The beautiful Post Oak Hotel in Houston has perfectly executed every detail from lobby to rooms, despite the incessant noise from the 610 freeway. Can’t imagine the sound level if I were lower than the 18th floor.
The shower is perfect. Lovely products, excellent hardware, beautiful marble mosaic floor. And note the city-view window!
But what is that little shelf way down at ankle level?
Because… I’m busy writing a novel.
A love story … or
a gypsy curse on a lovesick cop;”
Based on a true story; by Bambi Vincent
A classic pickpocket maneuver in St. Petersburg, Russia, choreographed by a team and a spotter. Takes place within the tight confines of a cramped convenience store on Nevsky Prospekt.
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Puglia, Calabria, and a little of Basilicata regions in the very south of Italy, explored on a leisurely car trip. Wonderful, unique, and mostly crowd-free, I say visit NOW before big-travel discovers (and ruins) the region.
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Scottevest jacket road-tested and reviewed by Thiefhunters Bambi Vincent and Bob Arno. Bonus: Scottevest is a great carry-on solution for flights with limited carry-on.
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The Aescher Restaurant is a challenge to reach, but what an experience! A glorious hike and cable car journey to a magical destination. Watch the video
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The lately so-prevalent hotel coffee pot that could be a cesspool of germs. And these days I say… so what?
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TripAdvisor rejected my review of a B&B in the south of Italy. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. I had taken the time to advise other travelers about a property that fraudulently promises attributes it does not have or offer. My review of Residenza il Barone in Tropea, Italy, is now posted on this blog almost exactly as uploaded to TripAdvisor, with photos. It’s also posted in a popup here on Hotels.com, the platform on which I booked our stay.
Yes, I do care. I want to know what is objectionable about my review. What invalidates it? The replies I have received from TripAdvisor are a baffling series of robot responses that have nothing to do with my review.
We cannot publish your contribution as it does not meet our review guidelines. Please only provide reviews based on substantial experiences you’ve had while traveling and be sure to include enough detail in your review that other travelers will find your advice helpful.
TripAdvisor, July 23, 2019
Wait. I stayed three nights in this place! I wrote substantial things about it! Before I realized I was communicating with AI (artificial intelligence; or artificial idiot), I wrote asking:
Why should Residenza il Barone be allowed to falsely advertise and book an accommodation on TripAdvisor? They claim, but do not have:
Thiefhunter to TripAdvisor, July 23, 2019
• A balcony.
• Air conditioning
• Toiletries.
Then, after another series of nonsensical emails about departments and forwarding and… just look at these, all in different emails:
I finally got more emails that vaguely attempted actual reasons; however, they do not pertain to my situation:
To select my hotel in Tropea, Italy, I researched on TripAdvisor. When I found Residenza il Barone, I clicked the View Deal link. I was transported to Hotels.com, which offered only an “apartment” and listed its attributes, including balcony, bidet, air conditioning, breakfast available, and free toiletries. Residenza il Barone is a B&B; it was not clear to me that I was being shown a property that is not, in fact, a B&B.
I booked the “apartment,” understanding that it was in a separate building. However, it did not have a balcony, functioning air conditioning, bidet, breakfast, or toiletries (not even a bar of soap).
Whyyyyyyy should I care about this? The trip is over. We enjoyed Tropea, if not the accommodation. Yet, I continued to attempt contact with a responsible human at TripAdvisor. Finally, from TripAdvisor’s “content integrity department”:
We use an automated filtering system that pulls aside reviews that may require special attention or which are flagged as possibly violating our review guidelines. It appears that your review was flagged by this system because it doesn’t comply with our submission guidelines. As a result, I cannot publish your review — and because our process is proprietary to our business, unfortunately I can’t share any additional details about why your review was filtered.
TripAdvisor Content Integrity, August 1, 2019
TripAdvisor continued to shower me with emails containing useful and relevant (haha) reasons for the rejection of my review:
Whaaaaat? In the end, TripAdvisor advised me that “Your case is being handled by our highly-specialized team…” and “I’m afraid I can’t share information about our investigation process or the automated filters which aid us”.
Needless to say, my frustration had built too much to drop this without learning what triggered the rejection. I tried a phone call. Even that resulted in irrelevant robotic replies. Perhaps I’ll get a call back from a supervisor. If so, I’ll update this report.
An eleventh-hour phone call from a supervisor, an actual human one, shed some light. My review used the word apartment and I had put that word in quotation marks. That, believe it or not, was the whole problem.
