Unethical Blogger

Steal. Drink and snack from the hotel mini-bar, the unethical blogger advises in his unethical December 10, 2014 article. Go ahead and have a beer and a candy bar, then deny it at check-out. You’ll get it free!

Swindle. Use a depleted debit card to buy drinks on a plane. Free booze, yay, worth committing fraud for!

Cheat. Walk into a luxury hotel you’re not staying in and take advantage of guest services like free breakfast, the concierge, and luggage storage. They’ll never know!

Lie. Tell the airline gate agent you have a peanut allergy and need to board first to wipe down your tray. Yeah, get that overhead bin space before the honest people get there!

Scam. If your “expensive” item breaks prematurely (an iPad is hinted), go buy a new one, repackage the broken one, and return it for a refund. Sweet dreams, if you can sleep after that one.

And on and on. Like, buy travel gear and return it for a refund when you’re done with it, the unethical blogger advises. Take an empty first-class seat on a plane and try to get away with it. Pay $20 to have your tires rotated when you need parking in a high-priced city.

Unethical blogger

Some people should not be journalists. Some journalists should be decommissioned. This guy, this Mike Richard, is one of them.

I’m not in the habit of slamming other bloggers. But it is my custom to report thefts, cons, scams, and the fraudsters who commit them. Mike Richard may or may not use the methods he espouses; he does call them “useful travel hacks.”

Richard’s headline says it all: “20 Totally Unethical (But Useful) Travel Hacks.” He’s recommending these “travel hacks” even though they’re unethical.

I try to live by a simple little motto: “What if everyone did this?” Would I want that world? If everyone shouted, littered, took a stone from someone’s yard, lied, cheated, stole…. Just…try to be decent.

I grew up with several versions of The Golden Rule. Simply put, treat others as you’d like to be treated. Reciprocity. It makes the world go ’round.

I have little issue with paid placement presented as personal opinion—that’s the way of the world. The way of blog-whores. But this unethical blogger will apparently say anything for money. He calls it paid advertising. No wonder his blog has only one advertiser, despite his plentiful pleas for ads. Well, he has three if you count Anthony Bourdain and a quick-print service.

Unethical and illegal. Steal. Cheat. Lie. Commit fraud. But sure, Mike Richard says, they are, “entirely useful… for shameless budget travelers”. I must not be the only one who finds this to be irresponsible journalism. And not the only one to find it repugnant.