Redweek located a renter, and I must act immediately

[icydog]

This in a nutshell describes the inherent danger of accepting credit card payment for rentals. Disputes (even if completely bogus) can even be initiated after the rental is fully completed. To each their own, of course, but that's a big "no thank you" from me.

Never mind. I shouldn't add oil to the fire. I am so dumb like that. I say things then regret them. Sorry.

 

[chapjim]

Never mind. I shouldn't add oil to the fire. I am so dumb like that. I say things then regret them. Sorry.

To paraphrase that great philosopher and social commentator, Larry The Cable Guy, "Like none of us ain't ever done that!"

 

[rickandcindy23]

When a person is listing on Redweek, they are paying to list their week because they have a week they need to rent. Why would an owner want to rent a week out from under a deal already made through escrow with Redweek? That sounds ridiculous. So do you, Redweek, have that happen often?

How does the contract protect the owner of the week against people who back out of the deal? The contract should say no refunds at all of the 50% down. Credit card companies so far have sided with me in cases like that because I have the signature on their contract, agreeing to those terms. I haven't lost a dispute yet, and it's been almost 11 years of renting.

 

[theo]

To each their own of course, but dealing with credit card disputes at all takes time and effort (and annoyance), even if / when you prevail. That's time and effort I am personally just unwilling to expend if it's completely avoidable. I will just continue to keep any and all credit cards out of our (infrequent anyhow) rental transactions.

 

[tink10]

RickandCindy, no, that's not something that happens often.

Our standard rental agreement for Verified and Protected postings offer no full refunds to the renter once the owner has accepted the booking. Beyond that point, if the renter cancels more than 60 days before the check-in date, they will receive a refund of 50% of the rental price. If they cancel 60 or less days before the check-in date, there is no refund at all. In either case, we will re-post the week and attempt to get another renter for the unit and the funds (including the assessed cancellation penalty) will be paid to the owner two days after check-in (barring any material disputes as I described above).

So we protect the owner financially if a renter cancels, so long as the owner has accepted the booking. Will we guarantee that a unit will re-rent...No, but we do absolutely try.

I hope this helps!

 

[tschwa2]

RickandCindy, no, that's not something that happens often.

Our standard rental agreement for Verified and Protected postings offer no full refunds to the renter once the owner has accepted the booking. Beyond that point, if the renter cancels more than 60 days before the check-in date, they will receive a refund of 50% of the rental price. If they cancel 60 or less days before the check-in date, there is no refund at all. In either case, we will re-post the week and attempt to get another renter for the unit and the funds (including the assessed cancellation penalty) will be paid to the owner two days after check-in (barring any material disputes as I described above).

So we protect the owner financially if a renter cancels, so long as the owner has accepted the booking. Will we guarantee that a unit will re-rent...No, but we do absolutely try.

I hope this helps!

60 days cancellation with a 50% refund of full rental price is ok for most drive to locations especially during peak and near peak season where there are often many renters who wait fairly last minute (and 60 days in the timeshare world is last minute) but must fly to locations and locations that don't have a close large urban population it can be very difficult to rent for even half of the original price at 60 days. I suggest for at least non US mainland locations -Mexico, Caribbean, Europe, and Hawaii to make the policy up to 90 days with a 50 % refund and up to 60 days with a 25% refund.

 

[jehb2]

Airlines offer non-refundable tickets. Hotels offer pay-in-advance non-refundable rooms. A lot of Airbnb is pay-up-front and pay-in-full apartments. Like theo I can’t be bothered with the possibility of a credit card dispute. I know I’m an honest person and I know that when someone rents a week from me they are getting a great unit at a really good price. So I have no problem accepting cash only in full. Apparently people who rent a week from me don’t have a problem with that either.

 

[MOXJO7282]

I recall another angry renter I had who would've tried to take advantage if he could've. He rented 2 Maui OF weeks from me. He was a repeat customer so I gave him a very good deal. When we got to the resort he was given a 3rd floor OF when the previous time he got a high floor wrap-around balcony and expected the same the 2nd year. He was not happy and asked for like $2k back. To appease him I was willing to offer him $250 but he seriously wanted the $2k back. If he had that escrow he for sure would've tried to cancel final payment.

