New Media

Bonaire Oceanview Rentals break in crime

MUST READ for any scuba diver traveling to Bonaire and renting a villa

We rented for 8 nights and arrived on time and were met by the property manager, Martin with Bonaire Oceanview Rentals. Martin was a very nice man that showed us around the house in the dark.

The following morning we noticed that the property wasn’t very clean – oven was dirty, floor was sticky and the bathroom shower needed deep cleaning of tile and grout. The refrigerator was dirty and still had old food from someone else that must have stayed there before us. I cleaned it myself rather than say anything so we would feel more comfortable for our week. We didn’t have access to a broom so I purchased one at the store, used it and left it for the owners. If I had this all to do over again, I would have requested a deep cleaning that morning or asked to be moved to a cleaner villa. But, I didn’t- my mistake because it got worse.

First, the items listed that this house DOES NOT provide are:

Rinse tank – none – there is a faucet to rinse the dive gear, not a rinse tank.
Dive locker – none – there is a close line outside to hang your dive gear.
Safe – none was ever shown to us and we never found one. Possibly there is one in the owner’s room but there wasn’t one in the areas we had access to on the lease.
Washer and dryer – yes there are both and we saw them once when the maid showed up to clean but our key to that building where they were located was not one that was provided to us and the maid locked it when she left that day.
Sandy beach – none but a sandy shallow area.
Espresso machine — There is a very nice Espresso machine in the kitchen but there are parts missing so it couldn’t be used. We looked everywhere for the items that would be needed to make it operational and they were not in the kitchen. We asked Martin the following day and he didn’t know where the parts were either.

Martin helped connect the t.v. the following day after check-in because it wasn’t working either. The Espresso machine appeared to be a very nice expensive machine so I guess its possible the owners didn’t want it used to avoid renters from breaking it. We did have a regular coffee maker which we used.

Note: the maid washes the towels and lays them all over the table and chairs to dry so they are stiff. Normally, towels are dried in a dryer and are softer. After they dried that day I folded them myself. We also noticed that a few towels had holes in them. Not that big of a deal but still – this is a property that is advertised as one that is more exclusive. I guess I expected the villa to be more like the pictures that are published and to be clean and have nicer towels that were soft.

In my opinion, this villa needs deep cleaning before it is rented again! As a rental we expected the oven, refrigerator and the silverware drawer to be cleaner. (It is cleaner now because I did it). I would also expect the maid to dry the towels and not lay them all over the tables and chairs and then leave it to us to fold them. I don’t mind doing some housework but not on VACATION when I’m paying someone to do it before I arrive.

Now, to the horrible part –

There are bars covering the windows, bars on the inside of the bedroom doors, an electronic gate at the driveway entrance, a gate that leads to the garden area, the rest of the main house and a gate at the ocean steps. We were advised at check-in to make sure the main electronic gate was left closed at all times which we did the entire time of our stay.

We didn’t feel comfortable locking the inside bars to the two bedroom doors while sleeping because we’d need a key quickly in case of a fire since bars covered all the windows. We also noticed there were cameras in a few places but we were not told they didn’t work until AFTER we had a break-in.

Yes, the ONE night that all 3 of us were gone for 2+ hours for dinner had an intruder that pried open the door to the bedrooms and took our electronics and made a mess of the rooms. The outside doors, the beach gate, the garden gate and the electronic gates were all locked when we left. We quickly realized it was a HUGE mistake staying at a place with no safe AND relying on the outside gates and beach gate being locked – it didn’t help in this instance keeping these thieves out of our rooms.

After the break-in with the door broken and unable to lock, I did not feel comfortable staying there so we left and cannot get a refund on the 3 nights were did not stay.

To make matters worse, Nicole with Bonaire Oceanview Rentals sent me an e-mail with this statement

“I can’t understand why you didn’t lock that door as otherwise nothing would have happened. The owner made arrangements to make the villa safe and you have just ignored them or maybe you forgot but still we can’t help it”

What? we didn’t lock the doors? YES WE DID LOCK THE DOOR! There is a very heavy, solid wooden door on the outside of the bedrooms. THESE DOORS were locked. They broke the wooden door to enter. They broke the locked door! I have pictures of that broken door.

To say that we were ignoring safety was an insult. The one item that was not locked was one set of the inside bars to one bedroom but the It is my opinion that the property manager and/or owner should have disclosed to us that there wasn’t a SAFE to lock up our items as they advertised, advise us to not leave without locking all the bars on the inside of the doors AND why didn’t they tell us the security cameras didn’t work?