Apparently, an accommodation called an “apartment” belongs in TripAdvisor’s “Vacation Rentals” section and is kicked out of the “Hotels” section. Obviously though, I want it attached to the hotel (or B&B) that sold me the apartment, in order to advise future travelers.
And, my use of quotation marks signified to the moderators (I say robots, they say humans) that my review includes hearsay.
The supervisor suggested that I resubmit my review simply describing it as a room. Hmmm, that’s tricky, considering that it is precisely the “apartment” that I mean to warn others about. I have tried. I submitted a review today without any quotation marks, and without the word “apartment” (except for one instance I missed!). We shall see if TripAdvisor accepts it. If so, I will link to it.
I sanitized my review and submitted it four more times. (I had missed an instance of the word apartment in one, and some quotation marks in another. In my final submission, I took the content-integrity supervisor’s advice and moved a different paragraph to the top “to trick the filters.” This last one took several days longer than usual to be rejected but, sure enough, it was, for the same old reason:
We noticed that your review for Residenza il Barone may not be submitted to the correct listing on TripAdvisor. A review must relate directly to the business to which it is submitted.
I give up. Especially in light of today’s BBC article, TripAdvisor defends itself in fake reviews row. “…in the case of one hotel in Jordan, TripAdvisor subsequently removed 730 of its five-star reviews.” In other words, TripAdvisor let 730 fake reviews pass through its brilliant AI filters. What chance does my legitimate review have if TripAdvisor’s artificial intelligence determines that mine is fraudulent? “We have fraud detection tools that are far more sophisticated…” said a UK based TripAdvisor official. Clearly, TripAdvisor needs some human oversight with the ability to bypass its filters.
Don’t be fooled into booking the “apartment.”
Ahhh, Tropea! that’s what all the Italians said when they heard that beach town would be the last stop on our journey through the sole of Italy. So beautiful!
It sure is. So popular is Tropea that the B&B I wanted to stay in was fully booked six weeks before our visit. This is the story of a “sister property” switch, a mean step-sister that does not live up to her sterling siblings, and false claims made by the property owner. There’s also a TripAdvisor mystery, which I’ll save for another post.
Bottom line first: when you go to book a room at Residenza Il Barone in Tropea, don’t be fooled into booking the “apartment”, as I was. Let me tell you about the apartment. Its location is excellent, over a restaurant at Piazza Tre Fontane, a few blocks away from the advertised location. You unlock a heavy door and ascend 14 steep stairs. This brings you into a drab and charmless room with adequate furniture: a dining table and chairs, a sofa, and a sideboard. There’s a mini-kitchen, too, with fridge, sink, and stove.
Poor lighting: In all this space, there is ONE lightbulb. The lamp, hanging over the table, was barely enough for me to do my paperwork.
No Air conditioning: The apartment claims to have air conditioning. And yes, it had a portable unit on wheels standing in the room, with an extension cord nearby. (See my photo.) It was 85° (see photo), so we turned it on. Cool air came out the front; hot air came out the large exhaust hose, which was loose on the apartment floor—inside! We went to visit the owner, Roberto. Yes, he said, you have to open the door. So we stuck the wide exhaust hose out the door, leaving the tall door open a good six inches—through which came plenty of heat. In actuality: the apartment does NOT have functional air-conditioning.
No Balcony: The apartment claims to have a balcony. It does not. It has a four-inch ledge. (See photo.)
No toiletries: The apartment claims to have “free toiletries.” It does not. Not even a single bar of soap.
Climb up to bed: The bed is up a very narrow spiral staircase. (See photos.) There are 14 stairs, each 15” wide. If you are anything larger than slim, if you are elderly, if you have the slightest problem with stairs, you will not make it up. You cannot bring a suitcase upstairs. In fact, it’s difficult to carry anything up the tight stairs. Think about this if you usually get up during the night. The bathroom is downstairs.
Hot sleep: There is no air conditioning upstairs. (Not that there is any downstairs, either…)
No breakfast: This is not a B&B. There is no breakfast.
Residenza Il Barone gets consistently good reviews. Watch out if you are routed to this B&B’s apartment as an alternative. It’s not in the same league and is sold with false claims.
Even more strange is TripAdvisor’s response to my review. I’ll write about that next.
Doug Nabhan, a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, shared his experience:
It was 4pm in Naples’ central government plaza…
Two on a scooter.
Violently tackled from behind.
Stolen: my wallet and Rolex.
I am a very seasoned traveler having traveled to 80 countries, many of them dozens of times. I never go out with my big wallet holding my passport and I never travel with a real Rolex.
