Villa Rental Ibiza extorted 1000 euros from me, the day before I had 10 people arriving to Ibiza. Don't let this happen to you.
Claudia Kramer and Larissa Esters are scam artists.
Check their reputation with some other rental agency in Ibiza, I wish I did beforehand. Or, saw that they are involved with another lawsuit.
As usual I paid for our house months in advance, via wire transfer, for the two weeks.
Just before I'm arriving Ibiza so excited for an amazing holiday, the owner of Villa Rental Ibiza, Claudia, calls me, it went something like this:
Claudia: So how many people do you have in the house?
Me: Ten
Claudia: Is bedrooms enough or do you want to also rent the other 2 bedrooms?
Me: What are you talking about, the house has 7 bedrooms, as we discussed all along, it's on the website
Claudia: No, the 6th and 7th bedrooms are not included, they are extra
Me: That's not what we discussed and that's not what it says on your website
Claudia: Yes, it's on the website
Me: No, I'm sure it's not
Claudia: Go look
Me: "two independent apartments WHICH CAN BE RENTED AGAINST A SURCHARGE" ???? That was not there before. It did not say that.
Claudia: Yes it did.
Me: No, it didn't, look I can go into Google, press "Cached" to see the previous version of the page, and it is not there. You just added that part about the extra cost
[I email the before/after screenshots to Claudia]
Me: See, it's obvious that you just added that, it was never mentioned, is not part of our agreement, we are not paying you any extra at the last minute
Claudia: Well it costs for the 6th and 7th bedroom, for two weeks, 2000 euros extra, do you want the other two bedrooms or just 5 bedrooms?
Me: WHAT??!!! I have ten people arriving tomorrow, they paid a lot of money already, they are not sleeping together they each have bedrooms assigned. I want those other two bedrooms, at the original price, per our agreement and all the documentation that supports it
Claudia: Well you are not getting the other two bedrooms unless you pay something extra to me now, but I will make you a "discount" of 1000 euros, so, you only have to pay me 1000 euros extra now, and then you can have use of the whole house. And also your security deposit will double now, to 2000 euros.
LONG STORY SHORT:
Because Claudia already had most of our cash for the full 2 weeks rental, a lot of money, and 10 people were arriving today, we were totally at her mercy to pay whatever extra money she requested so we had somewhere to sleep. She even stopped answering her phone for a while so we could consider our limited options of being homeless and angry, or, pay her. It was a good scam.
Finally we went and paid her 1000 euros extra, very upset, in cash, to finally get the keys to the house, and also forced to put now 2000 euros on a credit card for security, double our agreement (which is all in writing, but irrelevant)
When I told Claudia I was going to put this all on a website and it would probably hurt her business, she said, "I have looked YOU up on the internet, and I see the web pages of YOUR company. We have an Internet Expert here and we are going to do the same to you, to your webpages, ruin your companies, ruin your name". Then we started threats about lawyers back and forth. I'm having a great vacation so far.
Anyway I think you get the idea. Ibiza Villa Rental - bad people. We got taken and Claudia made 1000 euros pure profit defrauding us with a good scam. She drove me nuts arguing on the phone complete nonsense and lies... uh, Claudia,I just emailed you the old version of the website - it's still on Google - you are clearly lying and I can prove it - are you insane sticking to your story?
When we called around last minute looking for another house, the first agent we called said, oh, Villa Rental Ibiza, that's those German girls, yeah I've heard some really bad things about them
Then of course, after we left the house, another huge fight about the security deposit, her not answering the phone at all, ignoring emails, the security return 2 weeks passes, nothing... eventually Claudia made up things that weren't broken which we ended up paying for anyway with no choice, sent photos of broken things where the date stamp was stripped off the image file, clearly taken another time. No actual repair invoices, of course.
Believe me I'm a New Yorker and you don't want to deal with this aggressive, threatening, irrational woman. You have no recourse to get your money back from her except a Spanish lawyer based in Ibiza... and we all have time for that. Plus the stress ruined some magic of our trip, for everyone, knowing we got played on the first day, when we should have been so excited to all be together.
Fraud, scam, whatever you want to call it, I got suckered, and I am pissed enough to put up this site and buy the Google Adwords for their company name so everyone knows it. Be warned. Don't let Claudia ruin your Ibiza holiday.
You may also appreciate the following, which someone sent to me and asked me to post on here. Same people.
TripAdvisor: Warning - do not rent from Villa Rental Ibiza --- May 05, 2016, 11:30 AM
I would like to share with others my horrible experience of renting a property from Ibizan rental agents Villa Rental Ibiza (http://villarentalibiza.com/en/) in September 2015. In summary I was charged € 1,365 for the removal of rubbish from the property after we checked out. I suffered appalling treatment at the hands of these “professionals” and I am writing this post to warn others against working with these people.
Me, my husband and several friends rented a property in a remote location near San Josep called Villa Avril (villarentalibiza.com/en/San-Jose/villa-avril) from Villa Rental Ibiza. I was offered the property at a really big discount, which I understood was because I was renting towards the end of the season, in September and October.
