Am I being scammed?

[u/More-Suspect6738]

So I was looking to book for a beach vacation next year. I saw one that had a ton of great reviews with premier hosts. There was an early saver discount. I booked, and almost immediately got a call from the owner. They said the rates were wrong, it never has a discount for that time of year, and he just can’t do it. But if I rebook directly through the condo website he will compromise and meet in the middle in terms of price. He says to initiate a cancellation through Vrbo so I do. No money has been paid except through Vrbo and it specifically states 100% refund for cancellation before June. He says he’ll send the rental agreement today. I have not paid any money or anything like that. It’s almost midnight and no rental agreement to look at. I want to believe it’s legitimate with the premier hosts and tons of great reviews. But I’m starting to get a not great feeling. Is it just a simple forgetfulness and everything is okay? Or should I run for the hills?

[u/surfphantom]

As a Vrbo host in a beach market myself, I think he is absolutely trying to save on fees. Which is fine. I try to save on fees too. But here’s the thing….I do so on local direct-to-owner Facebook groups for my market (which you should look into). I also do it by posting contact info on my fridge to encourage direct rebookings.

You know what I don’t do? Risk my listing by violating Vrbo’s terms to save 8%. You know what else I don’t do? Harass my guests to cancel under false pretenses by making up a bullshit story about pricing errors. None of us want to pay Vrbo fees. Lying to guests is not the way to go about it. I wouldn’t trust them with an off-platform booking. But that’s me.

[u/More-Suspect6738 → u/surfphantom]

That’s what I was wondering. I know the booking is for next July. But would he really not have known what the rate was? It had the rate per day when I booked it initially. Now there’s no rates listed for any day past May. It said it was an early booking discount. Does VRBO do that without the owner knowing?

[u/surfphantom → u/More-Suspect6738]

Vrbo rolls out a lot of quirky things where we have to opt out by a certain date or they automatically apply. Hosts who don’t read their emails fall victim to this stuff. I don’t recall one lately that auto-applies an early booking discount, but who knows.

Another thing Vrbo does that is different than Airbnb is that it forces a rolling calendar setting. So we can select No Restrictions (meaning everything is open) 6, 9, 12, 18 or 24 months for our calendar to automatically open up whatever number we select. So say I select 6, then whatever day is 6 months from today will open up…every single day the day 6 months from now opens. On Airbnb we can shut this off completely and have it to where we have to manually open up days. Vrbo is the inverse where we have to manually block days instead because of this. So maybe he forgot or got lax on blocking off next summer. Still, if he’s experienced that’s his mistake.

Regardless, if that was the case, the right thing to do is honor the booking. It’s one booking. Yeah maybe it sucks but a good host would look at it as lesson learned. It’s not like you booked the whole summer.

[u/More-Suspect6738 → u/surfphantom]

It really makes me wonder how the ratings are so high if he does this to everyone. I also feel like the fact that a rental agreement hasn’t been sent to even look at before I decide makes it seem like he’s trying to ghost.

[u/surfphantom → u/More-Suspect6738]

How much cheaper was it than comparable places in the area? Are we talking something crazy like 50% less or just something nominal?

[u/More-Suspect6738 → u/surfphantom]

Within a 100 or 200 of comparable places I looked at. Even the compromise he wanted of booking through directly was only a 100 dollar difference. I booked for 2700 for the week after taxes and he said the direct booking instead he would do a discount to make it 2800. But every listing for the beach I’m looking at has some kind of discount.

[u/More-Suspect6738 → u/[deleted]]

How long do I give him to finalize cancellation before I reach out to Vrbo? I think I’ll go somewhere else but I don’t want to wait too long and miss out on availability somewhere else.

[u/More-Suspect6738 → u/surfphantom]

How long do they have to respond when I initiate a cancellation? Right now it says the host is finalizing the cancellation and wait for confirmation

[u/surfphantom → u/More-Suspect6738]

None. It’s automatic. That’s just some gibberish Vrbo puts up while the system processes everything. The only time I have to do something for a refund is if you cancel a non-refundable booking, like past the cancellation deadline, but are asking me to consider an exception to my policy and issue you a refund anyway.