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 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.
revenue-generating scheme
Scam. I think the word is scam.
No no, it is the algorithm. There was nothing they could do. Hands were tied and you can’t blame them because the algorithm did it.
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
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.
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! 🙄
if something is advertised as a hotel it damn well better have sound dampening between the rooms
Ok troll. Fuck off
Bruh go touch some grass
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.
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.
So, are there any sort of devices you can buy to check for these type of things or are they mostly just hollywood TV/movie and detective game mumbo jumbo type things?
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.
They’re usually hard wired via cat6 and powered by POE, and will also alert for a lack of input
Every day I love my RV more and more.
This is more of a hotel/airbnb problem than a home/vehicle problem
…the RV means I rarely stay in hotels…
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.
Sounds like a great way to abuse front desk staff by proxy.
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…
Another one to add to the list whenever I hear tech lobbyists shout about how unregulated capitalism breeds innovation.
How is this a plus for guests wtff
Devils advocate, I guess the room won’t smell like shit
Oh it will.
Why would companies who willingly scam you wish to spend money to keep their rooms nice, when they’re straight up stealing from their guests?
Have you never watched Hotel Hell?
What’s that guy doing?
“That guy”?
I’m offended on behalf of anyone who’s ever cooked or worked in hospitality.
“That guy” is Gordon Ramsay, and he’s pulling the firealarm, because the hotel is too filthy for people to actually be habiting it.
You know shit is bad when you’re in restaurant/hotel and you see Gordon Ramsay.
Here’s the full episode where the gif is from (not only is Gordon pretty good at cooking, he’s great at utilising social media and YouTube as well)
VILE Hotel Forces Gordon To Pull Fire Alarm | Hotel Hell FULL EPISODE
Edit if you want the specific bit, here’s the 30 seconds preceding the pulling of the alarm and then the alarm (idk if the timestamp works, he pulls the alarm at 28:08)
Just watched that video. Holy cow…I’m speechless, thank you for sharing. That seems like a really cool show.
Oh wow, I know who he is but didn’t recognize him in the clip. I don’t seem to be able to recognize/associate people by how they look. Most people I’m close to think I’m lying or trying to be funny because I don’t know who popular people are, it would be nice to be able to recognize people.
Also, thank you for sharing the clip, I’m going to watch the full episode tonight.
Nah he has a sort of hunched gait and the picture is bad.
But yeah, you might have like a tiny bit of face blindness.
I very randomly get it as well in just specific contexts. Sometimes embarrassing when it’s a friend/acquaintance.
Someone video calls you to say “hey look who I’m here with” and you’re like “eeeh, I’m really bad at names” and then it gets awkward because I’ve known the person since I was a kid pretty much.
I tend to huff arsenic trioxide when I stay at a hotel. Will the hotel smoke detectors fine me for that?
lol fuck these people and these hotels. It’s not about not smoking, it’s about charging more money.
always put a bag over the smoke alarm!
now THAT’S illegal
Better refuse to pay the bill unless the item is removed. If they don’t remove it, contact your bank and block the payment.
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.
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.
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.
Wow. That is… that is some horseshit.
Isn’t this a textbook candidate for a class action suit?
Some lucky lawyers will get rich off of this.
Don’t forget about the lucky customers that might get almost half the fee back.
Half? What kind of class action lawsuits have you been a part of?
Seems like mostly the consumer gets back some 2% or something. I have to assume they are intended to be punitive rather than to make the customer right.
Yet another way your country fucks over it’s citizens
Yay! Fraud!