This time, in Naples, Italy [of all places! —ed.], I had violated both rules.
I had a real Rolex on because I had been in a business meeting in Rome and I had my big wallet because I was leaving to go back to Rome in the morning. I got up from a little pizza place and walked into the public square where all of municipal buildings are. It was broad daylight and there were army vehicles there.
I had walked only about ten yards from the restaurant when of course I heard a motorcycle coming and thought nothing of it. The next thing I knew he literally ran into me and knocked my feet out from under me. I landed on my face and hip. He grabbed my wallet and threw it to the guy on the bike and then wrestled my watch off. It happened in three for four seconds.
I went back to the Army vehicle where the officer would have seen it but for he was facing in the opposite direction. The officer was very kind and called the police who arrived in 30 seconds. The police were furious. They made some calls and had video of the incident in twenty minutes. I got to see it. The police were very impressive and I was convinced that if they found the guy they would beat him to death!
What really makes me mad is that I actually liked Naples and the people. Everyone thought I was crazy to like the place.
For a couple reasons I was lucky. Everything was insured and I did not get injured worse. I also had a solid gold crucifix on and a huge gold ring on.
This happened Easter weekend this year and I am still very jumpy. I’ve given it a lot of thought. The most important thing is simply not to have jewelry on that is expensive. Obviously they have spotters all over the place.
Why not dress some people like tourists with a wallet and a watch and set them up? Seems like an easy way to solve the crime wave.
Oh yes, Doug was so lucky. Sometimes, scooter-theft victims die from their brutal attacks.
Doug had responded to my survey on pickpocket incidents. Yes, he did file a police report after his scooter-theft in Naples. [I haven’t compiled results yet, but the great majority of survey respondents did not file police reports.] An experienced traveler, Doug’s incident shook him so badly that even months later here he is visiting Thiefhunters in Paradise to learn about pickpockets and scippatori, Italy’s famous scooter thieves.
When Bob Arno and I first began our thiefhunting, we too, broke our rules, just like Doug did (and in Naples, of all places!). We were walking in Quartieri Spagnoli during siesta; I had a purse, Bob wore a real Rolex. The streets were deserted. We didn’t hear the silent Vespa that rolled up behind us with the motor off until two thieves jumped off and tackled Bob while the third started the engine. I hit one thug over the head with my lethal umbrella (broke the umbrella—not the head!) while Bob bellowed “POLICIA!” Luckily, the trio absconded with nothing. Even now, more than 20 years later, I still flinch and turn at the sound of a scooter.
Scippatori go for handbags, Rolexes, phones, and any valuables they can quickly snatch. Their speed, desperation, and brutality make them especially dangerous. As Doug concluded, the best defense is to avoid looking like an attractive target. Don’t wear jewelry. Don’t carry a purse. Don’t brandish a phone or camera. Don’t have anything grabbable.
Scippatori are currently flourishing in London, where they’re called “moped thieves.” The bandits maneuver their scooters and motorcycles right up onto sidewalks, sometimes in slow motion, snatch phones and handbags, then weave through traffic to make quick getaways.
Doug suggests a sting operation to solve pickpocketing and scooter theft in Naples. Something of the sort was set up by a German newspaper in, I think, the 90s. They had a journalist walk along a street with a handbag chained to himself (or herself). Predictably, the bait was taken! But the backseat scooter-rider-thief who snatched the chained bag was jerked off the fleeing machine, injured—and sued the paper!
In Naples, the thieves are mostly locals and mostly known to police. Pickpocket has long been just one common—almost acceptable—profession in Naples. Police there, when approached by a victim, usually just throw up their hands and blow a puff of air, as if it’s simply another tourist tax. It’s interesting to learn that the police and army officers were responsive to Doug. Maybe, finally, they’re ready to crack down on low-level criminals. Or maybe Doug found a particularly sympathetic officer. Pickpocketing and tourist theft is so embedded in the culture, I wonder if it can ever change.
I know what Doug means about liking Naples. The people are incredibly warm. Even the pickpockets: first they steal from us (a fake wallet) then invite us for coffee! I call it the City of Hugs and Thugs.
Read How to Steal a Rolex.
Read Where to Carry Valuables
Read about the Thieves of Naples
Read Revelations of a Rolex Thief
Read about Watch-Stealing
Read about The City of Hugs and Thugs
Watch the National Geographic documentary Pickpocket King about thiefhunters Bob Arno and Bambi Vincent, filmed in Naples with professional career pickpockets.
Read about Scooter snatch theft in London Now
