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Chris F.

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Total Points
81

1 Review by Chris

  • HomeAway UK

1/26/18

If you are one of the thousands who have suffered at the hands of HomeAway UK, please join our campaign to get their activities regulated in some way. There's a Facebook page "Stop Homeaway UK" or you'll find our contact details by searching for "Villa Verde Nea Makri"
Original review follows -
If you're dissatisfied with this company, please send details of your experiences to the BBC Watchdog programme, the Mail Onlines Money page, Citizens Advice, the Government (CMA) enquiry into hotel booking websites, and/or your MP. Sorry, but Im not allowed to provide links to make the process easier. Hopefully, enough individual complaints will persuade someone to act.

If youre in the 95% plus of people unhappy with their services then please join our efforts on Facebook. Together we might be able to force them to change their ways, perhaps by getting a crusading newspaper or television programme to take an interest, or perhaps by persuading the current Government inquiry into online hotel booking sites to include HomeAway UK in its investigations.

This company even lies to the Court to avoid liability! To boost our retirement income my wife and I rent out four studio apartments in our home in Greece to tourists. HomeAway UK promised us increased business if we switched to them when their parent company closed their former sister company Homelidays UK. After much persuasion we finally agreed to switch and they proceeded to deliver less business. I proposed many ways in which they could fulfil their promises. They did absolutely nothing before removing us completely from their site after I posted a bad review on this site. The very valuable 30 or so excellent guest reviews that we had collected immediately disappeared. What a way to treat customers who had remained loyal to the HomeAway Group for more than five years!

That was the last straw for me after their false promises and total lack of flexibility so I took them to Court. They have their own internal legal staff but they chose to also employ a firm of external lawyers, presumably costing them far more than the value of my small claim. I lost the case. Why? At least partly because their evidence was littered with untruthful and misleading statements. In my evidence I proved them wrong. They then repeated some of their distortions and in a paper hearing, with neither party present, a lazy Deputy District Judge took the easy way out.

I had very strong grounds to appeal the judgment. I also had strong grounds to sue them for two libellous statements that they made in their evidence. What I did not have were the funds to risk having to pay their costs if I came up against another judge who could not be bothered to look at the full picture.

You will read in their responses to many reviews on this site that they claim to be nothing more than a platform for users to view properties and make bookings on, to quote from the Judges findings in the Court case. Does such a company really need terms and conditions comprising ten pages of very small print? If the law allows them to thereby deny responsibility for absolutely every eventuality then surely the law needs to be changed.

I have asked them again to re-list our property. Again they have refused. From what I read on this site, they treat travellers with the same contempt as they treat us homeowners.
Perhaps enough contributors to this site are interested in joining us in some form of combined action? Please post on our Facebook page. Its time to "Stop Homeaway UK".

To the people at HomeAway UK Limited, yours is a truly despicable company. Im sure that you will try to shut down our Facebook page. Im also sure you will try to get this review removed. If you fail, are you going to make your usual feeble attempt to defend your position, or are you willing to change your ways before external regulation is introduced to force you to do so?

Tip for consumers:
Don't even think about using this company!

Service
Value
Quality

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