Cyberrentals problems

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

Do you agree with Cyberrentals Guest Review policy that requires submitting your guest's email addresses for prospective guests to contact directly?

yes
0
No votes
no
14
100%
i don't know
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 14

A-two
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Cyberrentals problems

Post by A-two »

I hope it's OK to start this new thread, but tech problems I'm experiencing with Cyberrentals new site are off-topic for the other thread. Let me recap what I started yesterday, with updates:

1. PHOTOS: Desaturated photos. Typical of real estate websites also as they require achitectural shots which require bright light as opposed the lifestyle shots which require shade to create mood. This is a pet peeve of mine, as I believe our guests are buying the lifestyle, not the house, but I do not expect them to fix it.

2. UPDATES: I complained yesterday that a photo had not been updated for weeks. It has been done today, as well several other updates and I am not finished yet.

3. AMENITIES: I complained yesterday that there is no option for one bedroom with two twin beds. Since twin bedrooms (with 2 beds) is an extremely common configuration throughout the US where my house is located, it is an oversight of monumental proportions and I expect them to fix it. In the meantime, the best I can do is 3 double bedrooms and an explanation in the notes below that one of those is in fact a twin room.

4. I complained yesterday that our location section is a mess - two different area headings for the same area with some of the Towns under one heading, other Towns under the other and some Town names appear in both sections, and they have called this area by another name altogether on the map. I have amended my copy to make sure I have keywords in for all 3 headings in the first paragraph.

Now for today's ***NEW****complaints!!!!

5. AMENITIES- bathrooms: I was really pleased to see they have "Outdoor Shower" as an option and ticked it. When previewed, this translates on the finished page into "1 half bath". Hmmm... in the vast majority of cases, a half bath is a room inside the house with a toilet and basin. No shower, inside or out. Our Outdoor shower is not even enclosed in a room, so this is misleading. Question: Why offer "outdoor shower", if you have no intention of actually repeating that description on the actual listing?

I've saved the most important for last........your gonna love this one (if you got this far)

6. GUEST REVIEWS: I am shocked and surprised that a responsible listing site in 2005 would require advertisers to post direct and personal contact details of their private clients in the form of an email link on their listing. If you don't agree to that, you are not permitted to post any Guest Reviews at all. The idea is that anybody can then click the link to discuss your property with your previous guests.

Are they stupid? Not only does that tell me that they think all owners are a bunch of liars who cannot be trusted to post genuine reviews, but any owners who agree to it are putting a sign on their listing that says, "Book a week with us and get spammed for the rest of your life".

Also, I don't think we want Cyberrentals to have access to our client list to give away at their discretion to anyone who asks, do we?

This policy can only have been written by an American who has never heard of the EU Privacy Directive.

If I get much more of this kind of nonsense, I will not renew this listing.

Let's vote on this one shall we?
Waves from America
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Joanna,

An even play ground?

Will they give you their client list so that you can do a mail-shot selling your property? I don't think so!

Do you need them or do they need you?

Alan
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

I am very surprised by point 6. Astonished in fact. It is quite wrong to publish someone's email address without necessarily having their permission to do so.

I have noticed the desaturated photos problem with holiday-rentals lately, when adding new pics. I don't know if the problem is at their end or mine. They are good enough to sort it out for me by hand.

One would hope that the other problems are easy fixes that just need to be pointed out to them.
Paolo
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A-two
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Post by A-two »

paolo wrote:I am very surprised by point 6. Astonished in fact. It is quite wrong to publish someone's email address without necessarily having their permission to do so.
To be fair to them, I really ought to quote their own words, rather than paraphrase, so here it is. If you are an owner with a listing at Cyberrentals, you can find this by logging in to your home page, then clicking the tab for editing "Further Details". Scroll down to the "Guest Book" paragraph (after golf and skiing), then click the "?" for the pop-up window, which states:-

<quote>
Guest Book
Please only post genuine comments from people who have booked your property through CyberRentals.com, and have actually stayed there! Abuses of this facility damage the credibility of your advertisement and the site.

