Lay My Hat

Received a text message from SimplyOwners.net to say my property was now listed on their website. Initially was suspicious as I had not heard of or listed with them. Phoned the number on the website and they do appear to be a genuine company. Has anyone else heard of them? Owners pay a set annual fee and guests contact us directly the way Owners Direct used to be.

Sandra, I've sent you a pm

Facebook page says it went live on the 20th Oct 2016. One day in operation. The who is being very secretive.
SEO suggests they have a huge mountain to climb to make the website popular.

I received the same text. I didn't ring them as their blurb kept going on about 'multi-million pound advertising which is very odd if they are a new company. Has anyone else had any dealings with them as this is rather worrying.

Well, they might like to spend some of their millions on a competent spell checker for the home page of their website "cotages"


I didn't look any further...........

I too have had this message and been loaded up (without being asked) on their site. I find this concerning. Any more info about them?

If you are on facebook join the https://www.facebook.com/groups/AntiOwn ... iceCharge/ and you will hear all about this lifting of properties without owners consent.

The MD has told a lot of porkies and been posting in that group for weeks.

He said a couple of days ago that one owner finding her property on there was a mistake, well since there have been a lot lot more. And now it appears they are texting owners asking for permission post event! As for the millions, well you may come to your own conclusions on that.

I WOULD NOT BOTHER JOINING THE ABOVE FACEBOOK GROUP. FREE SPEECH IS DENIED, AND A RECENT NONE ABUSIVE THREAD WAS CLOSED. THEN EARLY HOURS MONDAY MORNING 3 MEMBERS (AT LEAST) INCLUDING MYSELF GOT BANNED FOR DISCUSSING THE SAME TOPIC OF PROPERTIES BEING LIFTED FROM THE OD SITE WITHOUT PERMISSION. ALL VERY CONCERNING. SEE A POST A LITTLE LATER ON FROM THIS ONE. SORRY TO POST THE LINK, AND FOR OTHERS TO HAVE BEEN INSULTED ON THERE TOO.

I received TWO text messages yesterday, with a link to my property. I didn't click through as always aware of some scam or other. They have lifted details from Owners Direct, photos, phone numbers etc and now displaying it on their website, or certainly were earlier. This is very concerning!

This is all rather unfortunate.

While the world does need a viable alternative to HA and TA, and simplyOwners is based on a reasonable business idea, the way it has been handled is cr*p. It is run by a rather Trumpesque character who probably has made (or is making) the kind of investment that could make an impact. The unfortunate thing is that he makes enemies much faster than he makes friends.

The idea is that some people start their accommodation search by typing "owners direct" into Google. I don't know how many, but clearly some do. He is using Adwords to direct people to SimplyOwners promising lower prices than OD. That's a strategy that could possibly work.

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.

From Facebook:

"A fantastic end to a very busy week, the staff did excellent with all the calls that flooded in. Great work you guys!"

Sounds like football speak.

I couldn't even find it on Google. I had to put what I thought was the URL in until I got it right.

My property isn't in there. I feel quite left out.

I was contacted by another owner whose property was listed without her consent. She was very concerned about this and called me as she recognised one of our properties, and wondered if we had been contacted by this company. We certainly have not. I rang the number on the website and spoke to a woman called Kay. She told me that the MD of SimplyOwners is called Timothy Parks - anyone heard of him?

I suggested that, as my phone number was displayed on our OD listing, it would have been a simple and courteous matter to have phoned me first, before uploading our information and photographs. She claimed that most owners had been contacted in advance but that there were "a few" with which there had been "technical issues"!!!! Having read through this thread I see that there are more than a few who the company has not had the courtesy to contact in advance.

Whilst I too am mightily unhappy about the sharp practices currently being adopted by Owners Direct/HomeAway, and feel that there is ample room for a new company to come in any fill the vacuum that OD have left, unless such a company can get their act together they do not deserve to succeed.

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/

UPDATE: Monday 24th October 2016
Don't bother, you will face a tirade of insults from admin, for even discussing the subject again. Most peculiar, one would have thought this was in the public interest. Three member including myself were banned early hours of this morning after another from this Forum LayMyHat started another thread after the previous none abusive thread one was closed. It appears Mr. Parkes has some influence with Admin in that group. All very disturbing, given the nature of his ethics.

Below is a paraphrase of a great post I saw on other forum.

There are maybe three groups.

The large players. Sales far exceed costs.

The middle of the market. They borrow millions of dollars, in the hope that that they can grab a small piece of the market before their funding runs out. A risky game. Costs are greater than sales. A short dramatic rise, then crash and burn.

The long tail. These companies operate without debt and with very small budgets, cost of entry can be very small with the internet, but since they can survive a very long time, they have more time to gain market share. Organic growth, costs are within sales, and profits are reinvested each year. Over time they can become very large. Customer focus and support is key.

to save your photos being "reused". one should add a watermark. We have ours with the website on it. Where that is not allowed we use the property name at the listing portal.
It may not stop theft but it will make some think twice and you can always trace back from where the photo originated from.