I sent a reservation request for an apartment in london.

Through the VRBO app, I received this message:

Hello Joachim! I'm sorry for the late reply, but i'm away with some business and i can't verify the availability for these dates. Sometimes our calendars aren't synchronized, please cancel your reservation request, so your card isn't charged by mistake. Please reach out to my wife who will check the availability of your requested dates and answer any queries you might have about the apartment. You can reach her here SOHO@MYRESERVATIONS. HELP she will also offer you a discount after she will check the availability of your requested dates. Thank you! Fitim

Does this seem like a possible scam?

I'm a little nervous because the booking we did last week ended up being a scam/fake and I'm waiting to get the refund. Don't want to go through that again, and more importantly don't want to book outside of their webpage and get to London and find out the apartment doesn't exist

I'm leaning toward responding through the official webpage so it's all documented. Letting them respond if it's available or not and only booking through the page

I think that seems like a reasonable next step and if things are sketchy, then bailing. Or is this sketchy enough to just bail now?

Bail

When in doubt just bail. Sounds sketchy. Asking you to book outside VRBO. There's a reason why you're booking through VRBO.

Agree. Right after posting, as I was typing it, I already decided no dice. Funny how saying something out loud (or typing it in this case) makes it seem more clear

Yes… VRBO and AirBnB both allow multiple people to serve as hosts within the app. Both platforms tell you that you should only communication to hosts through the app. If any hosts wants you to communicate outside the app, that's a sign of something wrong. I'd cancel the reservation and report to VRBO.