To increase credibility of the postings to visitors to the site, we will only include comments that include the e-mail address of the renter. So please let your guests know that their comments are appearing on CyberRentals.com and they may receive e-mails from other potential guests.
</quote>

Can you believe it?


One would hope that the other problems are easy fixes that just need to be pointed out to them.[/quote]

I'll do that, thanks. </moan>
Waves from America
A-two
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Post by A-two »

Ah, but a closer look at their privacy policy reveals that anyone who contacted me originally through Cyberrentals has already given permission for the site to sell their email address and a lot more besides.

I'm not sure if Cyberrentals intend to publish client email addresses for all to see. Rather I would expect them NOT to give it to the inquirer, but to forward the message through a form. The whole point is to acquire data about confirmed bookings for their own purposes, not to actually help anyone make a new booking.

It's so transparently obvious that's the intention because this new Guest Book contact service is not even needed. Not one of my guests has ever asked to speak to a previous rentor in three years. Where is the data to prove the demand for it? Rentors.org already provides the same thing with no requirement for a direct email contact. Why isn't that enough?

The person inquiring could be my competition snooping around - I would have to make sure our visitors notify us of any changes to their email addresses for the rest of their lives or their great reviews could be deleted and I would have to start again - the list goes on. The whole thing is ludicrous and has not been thought through properly from the end user perspective, only from their market research perspective, because essentially, that's all they care about.

And you can be sure they have the authority to do exactly what they want with those email addresses once you hand them over, so my advice is don't do it.

The Privacy Policy is at:
http://www.cyberrentals.com/index.cfm/tgt/privacy
from which I have selected the following extracts:-

<quote>
Inquiries
[....] If you choose to send an inquiry through these links, your personal information, including your email address and any other information you supply, will be [....] retained by CyberRentals.com. [....] CyberRentals may, from time to time, use third party email servers to send and track receipt of the inquiry emails, and analyze the pattern of inquiry usage via these third party tracking systems.
[......]
How Do We Protect Subscriber Information Once We Have It?
[....] Please remember that many services and transactions are performed by our business partners. Our privacy policy and our security or common practices do not apply to other companies.
[....]
By using our Website and signing up for CyberRental services, you consent to the collection and use of the previously mentioned information by CyberRentals and our affiliates. This policy is subject to change without notice.
</quote>

How convenient. By the way, "affiliates" is a euphamism for "anyone we decide to sell your personal information to". This must be what is meant by "enhanced services" - essentially datamining, selling it, then telling us what we need to buy next.

Can you believe we actually pay them to do this to us?
Last edited by A-two on Thu Jul 21, 2005 5:18 am, edited 4 times in total.
Waves from America
alexia s.
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Post by alexia s. »

"please let your guests know that their comments are appearing on CyberRentals.com and they may receive e-mails from other potential guests. "
In other words, get permission to include their e-mail address from those guests whose comments you want to publish. This doesn't shock me. If I were looking to rent I'd like to know that I could test the genuineness of the rave review(s).
Best,
Alexia.
A-two
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Post by A-two »

alexia s. wrote:"If I were looking to rent I'd like to know that I could test the genuineness of the rave review(s).
Alexia,
I agree it would be nice, but as a practical matter, first you need to prove that the online person you are contacting is the same person who stayed in the vacation home. For that, you would need to bring in a professional ID verification service like Thawte, which is a lengthy process and does not work for every situation.

Sorry, but adding an email address to a review is not the answer. Faking both of those things is a trivial task, and Cyberrentals knows it, so what they are suggesting makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the "genuiness" of what you're reading, or any email reply you may receive. Even a phone number could be a friend or relative of the owner. Even meeting a person face to face proves nothing. They could be carrying fake ID. Really, we all need retinal scans these days, ID is a huge, huge problem for everyone.

