SimplyOwners.Net a new rental listing site?

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
AndrewH
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Post by AndrewH »

Ben McNevis wrote:However, in order to make that offer, he needs all of OD's inventory and this is where he will probably come unstuck. He is sailing very close to the wind. Maybe that's what it takes to get a new start-up listing site get off the ground, but I wish he was more honest about it. I've had the text message too and I've agreed to let our property stay on there.

Let's see whether it really does work, and if it does, I'll be more than happy to overlook the rather unethical approach.
It looks to me like pirates have boarded the Owners Direct ship! I have to say this is a whole new, totally unethical, approach, but it just may work because OD has made itself so unpopular with so many of its longstanding owners/customers that they are not going to loyally rush to its rescue. Shocking though it may be for an owner to find his whole listing has been lifted and put onto this new site without his consent, he might forgive Simply Owners when he looks at their site and reads what their objective is. http://www.simplyowners.net/
Nigel Goodwin
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Post by Nigel Goodwin »

Not very impressed with their inventory.

Check out photo of Apartment in Stratton on their header.

Am I allowed to mention ownerholidays is building an inventory slowly but ethically?
Tremewan
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Post by Tremewan »

LaderaCottage wrote:Timothy Parkes has already pissed off a lot of people, and several threads have been removed from here.

You have to be on Facebook and join the closed group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AntiOwn ... iceCharge/
Unfortunately, the Facebook Anti OD Group are hopeless. It's not a forum for discussion - it's pure fascism! I joined the group, posted some comments (that weren't liked by the administrator Rachel Sullivan) and I've now been sacked from the group! Free speech - I don't think so.
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Post by LaderaCottage »

Tremewan wrote:
LaderaCottage wrote:Timothy Parkes has already pissed off a lot of people, and several threads have been removed from here.

You have to be on Facebook and join the closed group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AntiOwn ... iceCharge/
Unfortunately, the Facebook Anti OD Group are hopeless. It's not a forum for discussion - it's pure fascism! I joined the group, posted some comments (that weren't liked by the administrator Rachel Sullivan) and I've now been sacked from the group! Free speech - I don't think so.
Sadly yes it appears that way. I am the person the admin was referring to. She deleted my post from at earlier thread that read:

For the benefit of doubters, it is perfectly clear now who was behind this. I see now all the price comparisons between OD & Simply are now removed for they were grossly inaccurate, and the Home page now states up to 10% cheaper than OD instead of the previous 20% and up to 20% cheaper than Holiday Lettings instead of 60% as was previously stated, and yet he shows no prices for renting the properties in question. And as for coming up in the promised searches, well that is not happening either. Believe what you will. Aside from what has been stated in this group, he has had no further input or assistance from me, and whilst he did write below to me, I was never made aware of how he got this data from Owners Direct neither how he was going to use it, and prior to launch he was asked in this group where the 500 selected properties had come from, and he declined to answer. So now we ALL know, and he denied knowledge of having lifted properties without owners permission to this group. I DO NOT EXPECT HIGHLIGHTING ANYTHING WILL GET SUCH A STRAIGHT ANSWER AS THIS, STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH. He admits to copying the whole database, so expect no apology.
UNQUOTE.

Along with an image of a conversation with Mr. Parkes in June 2016 that stated within and I quote:

"I have the contact details for everyone of ODs property owners and have incorporated the company SIMPLY OWNERS DIRECT. I have bought the web domain names both .com and .co.uk and am building the systems to hit the market running."

AND

"My people have acquired a database of 55000 property owners (potential customers) in just four days."


AND SO NOW IT IS PERFECTLY CLEAR THAT MR. PARKES DID KNOW ABOUT IT, and was the person behind instructing whomever to do so back in June 2016. They COPIED THE LOT BY HIS OWN ADMISSION.


So there you have it. That got deleted. The thread was closed, and Tim Parkes LIKED her comment about the thread being closed. Rachel has only been doing the Admin for 2 weeks, but clearly has some issues. I also posted about this forum on Saturday in the same thread and that got removed, so I reposted again on Sunday.

So so stupid of her. Now she has banned me, and for goodness sake we need to share intelligence both good and bad.
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Post by timparkes »

