231–240 of 288 posts
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My experience (years ago) was that the hotels would prefer people did this as they don't like the middlemen either.
I always lookup the hotel on an aggregator (Hotels.com usually) and then call the hotel directly to book.
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>What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them. You're missing the part about how GrubHub, et. al don't just pass you along, they charge 12-30% "commission" just for forwarding the call -- and they set up the fake number jus…
Affiliate links work the same way. Are those also fraud?
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I always lookup the hotel on an aggregator (Hotels.com usually) and then call the hotel directly to book.
and you call the number listed on hotels.com? In this case you are calling hotels.com and not the hotel itself.
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Affiliate links work the same way. Are those also fraud?
No, because affiliates are participating in an affiliate program with the consent of the business.
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Purdue actually paid 8 billion out of 11 billion profit. That seems reasonable as tons of people using their drugs did have a legitimate need. The 235 Million in personal civil liabilities PLUS their losses from owning so much of the company. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... > 8 billion payout on 11 billion profit. That seems reasonable. Not all of the people using their drugs were bein…
They made off with at least $3 billion in profit, are responsible for (at minimum) the deaths of thousands of Americans, and will ride off into the sunset with their billions. The DOJ delivered a slap on the wrist just in time for the election so that they could claim a win on the opioid crisis. I don't blame people in this thread for having zero confidence whatsoever in the "justice" system.
Is it okay to profit from the other people they've helped?
In any case Rhodes Pharmaceutical was started in 2007 by the Purdue family. It makes opioids too and should be shut down.
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This seems like a problem that the review companies are responsible for—coalescing reviews into a single, no-context scalar—moreso than it is the intermediaries' fault. The original comment stands. If a substantial portion of people are ordering takeout from intermediaries, it's reasonable that when one of those customers checks the reviews, they contain relevant info from others who've ordered the same way and share…
GrubHub is a review company though. Part of their supposed value proposition is that they act as a marketing platform, and the restaurant reviews are a large part of this.
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FYI - the same thing happens with Hotels.com. When you "call the hotel" with the number listed, I learned that the representative is actually a Hotels.com rep, not a hotel employee or hotel call-center employee. This matters. In my case, I asked about my corporate discount and they gave me a vague answer about "I dont see anything in the system", which I guess was technically not a lie, but definitely deceitful. I wi…
I had to recently book a hotel for a few nights. Hotels are mostly empty because of COVID. When I called to book a room it was clearly a script being followed with high pressure tactics including saying rooms are filling up quickly. Once I arrived at the hotel it looked mostly dead, and I when I asked the manager who was helping me behind the counter, he said they were at 10% capacity. It should also be illegal for b…
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FYI - the same thing happens with Hotels.com. When you "call the hotel" with the number listed, I learned that the representative is actually a Hotels.com rep, not a hotel employee or hotel call-center employee. This matters. In my case, I asked about my corporate discount and they gave me a vague answer about "I dont see anything in the system", which I guess was technically not a lie, but definitely deceitful. I wi…
I had to recently book a hotel for a few nights. Hotels are mostly empty because of COVID. When I called to book a room it was clearly a script being followed with high pressure tactics including saying rooms are filling up quickly. Once I arrived at the hotel it looked mostly dead, and I when I asked the manager who was helping me behind the counter, he said they were at 10% capacity. It should also be illegal for b…
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/06/hotel-booki...
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>What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them. You're missing the part about how GrubHub, et. al don't just pass you along, they charge 12-30% "commission" just for forwarding the call -- and they set up the fake number jus…
Affiliate links work the same way. Are those also fraud?
IIUC, Affiliate marketing is when an online retailer pays you a commission for traffic or sales generated from your referrals.
That's not fraud or misrepresentation.
In the case of Grubhub, et. al, fake phone numbers, they aren't recommending a restaurant. They are claiming that the phone number is the restaurant. Those who call that number aren't clicking an ad because the "affiliate" promoted it. They are calling that number because they'd already decided to contact that particular restaurant, but were redirected to another entity -- with a monetary interest that harms the restaurant -- that doesn't disclose their third-party status.
And that's certainly at least unethical, if not outright fraud.
I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when custome…