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
Sarah2397
Level 2
Oakland, CA

I also had a Terrible experience with Turnkey.  I hired them to handle my Russian River (northern CA) rental that I had been managing myself for the past 5 years or so.  The first red flag was they insisted I remove my own listings with all my reviews and then they failed to list it again for about a month.  When I call them on it they had no legitimate excuse.  It just went downhill from there.  They didn't rent my home (not once) for 3+ months in 2019.  I called them several times to discuss.  When I eventually got to speak with someone on "My Team" they had no helpful advice or reason.  When I finally took my listing back they came to my house without my permission ransack my supplies and stole a bunch of items that weren't theirs.  They took all the paper goods I had purchased, removed locks that were there's, and left my home in a state that I needed to hire a contractor to put it back together again.  After that, I have rented it every weekend (except one) since they were Fired!  I tried to follow up with them about a month after they were Fired to let them know that my place was renting like hotcakes since I took my listing back.  I was hoping my story would help them modify their business practices so that other clients would not need to go through the same anguish.  Not surprisingly, they did not care about any of it!  I would like to save everyone the pain...Please don't hire them!

Hi @Sarah2397 -- I'm with TurnKey Vacation Rentals, and we're very sorry for the frustrations you experienced.

 

We take the onboarding of new properties very seriously and want to ensure a seamless transition to TurnKey while getting the property live as fast as possible. Every major listing site requires that there's only one listing for every property. For that reason, we require our homeowners to promptly remove their listings while we create our TurnKey listing, based on what we've found to rank highly and generate guest interest and bookings. This process can take up to a month while we take and professionally edit photos, virtual tours and digital floor plans, craft listing descriptions and photo captions, and more.

 

Unfortunately, the transfer of reviews is limited to what each platform has in place. When possible, we ensure that all previous reviews are transferred over, but we're not always able to control this. In addition, we have a dedicated Revenue Management team that's always available when revenue expectations are not met.

 

However, it seems the experience you had with us was not up to our standards. Again we apologize. If you're willing, we would love to know more about your experience to help us improve. Please feel free to reach out to us at reviewsupport@turnkeyvr.com

Chuong1
Level 1
Dallas, TX

Stay at one of their rental . Lawn care company damage our van window and will not pay. Spoke to TurnKey Vr and they are not willing to resolve it. Now i have to fix something i did not do. Wasted my vacation time and my money. They just want to take your money and tell you to f off when you have a problem.

Hi @Chuong1 -- I work at TurnKey and we're sorry to hear about your car, but we did not directly contract with the lawn care company. We have encouraged you to speak to the landscaping company directly and your car insurance company.

We’re looking for your help. We paid in full (#BKG-486304) before the virus prevented us from traveling, but Turnkey won’t refund our money.  The credit offered cannot be used because some of our party live in Portugal, and the others traveled from East Coast and can’t return.  We asked for a refund less 10% deposit which is normal policy if we could have cancelled early enough and were ignored.  Lastly we offered to pay your full management fee  less the balance refunded, and were refused saying it’s “the right thing for everyone involved”. Please ask John, TJ and Jen to reconsider.  A credit is of no use to us.  No exception is made for those who cannot use the credit no matter how long it is extended.

@Harrison50 @Adam1073 Harrison if you're reading these, surely you've noticed that a Turnkey rep has been commenting and that you could tag him or message him directly.  No one else here can help you with your problem.

Rachel1092
Level 2
Pueblo West, CO

TurnKey Vacation Rentals abuptly cancelled our fully paid reservation for Labor Day weekend on August 5th; we made the reservation in April 2019 through AirBNB.  We were anticipating celebrating my parents' 50th wedding anniversary that weekend (which Turnkey was aware of). They cited newly changed county restrictions on short term rentals as the reason:

 

"Hi Rachel We regret to inform you that the county no longer allows less than 7-night rentals at homes. We are no longer going to be able to host you. You will be receiving a full refund, including the service fee. Kind Regards TurnKey VR"

 

On August 6th, I spoke to the Routt County Planners office (Colorado) . They said the rental company is not being honest as there has been a short term rental ban (less than 30 days) in the county since 1972. They'd been getting complaints from neighbors due to short term rentals at the property in question, and so they went out to the property last Friday (8/2) to find renters with a 5 day stay. They called the management company, Turnkey Vacation Rentals, and told them the cannot allow rentals less than 30 days. The management company had not yet called the Planners office back but went ahead and cancelled our reservation.  It doesn't appear that they are interested in complying with the 30 day minimum if they are still offering 7 day rentals and they continue to advertise 2 to 3 night stays on other properties in the area despite county regulations.

They are definitely interested in covering their a** and will ruin your plans to do so.  Whoever actually allows this terrible company to manage their properties should reconsider.  BUYER BEWARE!

Hi @Rachel1092 --  I'm with TurnKey Vacation Rentals and we are very sorry for this situation.

 

We always seek to be in compliance with local regulations around the operation of short-term rentals in every destination we serve, and take this very seriously. In this case, the Routt County Planning Department did contact us in June, and members of our leadership held a series of meetings about this directly with them. But during this time, our operations were being reviewed and no final determination had been made. Ultimately, in August 2019, the Department sent us their decision and final notice of their findings. In response, and to comply with their decision, unfortunately we were forced to cancel some bookings, including yours, and provide refunds. Again, we are incredibly sorry for this experience.