 

[JudyS]

mla and Tink10, glad you are here! I am having a problem with a "Verified and Protected" listing I placed on Redweek. I hope you can help.

I have a Redweek listing for December 21 (11 days from now.) On Saturday, December 8th, I received an email from Redweek saying, "Good news - we have a renter ready to book your week! We just need your final confirmation." The email arrived 5:17 pm Saturday, and I accepted the rental as soon as I saw the email. I think that was within a few hours after the email was sent.

But instead of the transaction going through, Redweek gave me this message:
"RENTER PAYMENT FAILED
Oops! Something went wrong with your renter's payment. We will attempt to resolve as quickly as possible and let you know when it has been processed.
Please wait to change the name on your reservation until we get back to you".

I checked my listing, and saw that it was no longer active. Also, my Redweek account now says that I will receive payment for the week. My account says, "Payment scheduled for Dec 26, 2018 via digital check"

So, does this mean Redweek has taken responsibility for collecting payment, and I will receive payment even if Redweek ends up unable to get the renter to pay? That does seem to be what Redweek is saying, but I do not know if that is what Redweek really intends.

As soon as I got the "Renter Payment Failed" notice, I sent a message to Redweek Customer Service asking what to do. In particular, I wanted to know if I could still rent via another site and cancel this Redweek booking. I have not heard back from Redweek Customer Service.

I am not willing to risk the chance that this week will end up double-booked. I consider that unethical. On Sunday, I declined two offers for this week, one I got from Craigslist and one I got from eBay. (To be honest, neither offer was at the price I wanted and I would not have accepted unless I could have negotiated a higher price.)

I realize that this instant booking process is new to Redweek and the "bugs" are still being worked out. But, letting a potential renter tie up a week this way is a major flaw. Based on my experience, last weekend was a peak period -- maybe the peak period -- for booking Christmas timeshares in this particular location.

Given that more than 36 hours have passed and the renter has not provided another form of payment, I suspect the renter is acting in bad faith. Probably, he or she wants to shop around for a better price while keeping my week as a back-up. It would be trivially easy to "mistype" the numbers on one's credit card to ensure that payment would fail.

I am offering a very good price for this particular resort, but my resort is fairly luxurious and there are many cheaper resorts very close by. Perhaps, the "renter" has already booked something at a cheaper resort, and has simply not bothered to cancel this booking. (Does Redweek even offer a way to for a renter to cancel after starting the booking process?)

The norm on travel sites is that customers have a 20-minute period to provide payment, or the item becomes bookable by others. There was no way for me to know that my week might be tied up for days. There is nothing about this possibility in the Redweek rental agreement that I accepted, and the document states, "This document contains the entire agreement between the parties."

So, if I complete all the steps that Redweek asks me to do and that I have agreed to do, will Redweek "make me whole" even if the renter never provides valid payment? Based on the rental agreement, and on the "payment scheduled" notice in my account, I believe Redweek has agreed to do that. If the renter never pays, I would probably accept credit towards future Redweek ads as at least half of the compensation. (I own about 40 timeshare contracts, and do lots of business with Redweek.)

If the bugs can be worked out, I think Redweek's new "Verified and Protected" service will work well for me. Rental customers have come to expect a guaranteed week and maybe an instant booking process, because other sites now other this. Redweek needs to offer similar services in order to complete. Redweek often works better for me than these other rental sites do, since Redweek is specifically for timeshares. So, I want Redweek to do well when competing with the various other rental sites that have sprung up.

I have a bunch of other "Verified and Protected" listings on Redweek, including one which a renter has booked and already paid for. (Check-in for that one is December 22, so payment to me isn't due yet.) As long as this problem with someone tying up my week gets worked out, I expect I will use the "Verified and Protected" service a lot in the future.

However, Redweek should send out emails to owners who have rental ads, explaining the new "Verified and Protected" service. I had a bunch of "Verified and Protected" listings earlier in 2018, and they worked completely differently -- Redweek just checked that I really had the reservation, and did not handle the transaction for me. I was very confused at first about how the this new "Verified and Protected" service worked.