It would also have been valuable knowledge to know that this area on the island is one that is frequently targeted by thieves with car and home break-ins. Knowing these things would have prevented the thieves from stealing our laptops, cameras, passports, earphones and book bag. Had their knowledge of these break-ins been shared at check-in we would have made sure when we left to take these items with us each time and we would have taken measures to avoid the loss and trauma that we have experienced during what should have been a pleasant family vacation.

I hope this post helps others select the right property, in the right location and with the right property management company and villa owner. I also hope that renters pick owners and property management companies that will refund the unused nights after a break-in when a door won’t lock.

Local police investigators told us these break-in’s happen all the time in this area because thieves know and watch visitors (mainly American’s) all the time after they check-in to these properties. We requested a refund for the 3 nights we didn’t stay.

We left the night of the break-in. Why would we want to stay in a place that was just robbed and the door wouldn’t lock? This is what was said by Nicole with the property management company in her e-mail after I requested a 3 night refund: Although the bedroom door could not lock it could close and we could have locked the bars and continued to stay there but we understand you didn’t feel safe.

The property management company has refused in numerous e-mails that they will not refund the 3 remaining nights we did not stay at the villa.

I’m not sure how brave other travelers are but I’m fairly certain most wouldn’t want to have their family continue to stay in a bedroom without a door that would lock even if the bars would lock. That night, I didn’t think that was the best option for our family and after hearing from the police about the break-ins I wanted to move to another place where they had security.

We moved and later requested a refund. There are some things that you can’t put a $$$ sign next to and that is your families safety after something horrible like this happens. I just wish the owner and the property management company would do the right thing and refund those 3 nights. We’ve lost approx $7,000 worth of electronics, my daughter’s passport, not to mention the 3 extra nights after we moved.

This review is not meant to be mean, I am stating everything that is factual. The owners and the property management company nor us were expecting a break-in. As another business owner, it makes more sense to us to do all that is possible to make clients feel comfortable, safe and secure during a vacation. My primary recommendation in all this is to hope the owners and property management company inform renters of the unsafe area in Belnam, inform the renters to always lock the bars, take all your valuables with you when you leave and hope for the best.

I also think it would be a good idea to inform renters that the security cameras don’t work, there isn’t a safe and other items that are advertised. I would also recommend they do what is right in this situation and that is to refund the 3 nights were did not stay in the villa. I truly believe most would agree we did the right thing by leaving when the door had been broken.

Amusingly enough, Nicolle said that we should have purchased travel insurance. Fun fact: we did. The insurance plan is the top of the line plan and doesn’t cover electronics or theft of electronics.

blocked from google after reporting spam

My two hours in “GMail jail” all thanks to my war against AOL spam

What happens when the email account you’ve been using for over 10 years suddenly locks you out because you’ve been reported as violating their Terms of Service?

That’s what happened to me after I waged a war against a spammer with an AOL.com email. For years I’ve been getting these spam messages from an AOL email. And for years I’ve reported the account as a spammer. For years, nothing has happened.

Finally, when I was given a real person to talk to and send my complaints to, I thought something might actually happen. Spam is frowned upon by most internet companies and if someone is using their email server to spam swaths of people, they would probably want to know. It doesn’t generally look good for a company when they can’t police their own users.

I kept reporting and for about a week I never heard back from anyone. When I asked the @AOLSupport twitter account for help again, they gave me another email address to try. That got me a response, albeit a lousy one: report it as spam. Gee, thanks.

Nevertheless, I persisted. Theoretically, spammers should not be allowed to flourish on any mass email server. It can ultimately end up causing problems for their own IP addresses and impact all of the users. Thus, it seemed to me that they would at least shut the person down for a bit. Give him a warning. Something. Still, the emails came. Still I persisted.

Then I got this:

It seems AOL reported me as a spammer for forwarding them the spam I was getting. Each email I got from the AOL email I sent to the TOSgeneral@aol.com and abuse@aol.com. So, they found my persistent emails to be spam, but the original source of the emails was not shut down on their own server for spam.

Finding a Public Relations person at AOL has been a real adventure. Nowhere on the internet will you find one. Indeed, I can’t even manage to find an AOL corporate website. Each link I clicked sent me to some Oauth site. Ultimately, @AOLSupport seemed to have a person that could be sent my way. He even promised to accelerate to a supervisor and asked me for my AOL.com email. Ahhh if only…

After two hours, a 20 minute hold time on Google’s customer support line and outreach to several technology reporters and news sites, Google reinstated my email account.

