Owners Direct not paying rental due- suspicious activity?

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
cambills
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Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 6:56 am
Location: New Mills High Peak
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Owners Direct not paying rental due- suspicious activity?

Post by cambills »

Hi can anyone help? I am currently awaiting 2 payments from Owners Direct for 2 separate guests' stays supposedly dispersed to my account 4th December. These payments are supposed to take 5-7 working days to reach my account and obviously we are now on the 10th day (or 9th if you do not count the day of disbursement). All I get when contacting OD is the same person on the telephone (odd for such a large organisation) who says that he has reported this and I will have to wait for an outcome. He refuses to put me through to an accounts department or a manager and gives no explanation. I am starting to get worried that OD may be holding onto Client's money for suspicious reasons (their year end and not in good financial state perhaps?). Is or has anyone else experienced this? My New Year Booking is with them and a large amount of money but if there is a risk I will cancel this and advertise a last minute deal on another website rather than lose a lot of money. Any advice please? BTW I have never experienced this with any of OD's payments before. They used to go in the account within 2-3 days!
AndrewH
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Post by AndrewH »

That's a really worrying situation, cambills. Even for Owners Direct, the telephone conversations you are having with the person there seem very obtuse.

Owners Direct are normally quick to tell you that they do not hold your rent money and that this is handled entirely by another company called "HolidayRentPayment", who are meant to be trustees and stakeholders for this money and who are registered in the Republic of Ireland. It is they who transfer your net rent payments to your bank account.

There is more information plus a contact telephone number for HolidayRentPayment at: https://help.ownersdirect.co.uk/article ... entPayment
cambills
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Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 6:56 am
Location: New Mills High Peak
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Post by cambills »

That is exactly what I thought-why on earth would they not put me through to an accounts team? Now I am genuinely worried? Is anybody else experiencing this? Thank you for that information. I will contact that number direct
cambills
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2016 6:56 am
Location: New Mills High Peak
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Post by cambills »

Just an update. Problem on the way to resolution hopefully. Thank you so much Andrew as I was able to call that number and speak to someone who was helpful and explained why my money had not come through (BTW it was because they had failed to recover an overpayment to me of £48.50 from November 2016 relating to a damage deposit! They had sent me an email at the time telling me that they were debiting this from my account but the debit hadn't happened and I had not noticed. A year later they just decided to withhold my payments without bothering to tell me why. Dreadful practice). Without that number to ring I would be none the wiser and OD would still be fobbing me off. I have paid the o/s money today so should hopefully now get the £900 owed to me. I intend to leave OD once my subscription runs out as the customer service has been so dire!
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