Welcome to Vacation Rental Maestro ( Rebooted on Google... )
Welcome to Vacation Rental Maestro ( Rebooted on Google... )
Embedded Files
For those not familiar, in the third quarter of 2017 I took to the airwaves with a website (https://vacation-rental-maestro.weebly.com) that exposed massive commercial problems with the two major vacation rental platform providers, Expedia (HomeAway/VRBO) and AirBnB.
The publishing was fast, fierce and ferocious for about 6 months.
- Expedia's share priced dropped from the $152/ share range to $100 during that time. (3rd and 4th quarter earnings calls were ok, but stock got pounded)
- AirBnB fired it's CFO in February 2018 and announced they would not be seeking IPO at any time in the near future, contrary to prior claims and expectations. (hum. wonder what happened???)
I do feel the publishing from the vacation rental maestro (website), supported by anonymous partners, played a role in some of those pretty significant industry bumps and detours.
Unfortunately, my web host for that project, Weebly, came under significant attack and pressure from one or several parties they would not disclose.
First they asked for illogical redaction of information that was all public information and not antagonistic. Then they asked for more redaction of benign public information . Finally they took the site offline in July 2017 and it was either delete it or lose my account with them (which has other really positive stuff in it)
In French dialogue via email after the fact, it was seemingly apparent Weebly principals weren't excited about taking the site down, but for their own business and other customers on shared servers, it was necessary. They had fallen under some kind of heavy server attack. And so went Chapter 1 of VR Maestro.
Some Tweets to wet your appetite?
Some Tweets to wet your appetite?
Below are screen shots of a few tweets to give you an idea of how this information was shared with those platform providers. Any claims of ignorance have no basis at all. @MarkOkerstrom is Expedia's CEO @bchesky is AirBnB's CEO
This is the notice sent to Brian Chesky about the faking-it-with AirBnB reviews article going live. His competition was also notified as was their staff. @AirBnB was left off to give Brian the opportunity to address silently...
This was the formal notice regarding the open letter sent to Wes Bush concerning Matt Durrette's behavior as a Defense Contractor.
Concerns were expressed about the idea that Matt's AirBnB guests can hear his business conversations....
Tony was complimenting AirBnB. I felt he didn't have a full picture of what AirBnB was hiding under the hood, and since my tweets to BChesky were not reaping change, I cc'd airbnb corporate this time and suggested Tony try to give them a hand on the truthfulness side of things...
This is the tweet above all others that documents notification of concerns about fake review networks and review sort order manip to both Brian and AirBnB together...
This is the tweet above all others that documents notification of concerns about fake review networks and review sort order manip to both Brian and AirBnB together...
And just two weeks later my website and weebly came under attack. I was notified on 7/19 that my account was being terminated for TOS issues that were non-issues...
And just two weeks later my website and weebly came under attack. I was notified on 7/19 that my account was being terminated for TOS issues that were non-issues...
This was the day Vacation Rental Maestro website was taken offline by Weebly due to outside pressure.
Weebly principals responded to this tweet in French quickly and this matter was worked out.
My account was restored. I logged in and personally deleted the VRMastro site.
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