VRBO censoring messages with XXX and dashes

[Christina B.]

Summary for those who don't want to read the post: VRBO's most recent algo for messages is censoring innocuous info. End story.

Both yesterday and today, I've noticed that VRBO must have a new algorithm with regard to messages to guests but I have no idea what triggers the XXX, etc. For clarity, my censored sections did not include any contact info in any shape. They merely stated when our hot tub maintenance would arrive and in today's censored message, that the loft pull-out sofa had less privacy (because loft...) but that we're happy to provide linens (no extra charges) if it makes their group more comfortable.

Is anyone else being censored? From my previous posts regarding VRBO, I do believe that for infrastructure reasons (only VRBO is aware of), downtime seems to only affect some hosts and that some algos are not used across the board for all hosts or listings- specifically, when or if they post our replies to reviews and how they list reviews (not chronologically which would make sense).

It's frustrating but today, VRBO also censored my potential guest. The weird thing is- because they censored her first sentence, I could actually see what she wrote from my view of the whole Inbox. But when I looked at the actual message, chunks were xxx'd out. No, she was not trying to provide any contact info. She merely explained she counted her nephew who was 20 as a kid when he's really an adult, so the request should have been for 5 adults, 4 kids and not vice versa. Seriously, VRBO?!

I'd go through the gauntlet of the phone call if I thought it'd do anything. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it's out of CSR's hands and not much they can do. Basically, we really have to troubleshoot on our own the problems that VRBO's tech issues create.

[John Underwood]

Vrbo and Airbnb do everything they can to try and prevent hosts from having guests contact info.