London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

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

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

Group forced to cancel because of Covid but got only deposit and service fee back from booking site Vrbo

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.

The friends were forced to cancel their 2020 holiday on Ibiza but were told by the villa’s owner that they could reschedule the trip post-pandemic.


“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.

Next they tried the debit card provider, Halifax, and asked for a chargeback of half the cost of the villa. This was refused on the basis that they were out of time. Chargeback claims are limited to 120 days.

“We had saved up to celebrate what was going to be a milestone birthday, and a chance for us all to get together,” says Forth.

“We thought that we were doing the right thing using a credit card – booking with a big-name company in Vrbo – but we have been let down at every turn. There is no protection in place if an owner just disappears – it’s been hugely disappointing.”

Vrbo, which is Expedia-owned, told Guardian Money that it only acts as an agent, and that all rental contracts are between the holidaymaker and the host.

“Refunds are at the discretion of the individual property-host to decide what to offer the holidaymaker. The book with confidence guarantee policy for eligible customers provides a certain level of protection but cancellations caused by or resulting from events that are outside the control of Vrbo, such as Covid, are not covered,” a spokesperson says.

It said Vrbo had refunded the traveller service fee and security deposit of €1,123, and had supplied the host’s details to allow the group to take legal action against him in the Spanish courts, if they wished.

The case shows the problems consumers face when booking holiday accommodation, particularly abroad, as there is very little comeback if the booking goes wrong.

This is a particular problem in Ibiza and other popular Spanish destinations, where scammers will advertise fake listings or take over real listings, and change the contact details. Holidaymakers have found themselves standing, suitcase in hand, outside villas they thought they had booked, only to learn they had been scammed.

Airbnb arguably offers the best protection in this regard in that it controls the process and doesn’t release the payment to the owner until just after check-in. Until the likes of Vrbo adopt a similar scheme, it’s very much a case of caveat emptor.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
×