One would think that this would be the close of our journey, instead, I’m starting my war against spam anew. Another call into Google has me in the queue. The question then will be how Google can stop a spammer from another email server and what they do to those that never cease.

Second, will be what I can only imagine to be an exciting conversation with a public relations person at AOL. I can’t wait. Why would AOL protect spammers? What does that say about their brand? When I think of AOL I think of an old man sitting behind a big desktop computer with a huge tube monitor and a tower where the fan never stops running because the CPU is so old it smokes when it gets too dusty.

American Online once existed as a place where people dialing into a phone could access the world wide web. I started using it as a kid in the 1990s. I had a stack of CDs that promised thousands of hours on AOL for free. Each month I had a new AOL account so I could have free internet for years.

Then, the actual internet was started. High speed, always on internet gave students like me the opportunity to seek out huge amounts of information, apply for colleges and read an absurd amount of fan fiction.

Like many, I graduated from the early days of the internet to the fancier, faster, sexier internet. I never thought I would be bothered by AOL again. Boy was I wrong.

spammers are welcome at aol.com aol emails

AOL allows spammers to run rampant on their server and they’ll report you if you complain too much

It all began several years ago when a listserv I’m on was infiltrated by someone from the outside. They stole all of the email addresses from the list and signed our emails up for random things. Most, if not all, of those things had an unsubscribe link on them and I could easily stop them from plaguing my inbox. Except for one.

An individual using an AOL email has been sending me propaganda emails to my GMail account for years. Every email I get I report as spam, but the emails still come. I keep reporting them — the emails keep coming. Finally, I reached out to the AOL Support twitter account and asked what I should do.

@AOLSupportHelp hey – I've had this dude who's been spamming me for YEARS from an AOL email. I've done everything including reporting him to the FCC as a spammer to no avail. Is there any way to stop him?

— Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) March 16, 2018

The reply I got instructed me to forward the emails to the abuse account. So I did. In fact, I forwarded all of them to illustrate the overwhelming amount of spam I’m getting from this American Online email address.

Hi Sarah! Please forward his emails to abuse@aol.com so that we can look into this matter. -AI

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 16, 2018

After a week of forwarding these emails to abuse@aol.com I reached out to the support Twitter again to ask for help. Not only did I not get any help — I didn’t get get a response. The spam emails on the Aol.com server simply keep coming.

Hey just wanted to flag it for you – I've been forwarding the spam emails that the AOL email is sending me to the abuse email and nothing has happened – nor have they stopped

— Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) March 23, 2018

So, the AOL Support account gave me another suggestion. It’s worth noting that every time I reach out they think I’m an AOL user trying to stop spam in my own email account. Instead, I’m another user on another email server and someone using their AOL.com server is spamming me using one of their accounts.

Hi Sarah, we're sorry to hear the issue is ongoing. Check out this article to learn more about spam controls: https://t.co/7frWaG7fH6 -MD

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 23, 2018

So here's the thing – I'm not an AOL user. The problem is that your user is spamming me at my email address, there's no unsubscribe, requires to be removed have gone unanswered, and it's a violation of the CAN SPAM Act, which I reported to the FCC still to no avail.

— Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) March 23, 2018

Please check your spam settings in your mail account and add this sender to the block list so they stop bothering you. -MD

— AOL Customer Support (@AOLSupportHelp) March 23, 2018

I did — but they're still being sent, they just end up in a filter in my in box. The account shouldn't be allowed to send emails at all if I've indicated I don't want to receive them and it appears that you're not policing spam violators on your server.

— Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) March 23, 2018

As you can see, I kept trying to explain to them that no matter what I do, the emails continue to come. No amount of spam reporting works. Plus, there’s the principle of the matter. Spam is a violation of AOL’s terms of service. Yet, when it is reported that someone is using their AOL.com email to spam people, those accounts aren’t shut down.

I kept following the @AOLSupport’s instructions and kept forwarding to spam@aol.com and tosgeneral@aol.com. Despite being spam and despite being a violation of TOS, they did nothing — until today.

Today my Gmail account got shut down because they received complaints I was spamming someone. Let’s see — who would I have been spamming? You guessed it — AOL. So, AOL considers me forwarded just a fraction of the emails I’m getting from THEIR spammer to be a spam violation and they’ll take action against ME, but they won’t take action against someone on their own server.