Our arrival at the villa was a very nice experience. A very friendly lady called Alex Ostergaard met us at the Villa Rental Ibiza office and took us to the villa. She was very polite and accommodating and even allowed us to check in a little earlier than we had agreed. She showed us around the frankly breath-taking property and put us at ease about feeling at home in the place. Two things she said were: “Here you are very remote and you have no neighbours who can hear you so you can play music and be loud and it’s not a problem,” and “the only thing we ask is that you remove the rubbish from the property yourselves. You can, however, just do this at the end of the tenancy when you are checking out”. We enquired where the rubbish disposal was and were told it’s a few KILOMETERS away.
Due to this reason we decided to follow Alex’s advice and dispose of the rubbish all at the same time on the last day as we were checking out. We found a little out-house where there were already a few sacks of rubbish and we put all of the rubbish there. The house provided only a tiny bin with really small bin bags so we had to quite frequently take the full bags to the outhouse and leave them there.
We enjoyed our stay at the villa but we quickly realised that the villa was in a terrible state of repair and that we were given a cheap price essentially because the place was falling apart after heavy use all summer (and probably several years prior). Some of the things that we noted about the villa were: half of the full size windows in the house DID NOT LOCK at all, the gate was broken and had to be opened by hand (and also did not lock), there was a cat in the villa which urinated in one of the bathrooms constantly, there was A GOAT, on the premises (apparently it wandered from a neighbouring property but NEVER left!), the toilet in the master bedroom did not flush (I fixed it using my hairtie), about 80% of the plugs in the summer living room (to which we were confined due to bad weather) did not work so we couldn’t even plug in laptops and work, the WIFI worked only when you sat within a 2 metre radius of the router (again this presented work issues), the kitchen utensils constantly tripped the electricity, at least one of sun loungers was broken and the light by the pool was so weak you couldn’t be out there past sunset.
Seriously I have NEVER been in a property in such a shocking state of repair! But we did not complain about these things constantly and demand these to be fixed. We got on with it, understanding that we had been undercharged for this exact reason. Frankly the security issue was a serious problem and we would have been well within our rights not to move into the property at all. But we did not do that. We were wrong.
On the day of checking out we ensured that the house was tidy and clean and we spent a few hours making sure everything was okay before we had to check out. An agent of Villa Rental Ibiza, the lovely Caterina Ricco came to check the property out before we were allowed to leave. She checked everything – the garden, the apartment, the bedrooms, the kitchen etc and we showed her where we had been putting the rubbish. She noted everything and took photos – she took 4 photos in all which I am happy to send out to anyone who wants to see them so you can see the extent of the “evidence” we were presented with by these people. I would prefer to attach them here but I cannot see this as an option.
After taking the photos Caterina said that she was happy with the villa, it seemed ok to her. She noted that the rubbish may need to be taken away which may cost us a little. She noted that there was a bedside table that had a burn on it which may need to be repainted or replaced, that she would talk to the landlord. But overall she said she was happy with the property and that my DEPOSIT WOULD BE UNFROZEN once she confirmed those two minor points with the landlord.
So what happens? The whole whopping € 1,500 gets taken the same day. I call Alex – she says that it’s normal for them to take the whole deposit and then refund the balance. She said there were 40 small rubbish sacks and these would have to be removed and that this would cost maybe €200. Fine. It would have cost us more to remove the garbage ourselves using Villa Rental’s limo service.
What follows is a horrible, drawn out email chain with Caterina and their booking manager, the ever-polite Fiona Bowe about the deposit. Not content with charging the garbage removal fee, Villa Rental Ibiza presented me with a cleaning bill for € 1,365 to cover: cleaning (which contractually is included in the cost of the villa), garbage disposal, pest control and a broken sun lounger (which was already broken). No evidence was presented to me. Just an invoice from a friendly cleaning company. I may as well have written then a blank cheque. Fiona insisted that there was so much cleaning to do, something about cigarette ends in the lawn and every room being a mess. Honestly I should have taken photos myself. It is a lie – I cleaned the place myself! Moreover Caterina inspected the place and said it was fine. Why didn’t she mention to us that the place was in a state then? Because she knows that as soon as we leave the villa and them there is nothing we can do about them taking the mickey and taking our money,
The only evidence provided to us were those 4 photos taken during check out. No evidence of the supposed rats that “infested” the property. No photos of all the mess that we apparently left everywhere. And the sun lounger? That was broken already – but what can I do? They already have my money! When pushed and told that this was not sufficient (about 2 months into the email exchange) Fiona suddenly comes out with “Both the owner and ourselves have more than enough proof to reply to any false accusations, and we also have proof and testimony of an illegal party which was held at the villa including complaints from neighbours in the area.”
Seriously Villa Rental Ibiza, I challenge you to come up with any more excuses for witholding my money. I have put everything out here in the open, every detail and every bit of “proof” you have sent me. Your “illegal party” is laughable – it was a pool party held just once during the DAYTIME for a handful of friends. Pathetic.
Essentially this is a company that does not care for its clients and who are ruthless at getting your money, acting in concert with other companies who are happy to do their bidding. Perhaps those who stayed with Villa Rental Ibiza as a family had a different experience. I hope this is the case. But those of you going with friends and planning to enjoy the facilities a big villa offers and (god forbid) play some music during the daytime, I warn you – budget for your deposit to be taken away from you. I should have listened to another user who was scammed by the the owners of the company (see http://www.villarentalibizascam.com) . I guess that’s just the culture of these people. Stay away.
Link to TripAdvisor article on the above, with some comments from others