VRBO review #211185 and homeaway p210652 - caution required

Hi All,

We were going to rent this property in March of 09.

Everything went well until after we signed the contract and sent a check to the owner, Jillian Hanley.

We asked a few traditional questions regarding how check in would work, how we would get the information for the WIFI internet etc... We were told not to worry, that a neighbor would meet us (apparently Mrs. hanley lives 3 hours away). Fine so far. We were then told that, even though the internet was advertised, it wasn%26#39;t going to be available as the owner can%26#39;t drop everything to accomodate our request 10 days in the future. I insisted and pointed out that it was advertised as an amenity in the property and asked what would happen in a case of an emergency if they can%26#39;t even make the internet work in a 10 day timeframe.

I then received a terribly disappointing email from the owner, letting me know that the house was no longer available to us and that our reservation has been cancelled. We are now forced to put a stop on the check that we have mailed and are in a bind to find another property to rent.

Anyone have any experience to share about this property?

VRBO review #211185 and homeaway p210652 - caution required

I guess I should have added that this property is located in Thornton, New Hampshire.

VRBO review #211185 and homeaway p210652 - caution required

Not that this helps but I would rather be in your situation, meaning that stopping payment on your check is the least of your worries. If she is like that with you now you%26#39;re better off giving your hard earned dollars to someone else. You probably won%26#39;t have a hard time finding another place. It%26#39;s not a school vacation week or anything. Good luck.

I recall someone else having problems with this property a while back but I can%26#39;t locate the post and I don%26#39;t believe it was on TA. I looked at the photo%26#39;s then and it is the same one at come up now. Good idea to stay away. You will not have any problems finding rentals. What drew you to this area?

WG, I%26#39;d encourage you to write a review on the homeaway site. This is unacceptable behavior and neither HA nor VRBO wants advertisers who treat their customers this way.

As one of the other folks said, you%26#39;ll not have trouble finding another place. The good news, I%26#39;m guessing you%26#39;re coming to ski -- and we%26#39;ve had great snow -- so when you get here, it will be worth it!

I attempted to post a review on Homeaway. However, it has to be approved by the owner before it can be posted publicly. It is obvious that she will not post my review.

I have since contact homeaway and hopefully, they can look into it. As someone else said, I didn%26#39;t lose any money, so it could have been worse, but I want to ensure that this is not happening to someone else.

Regarding posting on Homeaway... as far as I know, homeowners have to prove to Homeaway that a review is innacurate for the owner to have it removed. I participate in a forum of owners, and those who have had negative review are quite unhappy about the lengths to which they must go to have a bad review removed. I realize that you really don%26#39;t have much to gain by pursuing this, but if you are so inclined, I%26#39;ll be the review can get posted. I also know that these companies do not take kindly to owners who give the industry and their web site a black eye and may go as far as to remove the offending owner%26#39;s listing.

I sent you a PM about alternate lodging. Hopefully, you will be able find another place and have a great trip here. Now, that you are a member, please give us a final review or your trip good, bad or ugly.

I am so sorry to hear of your unfortunate experience with a vrbo net site. Good luck to you as you try to rectify the situation.

We also had an interesting discussion with this owner. I believe that she is new at this and has absolutely no concept of customer service or what a VR should be.

We were interested in renting the entire month of May and found an ad on funhaven.com for a condo. Jillian Hanley, responded to us and directed us immediately to the same house listed in your complaint. When I told her that the description didn%26#39;t match at all what her information on funhaven listed, she quickly said that she is renting out a few properties and that only this one (the log home) was available to us. It looked like a decent house so we asked for a quote anyway. She quoted $5,200 for the month of May, an outrageous amount for an off-season month. She said that because her mortgage was very expensive, she needed to ask that much in order to be able to cover it. It looks like she is clueless about this business and hasn%26#39;t done any homework. Otherwise, she would have surely seen that asking prices are based on the area and the demand and not what the mortgage payment may be. I looked around and googled her name and saw that she is involved with MLM schemes and other %26#39;pay-me $20 and I will give you information about the job I am hiring for%26#39;. Better to stay away!

I wonder if she returned your check and/or tried to cash it.

We posted a review on the Homeaway page, but homeaway told us that even though our complaint may be legitimate, we didn%26#39;t end up staying there and therefore they can%26#39;t post our comment. Only guests who have resided there are allowed to post. Bummer!

The owner has stopped all communication with me. I asked her to return the check when she received it, but she hasn%26#39;t responded since she told me that she has now cancelled my reservation. Since we are in Quebec at the moment, we have decided to vist Mt Tremblant instead of the White Mountains and are making accomodation reservations now.

We surely will return to the White Mountains in the future has we have been many times in the past and love it. We are just not sure that we would use homeaway again. We submitted a formal complaint last week. Homeaway didn%26#39;t seem to think it was worth taking any action; they emailed yesterday expressing how sorry they were our trip didn%26#39;t work out and encouraged me to look at other wonderful properties in the White Mountain Area, one one which, ironically, was the one I complained about. It is clear to me that they are discriminately and consistently on the owner%26#39;s side, just because it is their %26#39;paying%26#39; customer.

Regarding my check, I don%26#39;t have to worry about it as I put a stop on it. The bank is unable to tell me whether she attempted to cash it. All I know is that all my emails to her have remained unanswered.