Friends lose £6,000 after Ibiza villa owner ‘disappears’

theguardian.com:

A group of friends who lost more than £6,000 after the owner of the luxury Ibiza villa they had booked on Vrbo “disappeared” say the company’s “book with confidence guarantee” turned out to be hopeless.

Elaine Forth, who lives in Birmingham, and her friend Lisa Colclough had booked the villa for a group of friends in 2020. They paid more than £7,700, but have only been able to recover their deposit and service fee.

They are the latest people to report booking expensive holiday accommodation only to find there is very little consumer protection in place if there is a problem.

The booking was paid for in part using Forth’s credit card, in the belief that this would give some protection if the worst happened, with the rest put on a debit card.

When Covid hit, the group were forced to cancel but were told by the owner that they could reschedule the trip post-pandemic.

But by the time they were ready to rebook, the owner had stopped responding to messages. It later emerged that he had removed the property from the Vrbo website.

Since then the friends have tried every avenue to get a refund, but say they have been rebuffed.

“We pursued a complaint through Vrbo who tried to contact the owner but to no avail and the company eventually said that there was nothing they could do as they had no liability,” says Lisa. “They said the ‘book with confidence’ guarantee didn’t cover us because it was beyond their control. What sort of guarantee is that?”

The credit card provider, HSBC, declined a section 75 claim on the basis that they had paid Vrbo – an agent – rather than the villa provider directly. This is a major flaw with the section 75 protection, which is supposed to hold card providers jointly liable to provide the service.

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