Both the old version of "Verified and Protected" and the new version cost $14.95, and I think the new version is a better value. I especially like that with the new version, renters pay a processing fee in addition to the rental price, rather than me paying PayPal fees to PayPal. I also am happy that escrow is included in the price. I have no problem waiting until two business fays after check-in to get paid, as long as Redweek only withholds payment in cases where the owner misrepresented or canceled the week. I consider escrow a valuable service because it gives renters confidence, which encourages them to rent from me, rather than directly from the resort at full price.

I think I will probably like the "Verified and Protected" cancellation policy, too. Am I correct in thinking that if the renter cancels during the period where I receive 50% of the price, I then have the option (if no one else has booked yet) to end my Redweek ad? Would this allow me to keep the 50% plus still use my week some other way? That sounds very reasonable. If I had timeshares that were airplane-access only -- say, in Hawaii -- the new cancellation policy might be too lenient to work well for me. But, my timeshares are all in the "lower 48 states."

Another suggestion: Does Redweek still have a separate service called "Full Service"? If so, I suggest emails concerning "Verified and Protected" listings should say they are from the "Redweek Instant Book Team" or the "Redweek Verified & Protected Team." Right now, such emails say they are from the "Redweek Full Service Team." Based on comments here, Redweek users are finding this very confusing.

I know many Tuggers here have different views of escrow, payment via credit card, etc. But, most of these Tuggers also say they do few rentals. I have done hundreds of rentals over the past 10 years, and have had only two previous payment problems. In one, an owner damaged a room and didn't want to pay for the damage. Tough luck for her. The resort had her credit card on file, and she had to pay. (It was only about $200, for cleaning fees.) The other problem was more serious. A renter paid $1200 to me via PayPal, and it turned out the credit card was stolen. I wasn't told about the problem until after check-in. PayPal was completely unhelpful when I tried to collect valid payment from my renter -- it would not help me track him down, or even let me know which brand of credit card the scammer had used. PayPal locked my account until I paid them the $1200 back, and I had to eat the loss. Since this was only one loss, all I did was become more strict about making sure the name for check-in matches the name on the payment. I still accept credit cards via PayPal. It sounds like Redweek might give me more protection against credit card fraud than PayPal does. mla, I'd be interested in hearing your policy on this.

I also once had a renter complain that the resort had given her a studio rather than a one-bedroom. But, at that resort, there *were* no studios! A one-bedroom was the smallest possible unit. She should have tried her scam at a different resort.

mla and Tink 10, thank you for participating here!

 

[JudyS]

Looks like things will work out with my "troubled" Redweek posting. The renter had until 3:45 pm PST yesterday to come up with payment (I suspect this is 48 hours after booking.) Redweek canceled the transaction four hours early at my request. Possibly, Redweek would be willing to cancel a reservation earlier than that, but that is when Redweek Customer service responded to the message I had sent them.

Since then, my week has been "instant booked" at my full asking price. The renter's payment went through immediately. I recognize the renter's name and he is someone who asked me for a rental before, at this same resort, but I couldn't provide the exact dates he needed. So, I am confident that he really wants to stay at my resort, and is not putting my week "on hold" as he shops around.

 

[md8287]

Our standard rental agreement for Verified and Protected postings offer no full refunds to the renter once the owner has accepted the booking. Beyond that point, if the renter cancels more than 60 days before the check-in date, they will receive a refund of 50% of the rental price. If they cancel 60 or less days before the check-in date, there is no refund at all. In either case, we will re-post the week and attempt to get another renter for the unit and the funds (including the assessed cancellation penalty) will be paid to the owner two days after check-in (barring any material disputes as I described above).

So we protect the owner financially if a renter cancels, so long as the owner has accepted the booking. Will we guarantee that a unit will re-rent...No, but we do absolutely try.

I hope this helps!

mla and Tink10 - who pays the credit card processing fee on protected listings? If it’s the renter then shouldn’t that be disclosed and verified? In my diy listings I include that in my listed price so my price may look higher than a protected listing even though it may not be when you include the credit card fee. Thoughts?