Yep, you a hoe...Uh huh But you're MY Hoe, so all y'all looking to tap that better back off before someone gets cut lol
This post was edited by Jon at August 22, 2019 8:24 AM MDT
People, like us, who advertise on Airbnb, are invited to use their "Smart Pricing" option. With this option, you set a base price per night for your rental. Then you can increase that price by any amount you want for any length of time. Say you set the base price at $100 per night during December, then for the rest of the year you can add whatever percentage you want, say add 100%, so the price is really $200 per night. When your guest reserves your accommodation, he is not told until the payment page that the actual price will be more than twice what he thought. The first time I rented through them from a listing using Smart Pricing, I unknowingly only took note of the price when I saw the advertised and offering prices. I didn't look at the total when I checked out. They duped me out of about $200. When I phoned and informed them that this is false advertising, they gave me a credit on my next stay. Because of this and because they refused to publish a negative review I wrote about one of their hosts, we cancelled our account with them. Okay, call me intolerant. I cannot tolerate cheaters. Sorry.
Good on you for spreading the word. (Keep your evidence, because this is very much in the public interest.)
The hospitality industry is notorious for its rorts - esp. taking advantage of the inexperienced and foreigners. But they should also be well aware of the first principle. Word of mouth can make you or break the business. Every dissatisfied customer will cost at least 11 possible customers who will never visit.
Sure, lots of examples. Those dairy commercials depicting "happy" cows, for instance. Then there is the "MyPillow" guy, who guarantees the best and deep sleep..if one buys his products.
I think it's great that you think so. No pillow seller, however, has any business promising the deepest and "best" sleep ever if someone buys it. It's a real problem for some folks of course, being able to sleep well.
In my view, every ad, without exception, is misleading.
Naturally, they leave out what's bad about the product.
But often the angle or image they spin is designed to counteract all the experiences of the exact opposite - they know they've already got a negative reputation (market research) and a problem that's affecting their business. So instead of trying to fix the problem (because that would be too costly) they aim to counteract the negative messages that run the grapevine in communities. Long gone are the days of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (by means of integrity).
You can read what's wrong with the product by what's not said or by the choice of words.
"Freedom, freedom, freedom!" spruiks one aged care company. It has combination locks on every door of its nursing homes. Its timetable is so regimented that not one resident has any choice about anything. And of course the food, "eat what you're given or go hungry; it's your choice."
Typical examples are three aged care corporations with nursing homes in our area. One is owned by a British company, listed on Stock Exchanges. It owns over 80 aged care facilities around the world - including in the USA. It also owns companies specialising in pharmaceuticals, hygiene pads, dressings and prosthetics, and health and life insurance. They aggressively sell all their products to their age care customers in both community and nursing homes - a tactic for gaining control of their target market.
They sell themselves as the most experienced, progressive and up-to-date.
What does that mean in practice?
When you first approach the building - four large wings of 30 residents each, plus all the communal spaces - you see the roof is totally covered with hundreds of solar panels. How fantastic! Hot water for laundry sterilisation, air-conditioning on such a scale - energy-hungry - expensive. Makes perfect sense to get your energy from the sun and help save the planet at the same time. Yep - they must be leaders in their industry - very progressive and up-to-date. Then (as a carer) I find myself behind the scenes, seeing how it really works.
The lights in the corridors are so low that even a sighted person feels cast in twilight. For the elderly, who often have cataracts, macular degeneration and other forms of partial blindness, this would be a nightmare. Not being able to see creates insecurity, fear of falls, leads to isolation and loneliness. Which was exactly what I found among more than two-thirds of the residents.
The "hot water" in the residents' hand-basins and showers was cooler than tepid, around 64ºF/18ºC - with nothing from the cold tap added. Residents often complained. I'd write out their complaints for them and hand them in. Nothing was done. Sometimes a carer would be pulled away to attend to a more critical event, and a resident would be left stranded, naked, cold and wet sitting in a wheelchair, waiting to be washed, dried and dressed for half-an-hour or more. By the way - the local climate and the solar arrays were ample to supply all the power needed. I know because we live solar at home, and we're networked in with the technicians who install the technology in our area. The only way reason they could be reducing their power usage would be to profit from selling a proportion to the public grid.
Then there was the perpetual issue of missing, wandering and filthy slings for moving residents who could not move and who were too heavy for two staff to safely manage without the aid of a machine. These slings are slid under the person while in bed (roll person from side to side to get it under), then hooked onto the machines. The lift is controlled by battery-operated hoist and remote control. Residents are usually incontinent - so the slings get soiled. There were only three hoists and six slings in the entire place. But of those, two slings were "away for repairs", three in the laundry, one lost and one clean and available. Time wasted constantly trying to find who's got the one sling among 120 residents each in private rooms. So for a miserly lack of enough slings, it was impossible for the staff to get the 15 heavyweight residents washed and dressed within the morning shift - especially as one was a 35-year-old woman with autism who enjoyed becoming violent.
So now let's look again at how they sell themselves - "the most experienced, progressive and up-to-date."
The company has progressive and up-to-date technology - yet by its practices, it misrepresents the truth.
That's exactly how advertising works.
~
If you've haven't guessed already - I feel furious about injustices like these. This company averages a steady 6-7% p.a. yield to investors - at a high cost to the comfort and well-being of the customers. Australia is currently conducting a Royal Commission into the aged care industry. The failures are shocking the nation on every level - but it's only what whistle-blowers behind the scenes have been complaining about for decades.
Politicians were finally forced to act due to the publicity created by the adult children of many residents who had died in appalling circumstances. All this, despite the fact that there are plenty of laws setting the ideal standards. The failure has always been the lack of an independent body to run random and frequent checks and the funding to prosecute and give it teeth.
This post was edited by inky at August 17, 2019 6:28 PM MDT
Benedict Arnold 