I feel it is important for me to give an explanation in response to some of the comments made on this thread. I am the main investor in Simply Owners and have 2 business partners 1 due to his remarkable technical expertise. We are ex customers of OD and set out over six months ago to establish a replacement service for owners such as us who liked the old system where we were in control of every aspect of our business. The new business models OD was moving towards was not for us and I suspect not for thousands of other owners. We hurried the launch of our new business in an attempt to meet demand and acknowledge we have made some quite catastrophic mistakes in doing so. We have contacted every single individual on our data-base in an attempt to correct matters and provided a button for any owner to delete their details from our site should they wish. Fortunately, most have remained with us to enable us to demonstrate that we can get things right and secure them bookings through our extensive Google ad campaign. We have apologised to those affected and I have taken full responsibility to make things right. We have been slated on a Facebook page, allegedly anti Owners Direct, rightly so for some things but much of what has been said was said by owners of other competing companies with vested interests. I note there is someone posting on this page who has tried at every posting to destroy us simply because I rejected her offer to invest in our company, even though she said she could manipulate everyone on that site down the garden path straight into our company. One person called me a liar and a scammer, stating that we had not got a security certificate (SSL) for our web-site and therefore could not protect logins etc. Unfortunately I have had to issue legal proceedings against him. I tried for a long time to debate issues on the site but with such hidden agendas sadly had to leave it. Anyone can contact me at tim@simplyowners.net and I would be very pleased and happy to discuss anything. I have learnt my lesson about debating on a public forum however where people with such hidden agendas can do so much damage so I will not be commenting again on this page. My time is better spent trying to provide a realistic alternative to OD than on the discourse of legal proceedings.Thank you to anyone taking the time to give this a fair reading and I hope you watch our development improve and grow and hope we can be of service to you in the future. Kind regards Tim Parkes
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Post by salmoncottage »

Will the 'investor' mentioned in Tim's post please stand up? :shock:
'Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside'
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

So if I have understood correctly, this guy has decided to ignore the terms and conditions of Owners Direct and simply scraped property descriptions and photos to make his own instant 'listing site'? Without securing the permission of his 'advertisers' to do this. And the only way for renters to contact owners is by phone, because email addresses cannot be scraped from Owners Direct, only phone numbers.

And some of you are considering going ahead with advertising on this site??

Incidentally this person has joined the jolly band of individuals who have threatened me with legal action because they are not happy with what is being said about them here. But no proper company has ever done that.
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Ben McNevis
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Post by Ben McNevis »

It's a great shame that this has turned so ugly. Can we take a step back and have a cool look at what is going on?

We are almost all affected by monopolisation of the advertising of rentals. Affected very seriously in many cases.

In my book, anyone making an attempt at cracking the problem should be applauded. There are about a dozen new listing sites that have started up in the last few months. Most are on a low budget and, sadly, don't have much chance of getting the explosive growth needed to become viable.

Tim Parkes' approach is unusual.

It doesn't look ethical and that is a big problem for many of us because we have been stuffed by the unethical practices of HomeAway, and we are waiting for an effective ethical alternative. If we are insistent on "ethical" then we could be in for a very long wait. The SimplyOwners approach overcomes one of the two main obstacles to becoming a successful listing site at a stroke. If the launch was handled with more explanation and honesty, it could have been well received by a majority of us exasperated owners.

End of one lecture and start of some questions to Mr Parkes:

How on earth do you defend yourself when Expedia's lawyers come after you?

How can you expect owners to pay up-front for a service that is unproven?

Why is there no facility for owners to register on your site?
Cheers, Ben
www . scotland-cottage.com www . scottish-cottage.com


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Nigel Goodwin
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Post by Nigel Goodwin »

I'm glad I spent a few weeks listening to wise heads here.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Ben McNevis wrote:In my book, anyone making an attempt at cracking the problem should be applauded.
That's a bit like saying you should applaud someone trying to alleviate poverty by robbing a bank. They are not trying to crack any problem other than how to make money using other people's intellectual property.
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zebedee
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Post by zebedee »

This is how it appears to humble me (not listed on any of the big sites).

There is so much on this section of the forum from unhappy owners who have been at the mercy of the autocratic style management approaches taken by the big listing sites recently.

Almost no collaboration with owners, and if it has occurred it has often been a token in name only.

Now, how does that compare with the new site...........???
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CSE
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Post by CSE »

paolo plus 1

Ben McNevis
It's a great shame that this has turned so ugly. Can we take a step back and have a cool look at what is going on?
It is not an ugly discussion these are the facts as we find them. If the owner and/or investors care to give us some explanations of what it what, then I am sure we are all ears. One post with it's hidden messages is not enough to present your new web portal.


If the members on here are worried about scraping of information then please do, as we keep suggesting, water mark your photos. With the name of property (or listing number) and listing portal.
It does not take long and that way you know who is using your intellectual property.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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Ben McNevis
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Post by Ben McNevis »

paolo wrote: That's a bit like saying you should applaud someone trying to alleviate poverty by robbing a bank. They are not trying to crack any problem other than how to make money using other people's intellectual property.
Point taken, but if you're drowning in the sea and a pirate offers rescue, are you going to refuse to come on board because of his abuse of grammar?
Cheers, Ben
www . scotland-cottage.com www . scottish-cottage.com


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CSE
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Post by CSE »

Ben good analogy, but would you want to live like this?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37748237
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

One thing I don't get is why people are holding out hope for a global listing site to come along and treat them like in the old days. New listing sites give superb customer service because they have a handful of properties and are desperate to hold on to you, successful ones don't because you the owner are not the customer any more, you are the inventory. The renter is the customer.

So instead of hoping for a homeaway with a heart, why not try a site that is small and can still be found on Google? That means a local site that only covers your area. If it only has 100-200 properties you will have very responsive service because you are still the customer.
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