I recently tried to book an apartment using the "Book Now" feature on the HomeAway website (HomeAway and VRBO are different websites run by the same company). I got an error message saying that the booking was not made and to try again later. So I used the "Contact Manager" feature on HomeAway's site to contact the property manager. (I could have reserved with the property manager directly on their own website, but they are in Europe and I'm in no hurry to have to go to a European court to get my security deposit back if need be.)

Later I got an email from the property manager saying that my booking was accepted and two pending charges came up on my credit card, one for HomeAway's service charge and the other for the rental. On HomeAway's website, however, there was no indication of the booking -- the property was not listed in "My Trips" and there was no Reservation ID.

After I emailed HomeAway customer service, they said that this reservation was made directly through the property manager, bypassing HomeAway entirely. Well, that can't be true because I never provided credit card information by any means to the property manager and the only entity that had my credit card information was HomeAway.

The only way this could have happened is if HomeAway provided my credit card information to the property manager. To be clear, I intended to book through HomeAway, and through HomeAway only, and provided credit card information to HomeAway, and to HomeAway only. I've sent a few emails to customer service, and eventually to HomeAway's CEO and the parent company's (Expedia) CEO & CFO and there's no progress on this.

To sum up, either HomeAway customer service is mistaken and the reservation was in fact made through HomeAway, or HomeAway has illegaly provided my credit card information to the property manager, thus enabling the property manager to engage in credit card fraud with the assistance of HomeAway. If this is just a mistake, not clear why customer support and C-level people, who were alerted to this, can't fix it.

I am wondering if other people have had similar experiences or any recommendations.

Thanks