All Forum Posts by: Leigh Ann Smith

@Ariel Smith @Peter R.  @John Underwood , please take a look at the message I just posted, "Annnnd I think my first VRBO guest is a scammer".  I could use some advice from other hosts pretty quickly.  :-/

So, this woman paid $573 in advance and she owes another $573 on the day of check-in, which is today.  Yesterday she messaged and asked if she could check in early.  She's from out of town and is working nights at a hospital on a contract.   She was going to come at 10 and go to sleep before going back in tonight.  I said yes.  

She showed up at 10 a.m. and the 2nd payment wasn't in yet.  I showed her around and said that I hadn't received the 2nd payment.  She said, "Oh, it'll just take a couple of clicks on my phone to send it."  I said great, and went on back home.  Yes, that was mistake #1.  Then I started figuring out this mess about VRBO holding our funds and noticed she still hadn't made the 2nd payment. 

I gave her time to get her sleep in then went back over late this afternoon.  I told her about the VRBO payment problems, still not really suspecting any problem with her.  I told her I had just sent her a 2nd payment request through VRBO.  She picked up her phone and said okay, she'd take care of it.  She also told me that after she gets off work in the morning, she's off for a couple of days, so she's driving home.  You guessed it - she still hasn't made the 2nd payment.  So, I'm suspecting she doesn't have any intention of paying it....not today, in any case.

I'm thinking I need to text her and tell her that if she hasn't made the payment by the time she leaves tonight (about 10:30 p.m.), then she needs to take her things with her and I'll send a cancellation through VRBO.  I hate to come off as threatening like that and potentially lose a 2 month reservation, but.....

Any suggestions on how to handle it?

After this guest's stay ends (8/12), I'll definitely be reconsidering whether to continue using VRBO.  With this kind of nonsense, the only thing they have going for them is that they were early into this market, so they're big and lots of potential guests use them.  So, if you have a property, you have to seriously consider listing with them.

Good to know about the fraud motivation, @John Underwood .  But you'd think that after the guest checks in, it should be fine to process the payment if they didn't hear about any problems from the guest.  I believe this is a very new policy.   The check-in date was today.  My guest paid her first half-payment on 5/31, and they won't send the payment to us until 7/3 (+5-7 days to receive it!).

@Scott V., be aware that if you rent through HomeAway/VRBO for the first time as an owner, they will hold your first customer payment for 30 days + if that falls on a Friday, they don't disburse until Monday + you must then allow 5-7 days for your bank to receive the payment.  

Ask me how I know. 😡

I guess it would have been good to see this first:

We've been using AirBnB for the past year with no problem.  Bookings were slumping so we listed with VRBO and got a 2 month reservation within 24 hours.  HOWEVER, the guest payed on 5/31, and they say we will not receive payment until 7/3.  What the heck?!?!

I looked on the community forum and found a message saying that for your very first time using their payment system, they would hold it for 30 days.  I called customer service since it did not seem possible that was correct.  Yes, it is correct.  Also, since 30 days falls on a Friday, they'll be disbursing it on Monday, and oh by the way, it will take 5-7 days for you to receive payment after it's disbursed.

Looking through the forums it appears that there are big problems with their payment processor.  Do any of you know of workarounds for the terrible payment system?

Wow, @John Underwood , that's good to know!  I will say that I finished setting up my VRBO listing yesterday, then this morning I had an inquiry for a 2 month booking, so that's certainly better than I expected!

Thanks, @Jon Crosby , @Kevin Lefeuvre , and @Al Williamson .  Currently, I have a page for the VR's on the website for our main business, a Christmas tree farm.  It has links to the properties' AirBnB listings.  That website is built on Squarespace, and I'm pretty sure they don't have anything that will work.  However, I'm planning to set up a Wordpress site for the the VR's, so I am looking into what I'd need to do for that.

@Jon Crosby , you make a really good point about the benefits of simply funneling them back to your booking company.  I will be looking at that.  Pretty sure it will be AirBnB, though.  See my post from today about my first encounter with VRBO's fees.  =:-0

We've been using AirBnB for a year but just listed on VRBO yesterday as a pay-per-booking property.  I got an inquiry this morning for a 2 month stay.  She wants more of a discount, which is fine, but I was shocked at the fees.  If I charge her $900/month, there is a $101 service fee + a $47.50 booking fee (for 1 month).  The booking fee is part of the quote, so it looks like that is a fee to her, but I thought the booking fee was our fee.  It's 5.3% of the total.  Her service fee is 11.3% which is already pretty ridiculous.  Can anyone explain to me what's going on here?