Me and Mr. Jones...
swlinphx Jan 17, 2019 9:52 PMForget that I have been doing this for 14 years including way before HomeAway was HomeAway. Forget that I am a "Premier Partner" with multiple listings all with an excellent record. Apparently HomeAway will nevertheless pull any user's listings (all of them) if anyone else (a competitor say) maliciously makes a false claim --and they won't contact or ask or warn you first, not until your listings are offline.
At the resort community where I live and work I have helped several owners in setting up, decorating and photographing their rentals but none as much as "Mr. Jones". We would chat sometimes daily via e-mail and discuss the business. He too has multiple properties at this resort but is an absentee owner who rarely interacts with the guests. Anyway, I've known him for about 15 years (I have lived here on site 24/7/365 for almost 21 years). We had a falling out a couple years back but he reached out to me again recently when I referred some guests to him. Since then (a few months ago) we had been having civil and decent and informative discussions via e-mail.
Suddenly he then sends me an email accusing me of using one if his photos of one of the pools here. This is ludicrous because we both hired the same photographer jointly and I was the one here on site for each shoot (his and my rentals) and the common areas (pool, landscape, mountain, tennis/basketball courts, etc.). I was flabbergasted at such pettiness on his part. I have had the same photos for 3 or 4 years since that shoot. We both paid the photographer but somehow Mr. Jones thinks he owns and has all rights to the exterior photographs if he pays to use them. However, even the photographer informed me that is not true and that we both paid for our interior shots and resort exteriors to be shot and then to use them.
However, apparently all HomeAway needed was for Mr. Jones to send an e-mail about claiming a DMCA violation that I was using one of his photos (and why just one since we had several exteriors done that I am using and have been for years now -- again, this probably has nothing to do with the photo(s).
Despite my good standing, how can HomeAway pull all of my listings based on one baseless allegation without taking 5 minutes to reach out and call me? That very day I produced a statement from the photographer proving my point and also visual proof I've had those photos as long as Mr. Jones has. I was told if I remove the photo in question all my listings would be restored, but it was the principle of the matter to me so I held out a few days. Now, even though they have proof the claim was bogus, and that I am the target and innocent one here (not the instigator), they say I must jump thru hoops to remove my photo and then wait a couple weeks to see if he decides to sue me in court (love to have him fly from Washington state to Phoenix for court). How was this allowed to snowball so? And I have a hard time believing that once a claim is proven bogus the defendant must go thru all these channels to get it restored. So Homeway can't just, after receiving the evidence, restore my listings (and maybe admonish the complainant -- should have all his listings (many of which I set up for him) pulled a couple days to prevent him from doing this again in the future). What am I missing here? Does this sound right to you all?