My case involves an offer I accepted from VRBO which they have completely failed to honour. I rented a house from them in the north part of Gran Canaria in February. On our first evening there, we suddenly noticed that the owner had installed surveillance cameras in the kitchen and also in the living area, which was a horrible shock to us and turned out also to be totally prohibited under VRBO regulations. The following morning I had a conversation with VRBO via online chat, they requested photos of the cameras and once they’d seen those they immediately offered to cancel the booking, set up a refund of the rental payment and also give me 600 euros compensation, the compensation payment being conditional on me booking any alternative accommodation with themselves, Expedia, Booking.com or Stayz. I did exactly what they said and booked a new place to stay through booking.com – it wasn’t really ideal for us but it was the only thing available in that area at such short notice. We packed up all our stuff that we’d just unpacked the night before and moved out the same morning.True to their word, the rental money was refunded to my credit card 3 days later, but no sign of the 600 euros. I sent them a couple of emails on the subject and then eventually received a reply stating that they were not going to pay the 600 euros because I hadn’t followed their terms which they now said were that the new booking had to be made with themselves, Expedia, Hotels.com, or Stayz. I replied and explained that these were not the instructions I was given and sent them a Word file with a transcript of the entire online chat conversation where they made the original offer of 600 euros and told me to use (amongst other choices) Booking.com. I then received a reply where they didn’t address my argument at all and ended it with this rather ugly warning:“However, your concern has been heard by our company's leadership, and the decision is final. We regret that we will not be able to respond to any further escalations of this issue. We understand that this outcome may have not been the one you were seeking, but we have to make sure the program is administered fairly. As we have thoroughly explained this matter to you and this decision is final. Any further replies to discuss and/or argue the reimbursement amount will be closed without reply. “It was the promise of the 600 euros compensation that made up our minds to move to a new place rather than stay put and try not to use the rooms with the cameras in them. I regarded the offer as a firm contract with VRBO and I find their current position quite shocking. I did look into suing them in the Small Claims Court but it turns out that (conveniently for them) their operation is based in Dublin, ROI which would make that option extremely complicated and impractical.