Now, I’m on the phone with Google support and I’m pretty sure he’s as flabbergasted as I am. How could you not be?

I reached out to the @AOLSupport twitter account asking for a Public Relations person to ask for comment but received no answer. I googled around but every time I try to go to the AOL corporate website it sends me to some Oath.com site, which gets me nowhere. So, if someone from American Online would care to comment please feel free to contact me in the comments below, since I have no access to my email.

National Women’s March on Washington

Saturday was one of the most profound experiences of my life. It wasn’t merely the women that I met or the stories that they told me but more that so many women did whatever it took to travel to the nation’s capitol to make their voices heard.

You can read about some of the interviews I did by phone leading up to the march here.

For Susan McCool of Abilene, Texas, Election Day was a breaking point. The “almost 60”-year-old is one of very few Democrats in what she calls the ‘armpit of Texas.’ She told me by phone that her county was one of the top areas of the country that supported Trump.

Until this weekend, the most “activist” thing McCool had ever done was wear something special to a PTA meeting in protest of book bans — and once she proudly proclaimed at a Bunko meet-up that she was still a Democrat.

Raising two boys as a single mother left her little time and energy for activism, she said. Now, as a grandmother of an 11-year-old girl, she believes that speaking out is essential.

“I’ll be damned if my granddaughter has to go through any of that,” McCool said recalling what life was like when teachers couldn’t work if they were pregnant and women couldn’t serve in the church.

“I used Planned Parenthood then,” she said about the years she spent as a single mom. She had a hysterectomy but still wanted to make sure she was getting her annual exams. “I didn’t have the money nor could I take off, and they were open on Saturdays. So, if you did that, it was based on your income and I had a decent income, but I had two kids. So, I would volunteer back and work in there to pay for my annual exams.”

ActionSprout: It’s not how big your page, it’s how you use it

Crossposted from ActionSprout’s blog

A marketing consulting that Action Sprout works with emailed us saying she noticed that the top trending content on Upworthy’s Facebook page isn’t their videos and links that drive people to their own page, but instead posts that simply have images attached to them but don’t drive off Facebook.

Use our engagement tool and have a look at Upworthy for yourself. Or even check out the Facebook page for the TV show Glee and see what their engagement score is. With over 25 Million fans, Glee’s top performing post (which out performed other posts on their page by 598%) only had 2,945 shares on it. If you have over 25 million fans and you can’t break 3,000 shares, something is wrong, period.

Upworthy is the best example of a Facebook page that proves that sometimes it isn’t how big your page is, it’s how you use it. Jokes aside, compare the Upworthy engagement to our friends at OurTime.org. I’ll give you a hint: with just over 100,000 fans on their page, OurTime.org’s top performing post last week nearly broke 100,000 shares and all of their posts were over 3,000 shares. When you analyze the content on both pages, you’ll see that the top trending content on both pages tends to be more visual content. This not only due to the fact that visual content draws people to it, it is also related to the age old problem of Facebook prioritizing content that keeps you on Facebook.

Think about it: Facebook makes ad money when you’re on Facebook. If you click off of Facebook to another website, Facebook loses you and the chance to monetize your eye attention. So what is Facebook to do? Well, they increase the priority of content that keeps you on Facebook. This means videos, status updates, graphics including memes and photo albums, questions and polls, and of course applications like ActionSprout get the extra edge. And your link, well, it’s going the way of the dodo bird.

A new ActionSprout client approached us asking about best practices on memes and links on memes last week: “Doesn’t having a link on your meme decrease your engagement?” In one answer: No. And if you’re not putting links on your memes, particularly an ActionSprout link on your meme, you’re missing the opportunity to capture data from that person that you can use to retarget them on Facebook and off.

If your audience doesn’t click on links on memes, it is only because you haven’t trained them to do so. Crazy, I know, to think of your Facebook audience as being “trained” but this is exactly why you see different pages doing different things and garnering success from them.

This is where ActionSprout can be a benefit. If you want to get the largest percentage of your followers to see your content you’ve got to keep them within the Facebook garden walls and you’ve got to get them clicking. How does that help your organization though? Your blog posts, your petitions, your entire organization exists on your website, so what is a non-profit to do?

This is what ActionSprout does. We can take your petitions and your list development and keep it on Facebook to optimize the percentage of people seeing your petitions. W also show you the highest performing content from the pages you follow through our Inspire Tool so you can borrow other good ideas and content that is consistent with your organizations own messaging.

