To the FTC
In February 2016, without any advance communication with subscriber homeowners, VRBO/Homeaway instituted an 8-10% service fee charged to all tenants booking stays at properties with the subscribed properties listed on VRBO/Homeaway. The result has been a dramatic decline in inquiries and bookings at member properties, with devastating results to many homeowners who have had to scramble to fill their calenders.
The service fee represents a breach of contract. The point of the annual subscription fee paid by homeowners to VRBO/Homeaway is that it offers marketing and transaction infrastructure. The actions of the company are precisely contrary to marketing the properties it lists; the fee presents a significant and unnecessary disincentive to book stays at these properties. It is not unreasonable to conclude tht this breach of trust is driven by the motivations of the parent company, Expedia, whose margins are better selling hotel space, and this is clearly a step towards actively seeking to extinguish the sharing economy competition, which it now owns.
Besides a breach of contract, this is monopolistic behavior and which kills small businesses and disrupts the social fabric that has created the sharing economy; a very positive phenomenon that has been an essential coping strategy for homeowners adversly affected by the economic effects of the 2008 crisis. This action has the potential of creating a flood of homes for sale in the coming year.
