Guests report getting billed hundreds of dollars for smoking, based on the readings of an “algorithmic” smoke detector. The sensor manufacturer markets its product as a way for hotels to unlock new revenue streams.
I have never seen a more clear cut example of a perfect use case for a credit card chargeback.
Fun fact: You can’t dispute part of a charge. If you charge this back and win (you probably will) the hotel loses out on everything, for your entire stay. It also stacks up against them and raises their rates the more they get. An even vaguely concerted effort by people who have been ripped off by this would probably get the hotel in question booted from their credit card processor.
I imagine it’s damn difficult to run a hotel if you can’t accept credit cards. Just saying.
Many credit card software providers also charge for the investigation of chargebacks, to the tune of hundreds of dollars, even if the chargeback is reversed.
Accumulating a history of chargebacks against you as a merchant, even if the consumer ultimately loses them, also counts against you and will raise your rates. The processors don’t like dealing with merchants that they perceive as excessively risky.
I have to deal with this in my business and the whole thing is really a pain in the ass.
That’s not where it ends though. They can send you to collections.
Happened to me from Verizon after I returned their modem and they said I didn’t.
Many different collectors called and wouldn’t the same track# and photos to show it was returned. It eventually went on my credit, which took a slight hit for all of 2 months.
I tend to huff arsenic trioxide when I stay at a hotel. Will the hotel smoke detectors fine me for that?
Yet another huge win for those who choose to never leave their basements.
I miss my basement.
Caves have only one entrance. So you know when someone is coming uninvited. And you can just spear the fuckers.
Us?
We are treading water in the middle of the ocean.
I stayed at a “hotel” in Denver a few years ago. It was advertised as a hotel on Hotels.com, and we booked because we thought it was cool that the unit had a full kitchen and was like a condo. We thought it would be the best of both worlds, hotel amenities and Airbnb style room. We get there, and it’s basically an apartment building that they’ve turned into a hotel. They have no staff on site, and I had to download an app to check in and do a face scan. Super not privacy friendly. Then one day we stayed in and we’re having a few drinks and conversing. This was 5 guys. We weren’t being beligerant or loud, just talking. It was maybe 4 pm, and not quiet hours. I get a text saying there was a noise complaint. Then we bailed and got another text saying there was a 2nd noise complaint. They threatened us with a $500 fee the 2nd time. I told them we were no longer in the room, so it wasn’t us. We later found what we assumed was a bug device that notified them if we went over a certain decibel level.
I never got charged, but I was ready to fight tooth and nail with my credit card company if they did. It was very weird, and I would never book with that company again.
Do you happen to have a description of photo of the bug device? Interested to find out whether I am running into a similar situation myself.
https://tritonsensors.com/uses/hotels/
I didn’t take a photo, but it was like this.
Set a decibel threshold for each device and receive an alert if it is exceeded.
Show guests that their comfort is your top priority and they’ll leave signing your praises.
Yeah getting a shut the fuck up text every 5 minutes makes me real comfortable. Also they literally advertise it as a revenue stream. How fucked.
The crying part on that feature list is kinda messed up.
Doesn’t react to the sound of the fist hitting flesh, only the crying afterwards.
Customers using 3D Sense can generate over 400% more revenue from fees by detecting more smoking incidents and winning more credit card charge backs than before with our powerful sensors and reports.
Primarily just to generate more revenue. Not actually alert infractions. It’s on their fucking website. Fuck this noise. I’d wrap the damn thing in aluminum foil and watch it try to communicate then.
This sounds like a total bullshit whine from assholes who made a lot of noise in the middle of the night and disturbed their neighbors because they were on vacation and felt entitled.
Fuck you. Provide anything to back your shit up or shut up. And you won’t. Respect others, or pay the fine.
Edit: EVERYBODY needs to stop taking complaints made by random dumbasses on the internet at face value. What the actual fuck, this is how you get fascist ants in your government.
This cunt literally ADMITS to being in the wrong in the text! 🙄
You should go on a walk outside. Go find your nearest tree, see the way the bark grows, see the little bugs that call it home and the tiny ecosystem that tree supports. Go to the nearest rock. Spend some time admiring its strata, think about how it got there over millions and millions of years. Feel the sunshine on your face. Feel the wind ripple through your hair.
Do all this, then come back and re-read what you wrote.
Ok troll. Fuck off
if something is advertised as a hotel it damn well better have sound dampening between the rooms
It’s the Hertz AI scam in a different sector. I suspect every major rental company will have a version of this soon, and that none of them will be auditable or appealable.
Couldn’t that be interpreted as a confession that their air is at least as unsafe as staying with a heavy smoker the whole night, in terms of PM 2.5 and other hazards?
Sounds like a great way to abuse front desk staff by proxy.
Isn’t this a textbook candidate for a class action suit?
That was a very annoying read. I could feel the tiktok plug even before it was posted. This sucks, but oh my god I hate the internet now.
My thoughts exactly and while I hate making cliché comments, I’m surprised this isn’t being talked about more in this thread. Felt like I was missing an adblocker, and I was glad it was only 13 tweets.
This is the one time I’m gonna be that jagweed and say I liked it. I’ve never once been on TikTok and I never will. But I was happy to see it in logical and streamlined format. I didn’t feel the need to click on anything. Nothing got in the way… no oppressive popups, members-only, ads, etc. How sad is it that as much as you guys are complaining, and you have the right to your opinions, I found it to be one of the cleanest web pages I’ve seen in months.
I don’t visit any of those sites either, in part because the formatting makes telling a story so challenging.
Looking onto a page like this, it’s like one story was needlessly chopped up into little bits. Instead of several paragraphs formatted with the purpose of telling a smooth, coherent story, it’s cut into chunks whose only parameter is character length. Outside of modern microblog-style social media, that format doesn’t happen much. The result is scrolling and scrolling to read something that (I feel) could’ve been put into a few paragraphs in a single blog post.
Put altogether, it comes off as chunky and without any clear flow. Microblog formatting is not conductive to story-telling. It’s not a criticism of the writer (I assume they were doing their best within the limits imposed), but of the formatting that breaks the flow that story-telling relies on.
IDGAF about the topic the post is discussing, and I don’t need an article. I was more than fine with a quick, scannable version of what’s happening so I can forget all about it. I don’t know what you’re all triggered on. It’s a low-content low-effort highly-viral anti-AI anti-capitalism rage bait garbage post and it deserves no effort on the part of the writer or reader IMO.
Yay! Fraud!
always put a bag over the smoke alarm!
now THAT’S illegal
Anyone got a mirror of the article that is not geoblocked?
Do archive pages work for you? If so, give this a try: https://archive.ph/2uKUX
I see people talking about chargebacks in this thread which is the logical course of action for a case like this.
What’s nefarious about this is that Hilton and Merriot each own a ton of hotels. If you chargeback multiple times against one of those groups you could get block listed from their locations which can get very problematic in locales without much competition.
Yet another way your country fucks over it’s citizens
This is why I preemptively destroy the hotel room.
I looked up the sensor and it’s max operating temp is only 112F, which is colder than McDonalds coffee. Hell, the hotel hot water tap is probably hotter than that. The hotel blow dryer gets hotter than that…
