josephbloggs

Just now, mark131v said:

 

More waffle!!

 

this is all that matters wrt Koh Chang and their heavy handed use of gagging laws to coerce and bully and I know that they have damaged their business and their economy. They should have grown a pair and dealt with it like a grown up instead they damaged their business beyond repair hence having to rebrand

 

Hotel in Thailand That Jailed American Gets New Tripadvisor Label - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Jeez, it's like talking to a brick wall or someone who doesn't know how to read. They made several attempts to talk to him, they offered to meet and discuss, he refused all of them and kept posting. 

They made every single effort to deal with it like a grown up. Only the man child (who likes waving guns around in bars) put his fingers in his ears and went "I can't hear you".  So who was refusing to deal with it like a grown up and who was the bully? After all of that and his refusal to speak or deal with it like an adult they took the only recourse left. And they didn't take it lightly.

You are absolutely deluded in your defense of him and refusal to even contemplate that he might have actually slandered them (repeatedly) and refused to back down or talk.

But yeah, Thailand third world (tingle tingle) and all that.

56 minutes ago, mark131v said:

 

Waffle, waffle, waffle

 

You wasn't there and neither was I but there's three sides to the story his, theirs and the truth what you don't do is smash a peanut with a sledgehammer and then whine when the world takes notice 

 

Quote

They resorted to a third world gagging law in order to silence criticism whether it was valid criticism or not is besides the point 

If you run an hospitality business you take the rough with the smooth, prosecution of a customer is the actions of an idiot....

Ok, it's not sinking in, I'll try one last time. Let's go step by step.

Quote

You wasn't there and neither was I but there's three sides to the story his, theirs and the truth what you don't do is smash a peanut with a sledgehammer and then whine when the world takes notice 

No, I wasn't there. But I have read many reports and they weren't contested. I have also seen his posts. They ended up using a sledgehammer because conversation, negotiation, asking nicely over a period of time didn't work, he just refused to talk and kept posting slander.

Quote

They resorted to a third world gagging law in order to silence criticism whether it was valid criticism or not is besides the point 

See above. And you're one of those that's gets a tingle out of calling Thailand a third world country, stands to reason.

 

Quote

f you run an hospitality business you take the rough with the smooth, prosecution of a customer is the actions of an idiot....

Yes, you take a bad review on the chin and try to improve. I am tired of saying it but I left a bad review of this very resort on TripAdvisor. Did I get sledgehammered? Did they sue me? No, they replied and thanked me for it as it was constructive and referred to genuine service issues during my stay that they could use to improve.

You do not simply suck up a dedicated and sustained campaign of slander, accusing your hotel of slavery - no one would.

Got it yet? It wasn't a single bad review, it was repeated campaign of slander and the perpetrator refused all offers of dialogue. At the end of the day the hotel had no other recourse and they do not make make the laws. But glad to hear you would let it go and watch your business go down the drain thanks to a violent bully spamming all review sites with lies.

Read the facts, don't react to headlines and think a single bad review got him in trouble - far from it.

23 minutes ago, mark131v said:

 

No you're wrong, period!

 

Opinions are like <deleted> we all have one but the fact is the hotel in Koh Chang is still losing business to this day even if it's only my business! I hope the Phuket restaurant also suffers for its heavy handed use of a corrupt gagging law 

 

What the hell has Koh Samui got to do with it, wakee wakee!!

So imagine you own a business and you're doing well, then one day a violent and aggressive man comes in to your restaurant with his own alcohol and gets angry when the staff inform him there is a 500 baht corkage fee, then he gets more belligerent and the manager comes out and waives the fee to placate him (so he bullied his way to "success").

Then a few days later the man starts leaving nasty reviews saying all the staff in the hotel hate the manager, the hotel is guilty of modern day slavery (none of these "reviews" are about the actual experience). He does it across many sites repeatedly and, I repeat, accuses them of SLAVERY. You contact him and ask him to take them down but he refuses. You ask again but he refuses and keeps going. Meanwhile your business is suffering.

Let me get this straight, you would happily let this go even after trying all civilised forms of communication. You would accept having slavery attached to your hotel for all eternity even though YOU DID NOTHING WRONG and you resolved a bad situation peacefully and sensibly by waiving the fee that applies to everyone else everywhere in the world because you were bullied in to it and other guests were getting disturbed.

The hotel doesn't make the laws but they took the only option left to them. They even said at the time they don't agree with the harshness of the law but they had no other recourse to protect their business as this guy was on a one man crusade to bring them down and was refusing to talk.

Don't confuse the people who make the laws with the people trying to protect their business against unjustified and vindictive attacks.
 

5 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Did the electromagnetic fields totally fry your brain 🧠 this morning?

Your are quoting some Swedish statistics, where the link to the report doesn't exist and in the post below you jump on the high horse that this is only and exclusively about Thai EVs.

The cherry 🍒 picker patrol and team FactChecker simply can't keep up at this speed.

Maybe your internet got fried this morning. The link works fine for me. 

3 minutes ago, sidneybear said:

Sometimes things that seem irrational have simple explanations: EVs are a con with clever marketing. 

Another well though out and reasoned post. Have you got anything intelligent to add to the debate? What's the con? And what's all this marketing we're all falling for? I don't remember seeing any, I just remember driving an EV for a few days then getting back in my ICE and feeling like I'd gone back in time.

What's your experience?