You (and I'm sure your well-staffed legal/PR departments) can say what you will, but Routt County regulations have been in place for nearly 50 years (according to their planning office).  Your office specifically cited recently changed regulations as the rationale for a short notice cancellation on fully paid reservation.  Per Routt County, they had just found you in violation of the county regulations a few days prior to the cancellation in question. Again, per Routt County, this was a repeat violation not the first occurrence.

 

Despite your company's efforts to whitewash this and pretend you were in the process of having open discussions with Routt County, I have Routt County's assurance in writing that this was not the case.  So, I'll reiterate that your company, in my experience, was and continues to be dishonest and is only interested in covering your own a**.  The empty apology is worthless particularly when your company entered into a rental agreement with us with the full knowledge that you were in violation of long-standing county regulations.

 

No one at your company has made any attempt to make this right or even, at the very least, take accountability for your dishonest business practices.  TurnKey was knowingly in the wrong the moment they entered into this rental agreement with us.  Don't bother to respond with any further excuses and/or false explanations for your company's behavior.

We just went thru nightmare too with www.turnkeyvr.com   

They do NOT do anything they promise...

They kept monies owed to us...

We spent a LOT of $$ on new lanai furniture and then built it and set it up beautifully and they came and just shoved it all over the lanai where you could not even use table etc without getting up and waling to it from seating...

We waited a couple months to get "professional" pics and they let the worker guy snap a few terrible pics including toilets open and shower curtains half in and half out of tubs...

Rented it out so low nobody booked more than 4 or 5 days as it made it sound like it was a motel 6 rather than a gorgeous condo in the best part of Maui..

Their ad for our condo was mostly an advertisement for turnkey...

They were charging guest HUGE "insurance" fees and just keeping the money, it was NOT an insurance policy to protect neither us or the guests...

Have had daily chest pains since the day we gave them our keys as they do NOT listen and do NOT take notes when they say someone else will take care of my concerns and then when I would talk to the next person, they had NO idea what I was talking about...

They lost a LOT of business for us and got ZERO reviews for the couple of bookings they finally got....

I have never dealt with a LESS  PROFESSIONAL company in my life...

They truly have NO idea how to successfully market rental property in an upscale area like Maui...

They kept trying to call our condo on a 23 acre Hawaiian property, a Villa, as they first description line....

They did just EVERYTHING wrong they could think of since day 1...the sales guy was the only good thing about the company and he was so good, we fell for it even though it did seem "too good to be true" and it could have cost us our livelyhood  for this new venture that was VERY expensive to start and am so angry we fell for it...

This company should be checked into for their business or lack there of, practices...

Hi @Holly326 -- I'm with TurnKey Vacation Rentals and so sorry for your experience with us. What you describe is not consistent at all with our standards, and I'm not sure why they would have been done.

 

Specifically regarding your listing and photography, we have processes around capturing photographs, digital floor plans and virtual tours, which is done with a specific technology that should be used for every home (in addition to any professional photographs we have taken). This powers our ability to professionally edit photos and create listings. If this wasn't done, we're incredibly sorry and would like to be able to investigate where we went wrong so we can improve. Would it be possible to contact us directly at reviewsupport@turnkeyvr.com so we can get more information?

 

I also apologize for any misunderstanding regarding our fees. We take every effort to be transparent on these. We don't actually charge insurance fees, as we're not an insurance provider. We include Property Damage Protection in our bookings, which we have found guests greatly prefer, as it's a fraction of the cost of a security deposit.

 

Again, we are sorry for the frustrations you experienced and hope to one day regain your trust. Please know that we take this feedback to heart and will use it to improve upon our service for homeowners in Maui and across the U.S.

Susan17
Level 10
Dublin, Ireland

@Adam1073 

You might have some  chance - however small - of being taken seriously, if you showed your credentials rather than hiding behind a blank, incognito profile. All just seems a little too shady - in keeping with the reputation Turnkey itself has garnered over the past couple of years. 

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Adam1073  Your employers have given you an utterly useless task. Consumers, especially on this forum, are thoroughly fed up with corporate PR damage control. Companies who deal fairly and ethically with their customers don't have the need to do such things. 

This company is a nightmare.  My husband and I traveled 9 hour to our booked condo in South Padre Island only to find out that Turnkey had LOST the management contract.  We arrived to a maintenance man changing the locks on the condo.  Note, we had been in contact with Turnkey earlier by text for check-in information.  We stood outside the complex until someone finally was able to DOWNGRADE us to another unit.  We really had no alternative but to take the deal.  We were told the unit was $50. less per night and it was a nice unit but over the hot tub and public beach entrance.  We really wanted the privacy of the unit we originally rented.  We received a $43 refund and NO follow up after two emails to them.  They promised to follow up but did not.  They really didn't care.  Donna

Hi @Donna893 -- I work at TurnKey Vacation Rentals and am so sorry for the frustration you experienced, both with your stay and our communications. Your experience does not appear to live up to our service standards, and I assure you that we do take this seriously. Could you please email us at reviewsupport@turnkeyvr.com with your booking information so that we can investigate and get back to you?