ResortQuest hit William’s wife with over $285 in fees when she canceled less than a day after making her reservation. Over $190 ostensibly went towards taxes, which raised William’s eyebrow and led him to fire off an Executive Email Carpet Bomb demanding an explanation.

That alone was enough to shake out a full refund. William writes:

My wife recently reserved a vacation rental from ResortQuest in Panama City beach for our family vacation. She called back less than 24 hours later to cancel as we found a better rental at another location. ResortQuest informed her that they would not refund any portion of the 330 dollar deposit. She was sent a “cancellation statement” that listed 95.70 in reservation fees and 190.92 dollars in “taxes”.

I performed as an effective EECB that I could though the addresses were very hard to find and not all of them got replies.

I made mention in all of my emails that I wanted to know who assessed and collected these taxes on canceled reservations.

Before I got any reply emails I got a rep on the phone and went through the motions of requesting the refund and when told no I started asking the taxes questions and let the representative know that I had sent all of the emails. She went and “discussed this with her manager” then returned and informed me she would be issuing a full refund. However she could not give me any paperwork confirming the refund and that it might take as many as three weeks to refund.

Later in the day after talking to a nice lady from corporate who assured me that the matter would be taken care of. Later in the day the manager of the Panama City office did contact me via email and provide me an “email confirmation” of the refund.

As of 14 days later the refund had been credited.

Notes:

We reserved the condo on a website http://www.vrbo.com which is supposed to be by owners only and not commercial outfits.

Nowhere on the ad or during the reservation phone call was it mentioned they would keep the reservation fee if canceled.

I would understand if you canceled the week or month before, but the next morning, three months in advance.

I still did not find out who was getting the 190 dollars in “taxes.”

Has anyone else had shady experiences with ResortQuest? Tell us in the comments.

(Photo: fotografar)

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