the necessary information to try to work together to find a solution. I continued to be stonewalled with every attempt.**During this time, I contacted support and worked with * different case managers who tried to reach Kareem, the second of whom succeeded but was hung up on. I tried calling him as well, but my call – not surprisingly – also went to voicemail. The agents I was working with did everything in their power, including requesting a cancellation on my behalf (twice), however despite an email from VRBO sent out this morning to your patrons advising us that “taking care of our customers is at the center of everything we do” and that “teams are focused on the needs of travelers”, ultimately I came to find out that your teams are not empowered with the ability to take any kind of action that could actually support me. I was completely at the mercy of this “host” Kareem.**I understand this is a two-sided marketplace, and in recognition that everyone is in the same boat here, would have been happy to take a **% hit on my fees to cancel if we could in fact not reschedule. Kareem clearly did not feel the same way. **I am utterly shocked at how little ownership VRBO as a company is willing to take when customers are treated so poorly and faced with such terrible customer service. By completely disregarding my requests, the calls of VRBO customer service agents, and ignoring the policies rolled out by VRBO to “protect travelers, partners, and the public”, this host has shown zero regard for social responsibility or a shred of common decency. VRBO’s current policies enable him to represent your company this way, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.**After all of this I am left with no refund, no credit, hours lost of my time and a terrible anxious feeling about the whole situation. Your help.vrbo.com site indicates that “owners and property managers that are not abiding by our COVID-** emergency policies may be subject to removal from our site”, but there is no process laid out in which these persons can be identified, and so I am doing the last possible thing that I can do, emailing you.**If you’d like to see the messages I’m referring to above, you’re welcome to check out case *********.**If you have any interest in making amends, I can be reached at ***-***-****.**Kareem theoretically can be reached at *-***-***-****.**Wishing you all the best during these difficult times, **Sarah Follett
GetHuman4500227 did not yet indicate what VRBO should do to make this right.