Warning against use of Turnkey Vacation Rentals to manage properties

Paul368
Level 4
New Orleans, LA

Warning against use of Turnkey Vacation Rentals to manage properties

Hello, 

 

I have been a host for six years across two cities, and I wanted to put out some information about my experience with Turnkey Vacation Rentals in Nashville, TN. This company was a complete disaster for my listings, and I would never recommend any host use them. I have a TON of things to say, but I'll try to list the basic issues with their "service."

 

1. They advertise a "hands-off" and "worry free" service for absent landlords. It was anything but. They couldn't even handle basics like getting the lawn cut before it was 3 feet tall in mid-summer, causing mutiple terrible reviews. I had to check up their work constantly, and they showed no care at all to making sure guests had a good experience and would leave the listings with good reviews.

 

2. They similarly advertise high-quality vacation listings, but they were awful at basic things that give guests a good experience. Replacement towels and linens were of really low quality, and not maintained well, despite these expenses being charged to me. They didn't even try to use good products when they weren't paying for them! Again, no care given to providing a good guest experience, and the listing suffered for it. 

 

3. They never held guests accountable for damages or even apparent theft. Items went missing from the home, including a full bed frame. Curtain and bathroom hardware was pulled down and shoddily replaced multiple times, but no guests were held accountable for these damages, and I ended up eating the costs.

 

4. Becuase the reviews suffered so terribly, after buring through my old airnbnb reservations that were already in place at handover, they had one good month of revenues (when their listing was new), and then after that, reservations tanked. I had 3-4 days out of two months reserved when I finally fired them. Now I'm having to cover the mortgage at this house with no revenue coming in for two months wheil I wait to get a long term tenant in place.  

 

Bottom line, this company is unprofessional in many ways and not to be trusted with any property that is nice enough to be a good airbnb listing. Plus, there is no bond or deposit in place to ensure their care of your property or business reputation. Use their services at your own risk.  

110 Replies 110

We booked a condo through turnkey the first week of August in south padre island Texas. About a week before leaving hurricane Hanna started in the gulf and was headed toward south padre, we decided to give turnkey a call to try and move the booking forward or get a refund because of the hurricane. The company was unwilling to do either so we had the choice to either loose out on 2000 dollars or take our chances, we decided to take our chances. This was the first time booking through turnkey and was the worst experience we have ever had in all of our travels. We have traveled And stayed many places and not once until now have I felt the need to warn people about how bad and crooked this company really is. We arrived shortly after hurricane Hanna. Upon arrival all the metal shutters on the windows were down due to the hurricane which was expected, what was not expected was that there was only one rod to turn the shutters up and they were so old and hard to turn it was exhausting trying to raise them. After the shutters were up we then tried to go out on the balcony to our surprise was a sliding glass door that was literally held together by duck tape and would not budge. This is not only a huge inconvenience it is a major safety issue we closed the shutter back down because the slightest wind seemed like it almost would push the glass in. After seeing this we decided to do a further inspection of the condo. To our surprise there was no grill as advertised in the listing, the place had an unpleasant smell, the walls were filthy, the couch was only half of a sectional instead of the full thing listed and was so worn out that we couldn’t sit on it without getting prices of fake white leather all over us so we had to have a blanket over it the whole time. The cleanliness of this room was terrible, during a pandemic one would assume that more caution would be taken to clean but this place was obviously either very lazily cleaned or not cleaned at all prior to our arrival. When we finally decided to go to bed we pulled the covers back to find long hairs all over the beds like they were never changed. We decided it being late we would just wash the bedding ourselves. This was not possible because the washer and dryer would not work. Our last resort was to call customer service multiple times trying to someone to just bring us clean linens so we could go to sleep after driving 14 hours to this destination. They kept saying someone would bring linens but nobody ever showed up and we were forced to stay up all night. Late the next afternoon someone finally showed up with linen and we were able to make the beds. We had called customer service and told them about the cleanliness, the dangerous door, the busted washer and dryer the disgusting couch the WiFi not working and not one time did anyone ever show up to fix these issues. The funny thing is these issues have all been stated before in other reviews of this room. Stupid me I guess for thinking the company/owner may have done the right thing and fixed all of these issues before renting the place out again but no way. Customer service did tell us that they would atleast compensate for the first night but to this date they have not. What they did do was very crooked, they sent a partial refund of 200 when the room was more than 300 a night but they then charged the amount right back meaning the refund was never refunded. Did they really think that they could get away with this? How many times have they done this to people? I decided to take the time to report this company to BBB because of how crooked and pathetic they are. All in all I would never book with turnkey again and have spread the word about the horrible experience.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Robert4935  Sorry to read of your horror booking.  When you read bad reviews, never assume that the issues have been fixed- if they have been, the host will usually leave a response to the review saying "Thanks for pointing that out- we've now replaced the mattresses", for example, or "So sorry you found it unclean, it was a new cleaner, who has now been fired".

 

Personally, I would never book a place that is managed by a big property management company- I would look for places that have a real host/home owner, who only has one or a few listings, with good reviews. That's where you're most likely to find attentive hosts who actually care.

@Sarah977 
The funny thing is the manager of the property did reply to those posts saying the property was fixed and it never was. Turnkey is such a terrible company.

@Robert4935  Ha! So not only don't they look after their properties, they lie about bringing over linens and publicly lie about having fixed things. Amazing they are still in business.

