FeWo-direkt

I am writing this to warn other travelers about a fraudulent listing on FeWo-direkt (Vrbo) for a property in Todtnau, Germany (Object #5681240).

I received a booking confirmation that appears to be official, using FeWo-direkt branding and a Reservation ID. However, after cross-checking with other platforms, I discovered that the legitimate owner of this property lists exclusively on Airbnb and has no connection to FeWo-direkt.

The fraudulent “host” (using the name Patrick Jupp and an @outlook.de email) provided a professional-looking PDF confirmation, but the booking does not appear in the official “My Trips” section of the website. This suggests a major security gap where either fraudulent listings are not being properly vetted or the platform’s layout is being easily spoofed to deceive customers into making external payments.

I have already contacted my bank to initiate a fraud report and a payment recall. I expect FeWo-direkt to take responsibility for allowing their branding to be used in such scams and to improve their verification protocols for new listings.

Stay away from any host that asks for communication or payment details outside the official platform’s secure checkout.

We were specifically looking for a residence with a parking lot because we were traveling by car. When we arrived at the destination the man there told us that they have no parking places for the residents at all!!! But on Fewo they wrote that we would even have a private garage! Also they assured us that it was the Fault of Fewo for that false information! We were spending hours trying to find a parking lot because its the season and ofc everything its busy!!! Do yourself a favor and dont use this site for anything

Today I contacted the Chat of Fewo Direct and was routed to VRBO. Whilst they could help me with a fault in their system (I could not confirm a booking) by confirming the booking on my behalf, they did not give any support on the really important issues.

I wanted to have a ticket number (standard for internal technical cases) and an email address to whom I could write to make sure I can hear what the actual problem was. No avail.

I then asked politely to get the possibility to get an OTP by email rahte than SMS as I am traveling frequently internationally and cannot receive SMS everywhere. In addition, I currently do not have access to my mobile number.

Once this happens you cannot log in, cannot confirm bookings or write to potential guests and possibly lose a customer. In addition, Fewo Direkt will downgrade your listing if you do not respond to guests within a cetain timeframe.

Again, no avail other than a general ‘we are sorry and will look into this’. Again, no ticket number, no email address.

This is extremely poor showing for a company which charges very high fees for a very dismal service.

By European law they are required to provide easy contact options which they don’t. A chat person who does not escalate a serious issue is not a contact option.

Funnily, and to end this long contribution, I also received a request from another potential guest on Fewo Direkt today who was looking to book outside the portal, to avoid the exorbitant fees which I declined. God punishes small sins immediately

I first registered on the FeWo website, but already during the registration process I encountered several technical problems. The form was incomplete — there was no field to enter the house number — and the website repeatedly prompted me to install their app. However, the link to the app didn’t even work and always led to an error message.

After registration and booking my first apartment, I agreed with the property owner to pay an additional amount for the booking, since I wanted to travel with a pet. When I went back to the website to make this payment, I ran into even more serious technical issues. Although I had already stored my credit card details, all credit card fields appeared empty. When I re-entered my credit card details, the system showed a persistent error message saying the card number had “not enough digits,” even though it was entered correctly. As a result, I couldn’t complete the payment at all.

I then tried to contact FeWo, but there was no visible e-mail address or contact form on their website — although that is legally required under Article 5(1)© of the EU E-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), which obliges online service providers to make their contact details easily, directly, and permanently accessible (for example, to report fraud or other serious issues such as payment problems like mine). I had no other choice than to search online for a contact option and eventually found one via their parent company, VRBO. Unfortunately, the reply I received only said that “everything is fine” and “everything is registered correctly,” completely ignoring the technical issues I had reported and without forwarding my message to the right department.

Overall, it feels as if I’ve been acting as a free website and compliance tester for their platform but they even ignored my reported issues! Very disappointing experience — I wish I had read all the negative reviews before booking. I would never have booked here otherwise.