Bad Service – Villa4UFlorida

Today I continue my reports about Good, Bad, and Ugly customer service experiences.  Today’s story is about a recent experience my family had while on vacation last month in Orlando, FL.  While this experience doesn’t qualify as Ugly, it does have several qualities that place in the Bad category.

We traveled to Orlando with my parents for baseball’s Spring Training.  We decided the best thing for us was to rent a home.  We ended up booking with Villa4UFlorida – specifically selecting a home co-owned by a work colleague of my wife.  A couple months after booking, we learned that a long term contract for the home was extended, thus we could not have that particular home.  Villa4UFlorida booked us for a similar home about 15 minutes from Orlando.  No problem – we actually appreciated the effort they went to to find us another option.

Many of the homes for rent have private swimming pools, and we learned, the option to have the pools heated.  The biggest decision was the fee to heat the pool.  The charge is $25 a day for the length of the stay.  Since our plans involved being out at games most days, we were not sure if it was worth the cost.  Factoring in the bad winter we had on the East Coast, and given how much my daughters love to swim, we decided (a few days before the trip) to pay the fee and have the pool heated. 

So, my wife contacted them two days before, left a message since no one answered the telephone, and requested a confirmation call to her cellphone.  To cut to the chase, she never got a call.  Making matters worse is the fact that Villa4UFlorida doesn’t have a office where you check in.  A week before a renter arrives, and after final payment has been received, they send you an e-mail with a code to a lockbox that contains the key to the property you are renting – so there is never the option for a face-to-face meeting with any representatives.

When we got into the house we found the instructions for the pool.  Each night we were to place a plastic cover back on it to help keep the heat in – which we did.  Attached to, but slight elevated above the pool was a small spa.  The instructions recommended that we run this approximately 40 minutes prior to using – we assumed to get it good and heated.   We tried this the first couple of evenings and really saw no measureable result.  That first evening, our daugthers went into the pool and really seemed to enjoy it – but considering it was 30 degrees when we left Delaware that day, anything above 50 degrees would have felt great.

Unfortunately, over the next couple of days, the temperature in the pool seemed to be on a major decline.  So after day two, my wife contacted Villa4UFlorida.  When she called to see if they had gotten her original request, she was told they turned on the heater before we arrived.  When she expressed concern that the pool was not warming up – the nasty response she got was, “You must be doing it wrong!”  No apology, no offer to have someone look into it, just a condensing answer that pointed blame at us – the customer.  Considering I was paying $175 for this simple service, we expected more. 

Figuring we were not going to get any assistance, we continued to follow the recommended procedures the next few nights.  The only measureable difference we could see was that the water temperature was getting colder.  So cold in fact, my daughters only spent 10 minutes in the pool each of the last two nights – very disappointing.

Now it is true we never called back that week – but would you have?  We had two main reasons for not calling again.  First, no one is at the rental company beyond normal business hours.  Since we were at baseball games after the first two days, we were never at the house during business hours.  The second reason was the lack of responses we had gotten to that point.  Remember, my wife never got the confirmation telephone call she requested when we asked that the pool be heated.   Then, when we called to express concern that it was not warm, we were told we were idiots.  So why would we attempt to call again?

When we got home, we called to request a credit since we did not believe the pool was ever heated.  As you can expect, the co-owner of Villa4UFlorida basically told us we were liars.  She informed us that her husband had come out the day after our call questioning if the heat was turned on.  She informed us that the pool was “a lovely 82 degrees.”  We found it very interesting that someone from the company had come to the house, and potentially into the house, and never left a note indicating they were there or what they did.  What I know for sure is, that pool was no where near 82 degrees. 

After several communications, Villa4UFlorida still claims the pool was fine, but said they received complaints from other renters at other homes that same week.  That tells me a lot.  But when questioned, they have been rude, avoided calling us back, communicating solely via e-mail, and has only offered to give us a $175 credit on a booking over the next 12 months.  If they feel compelled to offer us a credit in the future, they should be willing to make it right for us now.

Given the treatment we received, the lack of personal communication, and their failure to professionally address our problem, we have no interest to rent from them again.  Therefore, I am now using my power as the consumer to add them to the bad list of customer service experiences.

Do you have a similar experience with this company, or another rental organization, please share!