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Re: Has anyone ever been scammed using redweek? (by RedWeek Support):

We have looked at all the events with your booking and please know that we do absolutely regret that it didn't work out. Our goal is to have all our Verified and Protected rentals successfully completed, however we do realize that there may be occasions where that just doesn't happen.

We don’t hide the fact that we’re an internet-based company, as are many companies and this has been our model since our start in 2002. We have a very limited telephone staff and while we don’t have many urgent situations arise, our staff is trained to direct any urgent issues to the appropriate manager.

It’s important to clarify that every rental on our site, both Verified and Protected and DIY is 'owned' by a private individual. In either case, there may be communication delays, because the immediate inventory that hotels bookings systems have access to. So with timeshare rentals, most guests are saving a good amount of money from what the resorts charge. One of the trade-offs for that savings in limited inventory that can’t usually be confirmed instantly.

The reason why we advise that travelers wait to purchase airfare is because we have seen cases, particularly with Do-It-Yourself rental bookings where a prospective renter will inquire about a rental posting and immediately purchase airfare. They assume that they will have accommodations, and when they learn that there isn’t availability, they are left with non-refundable tickets.

With Verified and Protected specifically, the timeshare owner must accept the booking on their own and must digitally sign the agreement. Because that rental agreement is a legal document, neither RedWeek or our staff will ever accept the terms for a renter or accept a booking on behalf of the owner. In your booking, the owner unfortunately did not either accept or decline the booking in a timely manner, despite us reaching out to them numerous times. Under normal circumstances, after the owner’s acceptance deadline arrives, the booking would automatically cancel, however in this matter, we took an extra step and continued to try contact the owner to see if they needed assistance in completing the booking acceptance.

We can certainly understand your disappointment. Yesterday, we had four of our team members working on this and while we work very hard to prevent rental bookings from failing, there may be rare times when a booking will fail regardless of our efforts.