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Top > United States > South Carolina 
| Vacation Rental Complaints |
| 1. |
Charelston/ James Island, SC
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We recently used VRBO.com to book our vacation to Charleston, SC for May 29-June 1, 2008. We booked a rental with Dina Del Rio (VRBO #139947) at 1546 Patterson Ave James Island, SC 29412. We paid a total of $744.55 ($200.00 deposit) by May 1.
When we arrived on Thursday May 29 we realized we had become victims of False Advertising. We initially did not feel safe, there were cockroaches in the apartments, the air conditioners were not ready to be used and there was trash/junk all over the backyard. The whole place did not come close to the pictures or descriptions on VRBO.
One of the apartments had a door that connected to Dina’s house. This door could only be locked on her side of the house. We had no way of keeping anyone from coming in. We would go to sleep at night hearing her television and wake up in the morning to someone in her house snoring. When we arrived Dina was cleaning up cockroaches but through out our stay were would find cockroaches in the bed, sofa and on the floor. The apartments had window units and the downstairs unit stopped working on Saturday night. We had 1 night without air conditioning. When we first arrived the apartments smelled of mildew and dust like they had not been opened for months. The coffee maker and blender did not work when we got up in the morning. They turned on but the bottom of the blender did not have a seal and the coffee maker did not filter the coffee.
The worst was the back yard. This was not a private area. The deck in the backyard had been turned into Dina’s kitchen and TV room. Then there were the piles of junk and trash everywhere. The pictures are disgusting.
I do not know where to go with my concerns. When we arrived at the rental we were in shock. We had already paid $744.50 and had tickets in 2 hours for a ghost tour. We called several hotels to see if they had vacancies but could not find a place with that short of notice. We decided to deal with trash and bugs so that our vacation to Charleston would not be ruined. But I do not want other renters to be shocked when they see the rental in real life, which is nothing like the pictures. Other renters will save for years, plan for months, travel for hours, and have all their excitement for a vacation destroyed in a few seconds when they realize that they have been deceived and left with no options.
We depart June 1, on June 25 Dina emailed me that we forfieted our deposit because of dog hair (the place was dog friendly) and items that were already broken when we arrived.
Date Added: Jun 25, 2008
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| 2. |
McKown Properties, Surfside Beach, SC VRBO #31960
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I was part of a group that rented VRBO #31960 from 7/5 - 7/12 under the impression i was renting a top quality beach front property for nearly $6000 a week. I what i was greeted with was much, much less.
I have rented at least 10 properties off of VRBO in the past and every one of them was exactly as described or better, until now.
Upon booking Bill McKown of McKown Properties informed us that they upgraded the place to 5 King Beds instead of the configuration listed on VRBO and this was his signature property that he built for Cale Yarborough and that it would no doubt exceed our expectations. I would have settled for just meeting expectations.
First off, the pictures of the house on VRBO do not match the actual house. The only picture that are correct are of the exterior. All the interior picture are of another house. The bedrooms photographed are not the bedrooms we stayed in. The living room, may be the same, but the furniture shown in the photo is far better than the junk we had to cover with bed sheets to sit on. The view off the deck, was not taken from this house or the pier was photoshopped out of it and the removed that jetty that's shown
Also when we arrived, the place was filthy, there were dead jellyfish, beer bottles and cigarette butts all over the deck, the living room carpet was a stained dirty mess that no amount of vacuuming could remedy and the garbage cans were full.
The hot tub was not functioning and hasn't been for at least a few weeks according to one of McKlowns employees. They sent a repair guy out, but he had to order a pump, so we had a hot tub that did not get beyond 80 degrees and had only a few jets working. So no hot tub for the entire week.
We had order a grill from McKlown that we had to call 4 or 5 times to finally get delivered on Tuesday. That wouldn't have bothered us much id the piece of junk stove fully worked. Only 3 of the 4 heat elements functioned.
All rooms are supposed to have wall mounted TV's according to the listing. Not even close, the living room had a decent standard TV and 2 of the bedrooms had crappy discount brand standard televisions with more static than reception. None of the other rooms had televisions. There was one super low quality DVD player in the living room. Also there was no stereo system as stated in the listing.
Addressing these issues with Bill McKlown was useless. When we arrived we were greeted with the bed configuration that was shown on VRBO, not the one he insisted it was upgraded too. Not a huge deal for us, but his attitude was harsh and stand offish. He did not return any phone calls or emails from us the remainder of the week.
I doubt I can get refunded any money, so I feel I should warn other travelers who may be renting in this area.
Stay away from McKown Properties
Date Added: Jul 13, 2008
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