Wimdu - www.wimdu.com

I used Wimdu for the first time ever as it was referred to me by a friend. I booked my accommodation on the Wimdu website and followed all the prompts from the host in paying for the accommodation. A week before my trip I contacted host for key collection details with no response. I contacted wimdu head office and the night before I was due to leave for my holiday they told me I had no booking with them. After talking to them they said their website had been hacked and a false property put on their site and my money had been stolen. They then blamed me for not using their normal payment methods to which I replied, I followed all the email instructions from your wumdu support email address which I obviously thought was you as I don't expect hackers on Company websites. They have still taken no responsibility and pointed the finger at me and I have not got any money back and stayed at my Mother-in-Laws home. Most expensive holiday to the Mother - in - Laws ever! Do not use them as their security and customer service is horrific!

I highly don't recommend! I am waiting for a month until they do return transfer of my money to my account - still nothing. I wrote almost 10 e-mails without any effect. No any contact from Wimdu.

I listed my property in different sites like AIRBNB and of course WIMDU. One day I saw that my listing is at 1/3 of the price and I tryied to log in into my account and I couldnt SO someone else changed my password and is offering my property thru WIMDU at 1/3 of the Price there is a different email address showing at WIMDU than my email address. What is going to happen if someone make a reservation thru WIMDU and shows up at my door without having a real reservation? I tryied to contact WIMDU and nobody answers...

BE CAREFULE RUN AWAY FROM WIMDU!!!!

This weekend i paid in full for a weekend stay at an apartment in Edinburgh. The dates I wanted were available;I paid, so job done you would have thought. Not so with Wimdope apparently. I got a message the glittering day to day the host had "declined". This really is the strangest set-up I've ever heard of. Seemingly the usual rules of commerce don't apply in their weird world. I thought we had a contract in place. More annoyingly I'll actually LOSE money on the currency exchange, as my 'refund' will be less than my payment!! I will never, ever use this outfit again. Forgive me Booking.com; I'll never stray again!

Find an alternative to Wimdu. It is one of the most ridiculous companies I've ever made the mistake of using. I booked an apartment in Munich for 8 people only to have the host say that they 'upgraded' us to another apartment. After days of asking to see the new place, I finally get photos and the 'upgraded' place is terrible and only has one bed. Horrible host! Later when I told her that there is absolutely no chance that we were going to stay there and asked if the original apartment was still available, she said “you will not find anything better” and that we should cancel.

But when I contacted wimdu about the situation and to get my 2100 dollars refunded, there is complete silence. No phone number and no one to talk to. And it's been weeks and I sent multiple emails. In the meantime, we booked a new apartment through airbnb.

All of a sudden, the host asks if we are ready for our stay. WHAT? She told me to cancel! At the same time, someone from Wimdu finally contacted me and told me that the host never said the apartment wasn’t available, that she wanted to upgrade us and that the original one was available for us the entire time. It was like they were teaming up against me to make me feel like I lost my mind. I pointed out the multiple parts of our conversation where she said that we need to cancel the apartment. They twisted it so that it sounded like I made an ultimatum for an early check-in or would cancel. At this point, I was tired of Wimdu and the host and the back and forth emails and asked multiple times to cancel. It never happened.

When you call Wimdu, you get an answering machine. There is no real person to talk to. There is no customer service. This whole website is a scam. Do not use it. I made the mistake of using it and threw $2100 dollars in the trash with no remorse on Wimdu’s part. There are plenty of apartment rental companies out there that are good and trustworthy companies. Wimdu is NOT one of them.

Moral of the story is to run far away from Wimdu and their hosts and their apartments so you don’t end up losing significant amounts of money.

I had two experiences with Wimdu. The first one was good because there wasn't problems to solve, but in the second one, the owner cancelled my booking 5 days before my departure. I received an email from Wimdu informing me about that with just one "solution": looking for another one!

In addition, the system created automatically a review using my name "The host cancelled the booking, this review is automated". I ask them how I could change that review because I wanted to explain to "future travellers" my experience with the owner, but I obtained as reply just "We are sorry you are not totally satisfied with Wimdu".

That day I sent a request to another owner to be hosted. Automatically they retain the total amount of your bank account even if it's just a request, so you have no possibility of using this money from the first moment. I had no answer from the host and the request expired, but 5 days later my money is still retained!!!

I ask them to liberate it and they said the I have to wait another 3-5 working days for that!! I reply them, it was just a request not a booking, so I asked them again for getting free my money and I got one more time the answer "We are sorry you are not totally satisfied with Wimdu" and they added "we will close your incidence since we have exhausted all the ways to help you"!!!

I don't know whether to laugh at such service, or simply cry but I'm sure I won't trust on Wimdu nevermore

I have a nightmare with this company who still have not paid me.It seems I am the one being penalized for the hosts from hell. It cost me £45 for 3 short phone calls.

We were supposed to stay in a house in Birmingham for a weekend in May. When we arrived at the property it was surrounded by scaffolding and we were unable to park on the driveway as the workmen were ripping off the roof and throwing it on the drive.

After 10 minutes of knocking the landlord came to the door with his trousers rolled up... A bit strange. He asked us to come back in 5 minutes.

When we returned he had found his socks and shoes and started to show us around. There was no lounge or kitchen as these had not been finished. The carpet on the stairs had been ripped up and there were holes in the ceiling where the roof had failed and water had poured through. The landlord had been ankle deep in water, hence he had rolled his trousers up, using a mop and bucket to stem the tide.

We walked out and found alternative accommodation at double the price.

We called Wimdu and amazingly we got no response but left a voicemail. Eventually they got back to us and asked us to send through an account of events and some pictures.

Below is a copy of their 'amazing' response:

"We consider the pictures you sent and evaluated your complaint, and regarding the constructions are outside the house and not inside, we can not say the accommodation was not suitable. Also, the host confirmed you arrived earlier than the check-in time agreed, and the operators where still finishing the works.

We consider a compensation of 50 EUR voucher discount that you can use when you want to book with us again.

Please, accept this voucher as a goodwill from us. Your voucher code is: xxxxxxx (minimum amount of booking 100 EUR).

Thank you very much for report your experience, which helps to build the website everyday."

Yes we arrived 30 minutes early than stated - In 30 minutes they would have finished the kitchen, lounge, repaired the roof, removed all water/damp and then finally taken down the scaffolding.

This company is a joke and we are taking legal action against them - be warned these guys are truly useless and should not be in business. They offer their customers absolutely nothing.

My experience with Wimdu

I booked accommodation in February 2015 through Wimdu in Malta for the summer. The price, Eur 250, was blocked on my bank account. In early May 2015 my host cancelled my booking. I followed Wimdu’s instructions and immediately contacted the Support Team– actually several times because apart from automatic replies I haven’t heard from them. My first e-mail went about 10 days ago, my last 5 days ago. (The website says they have a 24/7 support service, and that they take cancellation by host very seriously.) My money has not been refunded, no help has been offered, no contact has been made, whatsoever. None of the telephone numbers /e-mail addresses found in various databases on internet work / are answered.

What Wimdu does is OUTRAGEOUS! I am contacting the European Consumer Center.

We booked an apartment in Paris over new year but just before we left we realised that we had been taken in when the "property owners" stopped corresponding. They advertised their property on Wimdu, who claim to have checked all listings and all correspondance was sent on fabricated Wimdu headed paperwork. When we complained Wimdu took no responsibility and we are £2000 out of pocket. We have since alerted them to other properties they are hosting but still no compensation. We are experienced travellers but were still caught out by the professionals who use this site to advertise. BE VERY CAREFUL.