WASHINGTON — If you’re booking a stay on a vacation site like Vrbo or Booking.com, how do you know that you’re getting what you’re paying for?
As millions of people travel for the holidays, experts are warning about scam listings and providing tips on how to avoid them.
“The rug was pulled out from under me,” Susan Chudd said. “It was just complete shock.”
Chudd started off with high hopes for the place she booked on Vrbo in September 2024 for her family’s annual reunion in June of 2025.
“It seemed too good to be true, but the rate seemed nice, the contact seemed nice,” she said.
Months later, Chudd said she got an email saying the host was being “de-platformed by Vrbo” and they were cancelling her reservation.
That’s when she and family members started doing some serious digging.
“Bad reviews and we’re starting to think, ‘Oh, this is bad,’” she said.
Chudd said the host offered three options in the email: she could contact Vrbo customer support for a refund; call her credit card company for a chargeback; or give the host her banking information and they would refund her with 7% interest.
That, she said, was a huge red flag, despite her urgent need to get a refund and book another place.
“We found there are a lot of scam listings on these vacation rental websites,” Kevin Brasler, Executive Editor with Consumers’ Checkbook, said.
Brasler spent months looking specifically into Vrbo and Booking.com.
He said they function differently from Airbnb, which Brasler said holds money until after a person checks in. Vrbo and Booking.com, he said, function more as forums, connecting customers with hosts, whom people pay directly.
He has advice for anyone looking to use the websites for a rental.
“The first thing is [to] make sure there are a lot of reviews for the property and that they’re almost unanimously positive,” he said. “And also that those reviews stretch back a year or more.”
Brasler advised people to read a lot of reviews, especially the negative ones, and to check them on other websites too.
You can use keywords from a Vrbo or Booking.com listing to try to find it listed elsewhere on the web.
“Would you book a perfect listing if it didn’t have any reviews?” KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked.
“Not after talking to all these victims and after spending months researching this,” Brasler said.
He also advised people to read the fine print during the booking process so they know what’s covered and what’s not when it comes to travel protection or guarantees on a website.
He said above all, customers should book with a credit card, not a debit card or bank transfer.
“If something goes wrong with your trip or with a purchase you’ve made, you have a right under federal law to dispute that charge with your credit card company,” he said. “And your credit card company has to investigate.”
For Susan Chudd, over $7,000 was on the line.
She said once she finally got ahold of a human being at Vrbo, he said he would help her with a refund.
“Maybe a minute later, if not less than that, [I] get an email saying, ‘After further consideration, please go through your credit card company,’” she said.
KIRO 7 reached out to Vrbo, which is owned by Seattle-based Expedia. It said hosts can use Vrbo’s payment processing system, which allows the company to directly issue refunds. But this host, the company said, used their own payment processing software.
Vrbo wrote in part, “in this case, Vrbo issued a full refund for the traveler service fee and the Farm, LLC wrongfully withheld Ms. Chudd’s payment for her reservation, which is why we advised her to request a chargeback from her bank. ”
Chudd got the money back eventually, thanks to the bank.
Another family member was able to book a place so they could still have their reunion.
“It definitely knocked down the trust in humanity a little bit and trust in a company that I think should be protecting its customers,” Chudd said.
Vrbo did not respond to questions about its process for removing a listing, how many fake listings it removes a year, and how many times it’s given refunds.
KIRO 7 also reached out to Booking.com but did not get a response.