Jeff Phillips

Review of Railey Realty and Deep Creek L...

My wife and I have been vacationing in the Deep Cr...

My wife and I have been vacationing in the Deep Creek Lake area for over 30 years. This summer we had booked our vacation rental property with Railey over the week of July 4th. Due to an unexpected illness to a parent, it became apparent that we would be unable to make the trip. We verbally canceled the vacation with Railey, and were advised that they would have to re-book the home for there to be a refund. Shortly after the cancellation, the home was re-booked (we followed this on their online calendar). We were advised at that time (April or May) that we would have to wait until the end of July to receive our refund for "accounting purposes". We waited. I called at the end of July to request the refund and was initially told that we had never made the reservation. (?) Then once found, was advised that expenses would be taken from the refund. We had made 2 payments on the property prior to canceling, approx. $2,200+. We were told that we would be reimbursed approx. $1,500 due to costs and admin fees. $700+ in charges for a trip we never took? Also, it was re-booked so there was no out of pocket for the property owner. This is unacceptable. We will NEVER book with Railey again and would recommend renters make sure you aren't going to have to cancel before having them book your trip. In case you're wondering, we did take the Red Sky cancellation insurance. I've reached out to them as well and they indicated that since that week has passed there is nothing they can do. They did imply that had Railey contacted them to advise our trip had been canceled at the time we did so we could have been reimbursed. VERY disappointing outcome.