45 minutes ago, PPGuy said:

https://youtu.be/drISPotbfiY?si=MkN8zwxhbnXM401Q

 

New service from Bangkok to Samui. Looks good.

Looks impressive.

15 minutes ago, bob smith said:

This country is an absolute farce.

 

Btw, I've eaten in that Italian fellas restaurant before and it was sh!te...

 

bob.

Where is it then?

3 hours ago, Ebumbu said:

 

The hotel guy did get arrested for leaving a review. That's literally what he was charged with, defamation. I don't dispute that he was belligerent. Arrest him for belligerence then. But any business is going to get some disruptive customers and unfair reviews. It's the nature of Google and Yelp. There is no way that it's justified to put someone in jail who shared their opinion, whether they're right or wrong. Same goes for this case. A bad review cannot be a crime in anything resembling a free society. It's a backwards, North-Korea style practice that needs to be amended. 

At the end of the day, sending the cops to get this hotel guy did far damage than anything he could have written. After the incident, the hotel was buried with angry, negative reviews. What did they accomplish? Self sabotage. Opinions, even if wrong, should no be crimes. 

I agree with you that it shouldn't be a criminal offence, it should be a civil matter, but those are the laws currently.

I disagree with the rest of your post. It wasn't "a bad review". It was a multitude of them full of lies, accusing the hotel of modern day slavery - seriously which business would or should take that lying down? They also got in touch to ask him to take the comments down and that would have been the ned of the matter, but he refused and continued posting his lies. That is slander in any country. Filing for defamation was a last resort, even the hotel said this and didn't agree with the severity of the punishment, but they had to protect their business, and rightly so.

I said in another post that I have left a bad review of that very same hotel on TripAdvisor. Did they sue me? No, the manager replied publicly to say he was sorry and he would look into what happened and make improvements. I didn't bombard review sites with lies and I didn't accuse them of slavery. See the difference?

1 hour ago, Ebumbu said:

The internet knows how to handle this ... exactly like they handled the hotel that got a tourist arrested for his review. The Streisand effect is about to hit them like a train, if it hasn't already. Their reviews will be a smoking crater within a week of news getting out. 

Yawn. The Koh Chang hotel didn't have a tourist arrested for a review. He brought his own booze in to the restaurant and didn't want to pay corkage and caused a scene when the staff explained the 500 baht charge. Corkage charges are standard globally. The manager explained the policy but he got angry. Eventually the manager agreed to waive the corkage fee to keep the peace as it was disturbing other guests. Sounds quite entitled.

He then went on to post a series of fake bad reviews of the resort on many sites, included accusing them of modern day slavery. The hotel contacted him and asked him to take them down but he refused. They asked him several times but he refused and doubled down and kept posting over several weeks. The hotel then made an complaint and the law followed its course. That idiot actually lived in Thailand so he really should have known better.

I wish people would stop peddling this nonsense that you get arrested for leaving a review.

 

19 minutes ago, sikishrory said:

Please elaborate

I don't think I can elaborate any more. Which part are you having trouble with?

12 minutes ago, transam said:

Good morning JB, and a lovely one it is too.............🤗

Yes it is. A lovely day to make yourself a cup of tea, sit outside, enjoy the sunshine, watch the video you asked for, then let us know what you thought about it. 

8 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

I think we know why no-one has replied, right @transam?

Hello? @transam? You asked for the link in a dismissive way, you got it. What are your thoughts? Hellooooooo?

2 hours ago, georgegeorgia said:

Where was the rancid from fish n chips ,Sydney ????

Name it 

I can't remember - it was about 15 years ago, but it was in Sydney. Oily and nasty.

I have also had excellent fish and chips in Manly, probably the best I have ever had. Can't remember the name of that either.

My point was isolated incidents of bad service can happen anywhere but we don't go creating whinging posts about entire countries based on these random incidents. (Well, one person does)

3 hours ago, ezzra said:

I thought you were referring to the one in Pattaya, when it opened in the 80' it was the only building around

everything around it was a barren land, Not so much now, however, the food there was fairly mediocre 

even in those days...

Are you sure you're not thinking of Pan Pan?

On 5/1/2024 at 7:17 PM, Balance said:

I stopped flying with Thai Airlines when the U.S. banned the carrier from landing at any U.S. Airport. The reason: nonexistent or incomplete maintenance records combined with a demonstrated lack of training and inability to perform the work.  

Your timelines are out of whack.

Thai Airways stopped direct flights to the US in 2008 due to the high cost of operating them (thirsty A340-500s). It stopped "one stop" routes to the US in 2012 also due to financial reasons.

The FAA downgraded Thailand to category 2 in 2015. And they were not banned from landing, they were just not allowed to expand their network or launch new routes but Category 2 countries to continue existing routes. But seeing as they hadn't had routes there for nearly four years that was moot anyway.

Not sure what their status is in 2024. I certainly trust TG much more than other regional carriers and pick them above others for regional flights. I prefer other airlines for long haul but not because of any safety concerns.

12 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

What's the BS about seats not converting to beds? Since when did THAI biz class have beds? Certainly not when I went Biz class. Did all the seats not recline or was it a problem with just his seat? If it was with all, I think there would have been way more than one complaint.

 

I certainly never had a problem with THAI. Better than Air NZ or British Airways, IMO.

All their modern planes have lie flat biz seats and have done for ages (A380, A350, B787). Older aircraft don't.