I hope you reported this listing to Airbnb, if you booked through Airbnb. They tend to ignore bad reports and reviews on these big management companies, because they bring in a lot of revenue for Airbnb, but they still should be reported.

I did report this property through Airbnb. Live and learn I guess. The only thing I can do now is to try and warn others.

Milica47
Level 1
Las Vegas, NV

I just had a terrible experience with turnkey, as a customer. I’ve been in the hospitality industry for the last 16 years and I’ve been on both sides. I’ve had employees that like to go use the restroom when they see an upset guest approaching. That’s turnkey.
I booked a cabin and as you know, confirming availability is a pretty rigorous process that took all day. They were super responsive during that time.  After I received a confirmation, saw my funds were taken, and I communicated with my group, turnkey sent me a very generic message that they will cancel my reservation as they have another guest staying over the same dates. They suggested I contact Airbnb. After that, crickets. I sent 3 messages and they replied to none. Airbnb took 5 hours to call me back also because turnkey couldn’t be reached. Pitiful! 

Hannah772
Level 1
Minneapolis, MN

I recently rented a home from Turnkey Rentals in Carolina Beach and they cancelled less than two weeks before arriving. They've been horrible to work with--have only found lesser quality rentals to replace ours before telling us we're on our own. We've already paid $6000 for the home and for travel there. They've told us they'll refund us but we have yet to get it back. Meanwhile I'm scrambling for a month long rental. I will never use this company again and will actively voice to others to do the same.

WARNING THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY!!!! STAY AWAY. Forest fires and evacuation orders a few blocks away from their property all they did is state their cancelation policy over and over, no refunds allowed for any reason.  ABSURD!!! FRAUD!!!! THEFT THEFT THEFT!!!! Stole over $2,000 from us.

 

Big Bear, CA home owners PLEASE READ!!!

 

If you own a home DO NOT USE TURNKEY.  If you are using them already REMOVE your home and stop doing business with them immediately.  They have a class action lawsuit against them for their unethical cancelation policy.  The BBB is investigating them. They have over 800 people in a Facebook group on a mission to take them out of business.   Just search the negative reviews on various websites and you will see for yourself (ignore the positive ones which are "invited" and fake reviews).

 

If your a potential renter BEWARE!!! THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY!!


There were advisory notices from fire department and Sheriff to stay out of the area to help evacuating residents.  There were evacuation orders just a few blocks away from their property.  They said their "local team" says the property is available and we should go there. They have no regard for human life they would not allow us to postpone or cancel, no refunds for any reason. They stole our money!!!

Harma168 - do you have a recommendation for a good management company in Big Bear?  They all seem to be in over their heads and we're not willing to pay the exorbitant fees while we end up doing most of the managing ourselves.  (Which is definitely the case w/turnkey.)  Also, what is the name of the FB group - we'd love to join!  Feel free to respond to mtnpuker@yahoo.com.  Thanks!

Elizabeth530
Level 2
San Antonio, TX

I am a host with Air BnB and I also would advise against doing business with this company. They have been terrible to work with and, in fact, there is a whole Facebook group devoted to the grievances of people who have had the misfortune of working with them. It sounds like both hosts and guests are treated with equal disdain. There is also a class action lawsuit that has been filed against them. I would advise Air BnB to remove them from the community as they seem to be thought of as incompetent crooks.

 

https://www.sauderschelkopf.com/investigations/turnkey-refunds-covid-19-class-action-lawsuit-investi...

Thanks for the info!

 

In addition to the remedies being sought in the class action suit against TurnKey, Airbnb might adopt a covid policy requiring the refund of occupancy related taxes and fees in case of restrictions barring travel to, or occupancy of properties. This would keep owners and property managers whole while preventing unscrupulous property managers like TurnKey from pocketing taxes and fees not expended on the renters' behalf. Companies like TurnKey do not reflect well either on owners or Airbnb.

Paul7058
Level 2
Bethesda, MD

If our rental experience is any indication, owners should avoid TurnKey.

 

When so many lives and businesses are disrupted by the pandemic, it is always appreciated when a merchant steps up on behalf of their valued customers. Unfortunately, TurnKey Vacation Rentals is on the wrong side of that human-decency equation.

In our case, this disruption took the form of a local ordinance, adopted a month before we were to occupy the property but after our reservation had matured under Airbnb rules -- meaning that any adjustments were solely at the discretion of the owner. The ordinance banned multi-family gatherings, which blew up up our annual Christmas plans with our two grown children and their families. The total rental cost was roughly $9,000.

Of this, less than $7,000 was for the actual rental. The rest consisted of various taxes and fees. The invoice from Airbnb specified more than $1,200 in fees and taxes that were occupancy related. We asked TurnKey to refund these expenses, since TurnKey wouldn't be incurring them on our behalf. This proposal would have left TurnKey whole. But they refused to work with us multiple times and even refused to forward our request to the owner. Instead, TurnKey pocketed these occupancy related expenses, as an unearned windfall.

Merchants who expect their customers to come back don't run businesses this way. My wife and I travel extensively in normal times. In the future, we'll avoid TurnKey and Airbnb, even when the alternative costs more. Owners who value return business should avoid them, too.

@Paul7058 Please do, by all means,  avoid the listings managed by large listing companies who have little skin in the game but please don't give up on the many Airbnb hosts for whom guest's customer satisfaction is key to their (often small) business.

@Paul7058 You could also investigate a small claims court claim under the laws of frustrated contracts. No idea which state has jurisdiction and the above law varies by state but perhaps worth a quick google