Spacious 3BR in Flatbush w/ King Bed, 2 Queens, Fast Wifi, A/C

Hi Craig,I’m sorry to hear about the difficult circumstances surrounding your trip and your loss of your son years ago. I want to explain exactly what happened from our side so it’s clear. VRBO sent us a formal alert stating that your booking was flagged as potentially high risk for an unauthorized or disruptive event. In that message, they specifically instructed us to reach out to you to confirm the purpose of your trip and to remind you of their strict policy against unauthorized parties. They also made it very clear that if we still felt uncomfortable after contacting you, we could cancel the reservation without any penalty to us, and you would receive a full refund. On top of that, they warned us that if we did not cancel and something went wrong, our listing could be suspended or we could face other penalties from VRBO. We did exactly what they asked. We contacted you about the booking. When we asked about the purpose of the stay, the only response we received was that it was “a getaway.” Given the red flags VRBO had already raised, along with other inconsistencies in the booking details, we decided to follow their recommendation and allow them to cancel the reservation without penalty. Here’s where VRBO really dropped the ball: Even though they were the ones who flagged the booking as high risk, told us we could cancel without penalty, and ultimately canceled it themselves, their system still allowed you to leave a public review on our listing. This is a major flaw in how VRBO handles these situations. Their own process created this problem, and then they failed to prevent the review from being posted afterward. As an integrated partner with VRBO, we escalated this specific issue through the proper channels and brought it to the attention of the team responsible for handling these flags and reviews. Unfortunately, they did not resolve it. This shows a clear breakdown on VRBO’s end — both in their automated system and in how they follow up on issues that hosts report to them. We always try to accommodate guests whenever possible, but we also have to protect our listing and follow the guidelines VRBO sets for us. In this case, we did what VRBO told us to do, and their system still failed us.