Can an owner delete negative feedback on VRBO/homeaway?

[casjen]

I have yet to read any real negative reviews. I am assuming they rarely happen. But then I also started wondering if owners just delete them?

 

[sympatico]

All of the reviews go through the owner and he/she can decide if they get posted on the website.

 

[disneysteve]

All of the reviews go through the owner and he/she can decide if they get posted on the website.

Well that makes it worthless, just like feedback on ebay. Obviously, only positive reviews are going to get posted. What owner would post negative reviews of his own property?

 

[andreadoiron]

Well that makes it worthless, just like feedback on ebay. Obviously, only positive reviews are going to get posted. What owner would post negative reviews of his own property?

actually on ebay you can't control the reviews, that i know of. a negative review can't be wiped out.
you are right though about the reviews being worthless on the vrbo website if they are owner controled. maybe an absence of reviews means that they are all negative? i have been looking at vrbo for a condo in the clearwater beach area so i guess i'll look at how many reviews they have and assume a higher number is better than a lower one.

 

[disneysteve]

actually on ebay you can't control the reviews, that i know of. a negative review can't be wiped out.

Sellers are not able to leave negative feedback for buyers, so ALL buyer feedback is positive. If a seller has a problem with a customer, there is nothing he/she can do to alert other potential sellers.

 

[softballmom3]

Sellers are not able to leave negative feedback for buyers, so ALL buyer feedback is positive. If a seller has a problem with a customer, there is nothing he/she can do to alert other potential sellers.

This is definitely true! Sellers used to be able to leave positive if the buyers didn't hold up their end and now that is gone which is crazy. I believe they did it for retalitory reasons...buyer pays, gets something different, leaves neg feedback, ticks off seller, seller then leaves negs for the buyer....always loopholes to get through.

To the OP, YES they can choose not to post those. A friend of mine wrote a negative review on one and I've yet to see it .

 

[kinghorse]

I have several homes on VRBO and we opt out of feedback.

1. VRBO does not know whom rents what whereas EBAY or Amazon knows about purcahses so they will request a review. The only way a review gets on VRBO is if an owner requests it since how many people on their own will go to VRBO after their vacation to enter comments. I believe most the comments are false and put up by owners friends and family. On the other hand negative feedback can really hurt an owner but VRBO will act as a mediator to straighten problems out or take the listing down. Unfortuantely there are some travelers that complain when there is nothing to complain about and they are only looking to get some extra money back or there are the people who rent and nothing would make them happy. We provide a full set of pictures and virtual tour of everything. I had a family stay in a house and dead fish washed up on the beach because of severe could, we immeditely sent someone down to pick up the fish, the rentors told them not to since they wanted to make chum out of them. A couple days later they contacted us about the fish that they had to clean up and wanted to be paid for it. With the economy the way it is seems like more people cannot afford their vacations and therefore are unhappy. But when you have a house rented for years continously with no complaints and then someone complains about unrealistic things you know it is the people not the house. We get return people year after year but just one crazy person posting a negative review that isn't true could be a problem. I have had VRBO contact me once about someone who complained whom we never even rented to. They didn't like the rules, could not afford the rental but VRBO took it seriously and finally realized they were the problem.

 

[disneysteve]

kinghorse, I totally understand what you are saying and that owners need to protect themselves from the crazies out there, but that leaves no way for reasonable guests to post legitimate negative comments. A feedback system that allows only positive feedback is worthless and serves absolutely no purpose.

We just returned a week ago from a week at a condo in Windsor Palms. We have rented some sort of villa every year for nearly 20 years so we are well acquainted with the area, the different neighborhoods and what we can expect in our price range. We were very disappointed in our most recent rental. It was run down. It wasn't clean. It needed much better pest control. The kitchen was cruddy and stocked with a bunch of mismatched stuff and cheesy restaurant give-away cups and such, the mattresses were totally shot with springs popping through, the place badly needs a paint job, the patio furniture was disgusting... you get the idea. I would love to post a totally factual review of this place at VRBO but why bother if the owner gets to decide whether or not my review actually gets posted? If I write that stuff, my review will go right into the trash bin. There are thousands of great rentals in the Disney area. This was definitely not one of them and it would be nice to be able to warn others to stay away.

 

[kinghorse]

I am sorry that happened to you and I have heard stories like that before. I have also stayed on a Disney deluxe hotel and checked into a room that was not clean as I would have liked but a quick phone call remedies that problem.
You should have called the owner immediately and your issues should have been taken care of. He could have called an exterminator for the bugs, sent the housecleaner back out, etc. Also you can post a review on Trip Advisor.
I always tell rentors to look at cleaning fees, for instance you can't clean a 4 bedroom house for $125 or $150 dollars, the house will be dirty. Look closely at pictures alot of people don't do that which can tell alot about a rental. If you PM me the listing number I would be curious to see. Did you call the owner and they refused to take care of these issues if so then contact VRBO directly and they will open a case since you think it is misrepresentation but unless you called the owner immeditely upon arrival and gave them a chance to fix the issues then you shouldn't complain. If you called and they did nothing then you should complain.

 

[casjen]

the owner or condo name? I am in the process of choosing our 1st rental and wonder about one place.

Thanks.

 

[kinghorse]

Every rental listing has an id number and you know the website it was on.

 

[disneysteve]

I am sorry that happened to you and I have heard stories like that before. I have also stayed on a Disney deluxe hotel and checked into a room that was not clean as I would have liked but a quick phone call remedies that problem.
You should have called the owner immediately and your issues should have been taken care of. He could have called an exterminator for the bugs, sent the housecleaner back out, etc. Also you can post a review on Trip Advisor.
I always tell rentors to look at cleaning fees, for instance you can't clean a 4 bedroom house for $125 or $150 dollars, the house will be dirty. Look closely at pictures alot of people don't do that which can tell alot about a rental. If you PM me the listing number I would be curious to see. Did you call the owner and they refused to take care of these issues if so then contact VRBO directly and they will open a case since you think it is misrepresentation but unless you called the owner immeditely upon arrival and gave them a chance to fix the issues then you shouldn't complain. If you called and they did nothing then you should complain.

We are not the "raise a fuss" type of people. I did not call the owner because there wasn't a whole lot he could have done. Sure, he could have sent the cleaning crew over, but once we were there and settled, we didn't really want anyone coming in. That's part of why we prefer rentals over hotels. We hate having a housekeeper come in every day.

There is nothing he could have done to make the worn out beds comfortable and getting some of our money back wouldn't have done that either.

There wasn't anything that was a deal breaker or that made us unwilling to remain in the condo for the week. It just wasn't a place we would return to.

We, too, have checked into Disney rooms and found them to be unsatisfactory. Like you, a quick call to the desk resulted in being moved and upgraded to a better room. We also had an ant infestation one time at All Star. They sent the exterminator right over and took care of that.

Stuff happens. I totally understand that. I will contact the owner to let him know about our experience because if he is a good guy, he will want to know that his place isn't up to par. Perhaps he is paying a cleaning company that isn't doing a good job and needs to be replaced. I know I'd want to know if it was my condo.

By the way, I realized I hadn't rented through VRBO. I rented at Windsor Palms' own website.

 

[firsttimer2007]

Hi all!

I found our vacation rental with the help of tripadvisor.com.

Anyone can post on tripadvisor.

I went to www.homeaway.com and compared what I saw on www.tripadvisor.com.

Maybe you can try to post your photos and reviews there.