“Boy do I wish I would’ve read some of the reviews about RedAwning before working with them. One of the worst companies I’ve ever dealt with. Completely dishonest and deceptive. Details are below, but if you’re reading this, please heed my warning and do not use this company for property management. Go with a more honest, reputable company like Evolve.
I was in communication with RedAwning for some time about managing a vacation rental I was purchasing. The representative I was primarily working with, James Tobkin, was a big talker – very salesy and confident that they would generate the highest revenue possible for my property. I was eating it up and already leaning towards using them for managing my property. They charged a higher fee than Evolve (13% vs 10%), but I was promised several exciting features:
1. They would handle all guest communication. This was something Evolve did as well so I didn’t think it was a big deal, but it sure turned out to be….(keep reading).
2. They couldn’t match Evolve’s fee, but they offered several free months of management upon starting with them.
3. They confirmed that they allow owners to keep the Airbnb account RedAwning creates on their behalf if you list with them for at least 1 year. This was by far the biggest deciding factor for me, because my wife and I planned to move closer to this property in a few years and wanted the option to switch to self-management without losing all of the reviews built up on Airbnb.
Well, I was sold. I said sign me up. During the signup process, it was revealed that RedAwning does not actually handle any guest communication at all after check in – they solely handle communication during the booking process. James had apparently used me as an opportunity to try and sell management on adding this feature, even though he had told me from the start that this was their normal process. Management denied the request.
That’s ok, I said. It’s still worth it to me for the flexibility of switching to self-management down the road and keeping the Airbnb account. Well what do you know, that turned out to be a bold faced lie.
During the setup process I was contacted by a new representative who was going to help me finalize everything. James had told me 5 or 6 different times that RedAwning allows owners to keep their Airbnb account after 1 year of listing if they decide to cancel service afterwards, but I asked this new representative anyways just to be extra safe. The new rep had no clue what I was talking about. I texted James to ask what was going on, and I was sent a very formal “break up” text saying that I was requesting too many “exceptions” and that wasn’t going to work for them, and that I should seek management services elsewhere.
I was completely blown away. Thank God I caught this lie early on instead of months or years down the road. I don’t know if that offer of free management for the first few months of listing was also a lie or not, but at that point it was already abundantly clear how deceptive this company is.
Please learn from my mistakes. Not only is RedAwning deceptive, but they also charge a higher fee and offer less services than Evolve. It doesn’t make any sense to work with them.”
“Do NOT use these people, as they do not allow refunds after 24 hours even for COVID-19. They also do not refund cleaning fees charged without a stay due to cancellation. Once they get your money, they keep it including a 300+ dollar cleaning fee in which you did not even stay at the condo.”
“Never use them! Google their reviews and see all the bad experiences people have had. There is no way to get in touch with this company! It is a SCAM!!”
“All Red Awning cares about is their bottom line, not helping their customers as their marketing may try and suggest. Promises of ‘Stress Free 24/7 Support’ are not lived up to and we will never do business with them again and want to tell as many people as possible about a missed customer support opportunity.
Our very unfortunate situation started when I had emergency brain surgery a month ago and then was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma. Living out of hospitals, my cancer treatments were occurring during our 4-day planned vacation. While Red Awning had no problem taking our full payment 60-days prior, they made no effort to try and help us out with our situation and attempt to cancel our reservation with ~3 weeks notice. Their only advice to my wife was to see if we could find someone to take our reservation for us. Spending most of our time in hospitals we told them we were focused on trying to get through each day. After multiple attempts to contact them to for help with a refund, we have heard nothing. I compare this experience with other conversations my wife had with companies like Hilton, Southwest Airlines, and even pre-bought tickets to concerts where all she needed to do is tell them our situation. Every other company said so sorry to hear about our situation and immediately refunded our purchases even outside of normal policies, which helped with both the stress and the huge pile of medical bills. Quite a different customer experience compared to Red Awning. Where we were asked to do all the work with no sympathy or caring for their customer and combine that with very slow responses to all of our communications and if anything, a tone that they simply didn’t care. This was even after we had requested a way to contact the property manager directly by either email or phone and offered to provide written letter from our hospital and doctors but all to no avail. Which lead us to the belief that their promise of “stress free guarantee” as well as common courtesy to family during a very difficult time…so we can only assume their bottom line means more than your customer’s needs.
Extremely disappointed in our experience, but do know there are other companies out there that still do the right things so please seek them out.”
We're so sorry that this was your experience working with us. Please know that this is not the kind of service we pride ourselves on and we hope you will allow us to further look into this, so we can rectify the situation. Please email your name and confirmation number to customercare@redawning.com so we can work together to bring you resolution.
