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Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

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Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#151

Post by drclau »

rsstack wrote: post #142
drclau wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> competitors just put a random number that looked nice Is this even legal? It seems this is used to mislead the customer.

I am an engineer, not a lawyer, but I expect that from a criminal perspective it doesn't count as fraud because it isn't material information, and the consumer rights differ vastly between countries and probably don't cover "dishonest but immaterial information" - there weren't lies on the price, on availability, etc. If a company asks me to implement something I believe is illegal I ask for clarifications from a law…

I’m not a lawyer either. I was thinking that this may fall under false advertising [0]. That is, claiming N people are interested in the product/service while that information is clearly made up.

To be clear, I’m referring to an implementation that just uses a number that looks good, disconnected from any sort of metrics.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#152

Post by ratww »

woutr_be wrote: post #144
lowercased wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wife had rented via airbnb in london a few years back. Booked for... 10 days. It was close to $2000. Got there - TV broken. No curtains on window in main room, which faced an office block close enough where people could see you and you could see them. You had to walk between bedroom and bathroom through the main room. Leftover food in the fridge ("you can eat that if you want, previous people didn't finish it"). 2 ha…

> well, if it was bad, you should have left and we might have refunded some of your money Heh, VRBO said the exact opposite to us. Essentially "you should've stayed at the property, but since you left, we can't help you". One of our major complaints was that you had to walk through he first bedroom in order to get to the second. For two adults, that's just a stupid arrangement, and should've been mentioned up front.

At this point I believe they'll use any excuse not to refund you. Had you stayed they would have asked the question above.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#153

Post by dessant »

techcode wrote: post #140
dessant wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps it is just travel anxiety? It was just an illegal consumer practice. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_19_...

Not sure what illegal consumer practice are you talking about. Reading through the points from the page you posted - I think internally only actions related to that were basically to add more info (e.g. popup/hover or just "on our site") to clarify to people that same as every other marketplace on the Internet ... cough Amazon cough ... Things we show are just things we know about and have in our "inventory". And act…

> Not sure what illegal consumer practice are you talking about.

> I was part of "Consumer Psychology Team" at Booking.com for years. That team was/is one way or another involved in pretty much every functionality you mentioned

You were part of a team that cooked up new ways to harm consumers.

Playing the same word games here too is a bit tasteless. When your company is forced to "align practices presenting offers and prices with EU law following EU action", that means you've done something illegal, and you were caught. Nothing else matters.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#154

Post by rsstack »

drclau wrote: post #151
rsstack wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an engineer, not a lawyer, but I expect that from a criminal perspective it doesn't count as fraud because it isn't material information, and the consumer rights differ vastly between countries and probably don't cover "dishonest but immaterial information" - there weren't lies on the price, on availability, etc. If a company asks me to implement something I believe is illegal I ask for clarifications from a law…

I’m not a lawyer either. I was thinking that this may fall under false advertising [0]. That is, claiming N people are interested in the product/service while that information is clearly made up. To be clear, I’m referring to an implementation that just uses a number that looks good, disconnected from any sort of metrics. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising

False advertising is narrower than some people would like it to be.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#156

Post by rchaud »

Welcome to the world of CRO - conversion rate optimization.

Other examples would be:

1) "25 people like you! Upgrade to [dating app premium membership] to reveal them"

2) A client-side JS-triggered countdown timer with the message "I'm reopening enrollment for a limited time"

3) "Only 2 left in stock - buy now!"

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#157

Post by rchaud »

josefrichter wrote: post #30

The kings of this “feature” are Booking.com, they have it everywhere. Can someone inspect whether theirs are genuine? I personally seriously doubt that. I think it’s almost always fake.

They are not. Booking.com themselves are featured in numerous case studies about Conversion Rate Optimization experiments. Airbnb and others do the same, but not to the insane extent that booking.com does.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#158

Post by woutr_be »

ratww wrote: post #152
woutr_be wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> well, if it was bad, you should have left and we might have refunded some of your money Heh, VRBO said the exact opposite to us. Essentially "you should've stayed at the property, but since you left, we can't help you". One of our major complaints was that you had to walk through he first bedroom in order to get to the second. For two adults, that's just a stupid arrangement, and should've been mentioned up front.

At this point I believe they'll use any excuse not to refund you. Had you stayed they would have asked the question above.

Like I said, they've refunded the 10% service fee that they normally take, and this was only after pointing out that the owner had broken their TOS. The other 90% is still lost, and they claim there's nothing they can do about it.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#159

Post by lowercased »

Reason077 wrote: post #132
lowercased wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wife had rented via airbnb in london a few years back. Booked for... 10 days. It was close to $2000. Got there - TV broken. No curtains on window in main room, which faced an office block close enough where people could see you and you could see them. You had to walk between bedroom and bathroom through the main room. Leftover food in the fridge ("you can eat that if you want, previous people didn't finish it"). 2 ha…

> ”No curtains on window in main room, which faced an office block close enough where people could see you and you could see them.” This place sounds terrible, and of course it should have had curtains. But the part about facing onto other buildings is pretty normal in London.

sure - my wife used to live in london years back, so isn't a complete stranger. but... seeing pictures of a room that has curtains, then getting there and not having curtains is just nuts.

Re: Are 14 people really looking at that product? (2020)

#160

Post by grujicd »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #117
grujicd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using booking for 15+ years, mostly in Europe. I'm a satisfied user. These scare tactics don't bother me since it's easy to ignore. What I care about is that I see exact micro location of property, if I'm going with friends to a mountain cabin it's a real bonus if it's a bit further from other cabins or surreounded by woods. Airbnb burned me more than once with hidding this critical piece of info and only showing…

Do you recommend any mountain cabins? I've used and will be trying more of these https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ but some of the cabins in the Swiss alps look good, paid and free.

Sorry, trips with friends were all in Serbia, I guess that’s not what you have in mind. EU based bookings were for family trips. Point still stands, if you want exact micro-location Booking.com gives it, while airbnb doesn’t. Are there any other EU booking sites comparable to Booking, meaning all kinds of properties, hotels, private apartments, etc, not limited to single region?
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