The best policy to deter false claims of any kind on the listings sites is the one Cyberrentals already has in place, which is their "three strikes" policy. No site with completely false reviews could survive long if the first 3 guests complained they had been mislead. That's all it needs. It's simply not necessary for anyone to bust open their customer database simply to prove they are honest. This is a con.

We treat our clients as honest people and we also expect to be treated as honest people by those to whom we give business.

I never liked them since I found out that "Vacation Guy" was in fact the entire staff of Cyberrentals, which is another whole con they have going on on Yahoo Groups.
Waves from America
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Ciapolin
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Post by Ciapolin »

I'm with Alexia - I think (provided people have given their permission) it is a nice touch to allow people to contact former guests. I don't think Cyberrentals are questioning the owners' honesty (I could be wrong), but rather are trying to give potential customers an added feeling of security.

On the fiddling front, it's just as easy to give a false phone number or address. OK so people can cheat, but isn't it better to try and be open and honest?

As a customer and owner, I would have no problem with this at all.

Of course, there would need to be a caveat that the details can only be used for personal reviews, and not marketing etc.
Carole-Anne
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Joanna,

I know it is way off the subject at hand, but here is a "fluffy" view.
ID is a huge, huge problem for everyone.
In their quest for more and more information about the individual, I think intrusive politicians have invented identity as a huge, huge problem and lots of people have fallen for it.

I simply don't accept the argument that if I have nothing to hide I can't object to supplying personal information. I am riddled with suspicion as to the real reason why information is being gathered by governments and what they will do with the information in the future. After all, one of the basic tenets of politics is "information is power".

The day is almost here when, every time you use your credit card of your ID card, all the information will be transmitted to a central government database. Where are you, when are you there, what are you doing, what are you spending, what are you buying - they will all be recorded. The next logical step is for you to justify where you are, when you are there, what you are doing, what you are spending, what you are buying. The ultimate step is that you will need a government licence to be where you are , when you are there, what you are doing, what you are spending, what you are buying.

Anti-terrorism is often quoted as the excuse for this but, in reality, anti-terrorism has nothing to do with it. It is all too easy for a terrorist to carry false documentation and give false information. He is in, carries out his dastardly deeds and is out again; long before any government agency can identify him.

That's my view and, thankfully, I am still entitled to hold a view and I am still entitled to express a view. I wonder, how long will that last in the Big Brother State? I hope I am wrong but history suggests I am not.

Alan
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vrooje
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Post by vrooje »

I think it could be a nice touch to allow potential guests of a place to contact former guests of a place.

However, I think that any listing site wanting to do this needs to do two things:

1) Obtain specific permission from each guest to do this, regardless of what their inquiry T&C say;

2) Hide e-mail addresses behind a form. This will not only keep the potential guest from getting the former guest's e-mail address, it will keep the e-mail address from getting farmed by e-mail spiders. Exposing your customer base to spam e-mail lists is not okay.

If they're not doing these, they're going to have a lot of angry former guests and potentially lose a lot of repeat business!
Brooke
A-two
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Post by A-two »

Brooke,
How do you know how many people are going to be availing themselves of this opportunity to speak to your clients about you? How about 20 per day every day of January to guests who are considering rebooking with you. That wouldn't worry you? You wouldn't want to qualify these people first BEFORE you let them have your client's email addresses?

I'm with Alan on this one, but I can agree to disagree.
Waves from America
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Ciapolin
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Post by Ciapolin »

I think the key is that people have to be happy to do it. I'm not sure it would be anywhere near as high as 20 a day, but I don't have anything to back that.

Maybe you are right - agree to disagree.

At the end of the day it should be down to choice.
Carole-Anne
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vrooje
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Post by vrooje »

Joanna,

Don't get me wrong, I'm agreeing with you! :)

I think it could be nice only if it's done right, but it seems Cyberrentals hasn't done it right at all!

Is there an example page where someone is actually using this feature that you could direct us to? I'm curious to see what it looks like.
Brooke
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