The next step is creating a culture of clicking – just like OurTime.org has created a culture of “sharing.” The easiest way is to ask. CLICK here if you believe …… CLICK here if you want to see….. The sure fire way to get people to click is to tell them to do it.

Some people will share – that’s great – but when followers see your fan’s share your content, we want them to click TOO. Once you work your way up to having a higher click rate on your memes then take it a step further and ask them to CLICK and SHARE if you believe….

If you’re sharing a meme and not sticking a link on it, not funneling people toward an action, not driving traffic back to your site, then you’re doing it wrong.

From Action Sprout Blog: Can you win the lottery using ActionSprout?

Crossposted from ActionSprout.com
You’ve heard the advertising for the lottery right? “If you don’t play you can’t win!” Well the same is true for ActionSprout actions. If you post something on your page without an action, then you’re not going to get any signers for your actions or new supporters into your database.

Several weeks ago The Harry Potter Alliance page shared a meme that took the internet by storm. With over 76,000 shares and 150,000 likes, the meme advocated for a raise in the minimum wage. Last week ActionSprout’s friends over at OURTIME.org shared the same meme but they didn’t put an ActionSprout action on it until it had reached over 5,000 shares. Just like with Harry Potter Alliance, OURTIME.org had a great response so far, with over 14,000 shares. As I’m writing this they have a total of 3,846 engagements captured (out of the total 5,984 likes, 344 comments and 449 action takers (folk that opted in for email communication). Can you imagine what would have happened if there had been an action link from the start?!

Take a look at Congressman Mike Honda’s campaign page here. One of the great things his team has done is include an action link on just about every single Facebook post. It’s always a good practice to develop “evergreen” actions that you can use regardless of what article or meme you’re sharing. Think about the mission of your organization and what issues are the most important to you. Then when you develop content or you find a good meme or article using the inspire tab, you can put an action link on it to quickly and easily, optimizing your completed actions.

Don’t forget: if you don’t have a link on the content you’re sharing you can’t win the lottery if your content goes viral!”

Hey Girl, my government is so small it can fit in your uterus

Caused trouble yesterday with the ladies. Made it on Maddow.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

HuffPo’s BS Best Facebook List

Today the Huffington Post did another useless list that categories people that should be “subscribed to” because their Facebook pages are so OMG AWESOME!

So go look at it – no seriously go look. Can we please, universally agree, that in order to qualify for a decent Facebook page you have to have 1. upgraded to the Facebook Timeline, 2. have publicly viewed content available, and 3. have a cover photo? If you don’t have your shit together enough to even be actually managing your Facebook page then you’re undeserving of being on a top 50 list. Also can we also say that shameless self promotion of Huffington Post writers is also a little humiliating? I mean come on, I really love Amanda Terkel and she’s deserving but – it’s all just an attempt to generate content to get a bigger audience for the writers and promote their content on HuffPo for bigger readerships and higher ad dollars.

Evidence these recommendations are BS? First of all Laurin Manning as number 37? Come on. She’s far better than half of the people listed above her. Also, I think a qualification is that you have to actually share something that matters on Facebook at least once a day to qualify as being a valued. I’m looking at you Bill Frist.

Want to know the best thing about them suggesting you subscribe to Bill Schneider’s feed is? They might have done a screen cap – of his non-upgraded Facebook Timeline – but they neglected to also show you the rest of the page which features an AWESOME spam photo that has been on his account since April 29th. Lookin classy Bill!! Maybe hire a young person to teach you how to run the FaceSpace, eh?

I’ll bet Ed Gillespie has a lot of amazing incredible intelligent insights and opinions about politics and policy – ya know for the people who are on his side of the isle. Thing is… you’re not gonna find them on his Facebook page. Wanna know why? Because Ed Gellespie hasn’t posted anything public on his Facebook Timeline since… well… I don’t know because after clicking “more” about 12 times I got bored and quit. So you want to have an intelligent political conversation with Ed over something he was quoted saying or something he wrote? Try approaching him in a bar instead.

These are just a few of the 50 people who are are a waste of your time. Thanks so much Huffington Post for taking time to write about how AWESOME these people are instead of giving the spot to people who actually use Facebook the way it should be used. I can’t wait to see who’s the best Twitter accounts. Ten bucks they say it’s Brian Williams. Because OMG his tweets are AWESOME!