Do you believe what you read? or what people say? Really?

Everyone lies! It starts when you are young, naughty and you start telling the untruth to your parents. You grow up and realize people stop believing you.

The funning thing with the untruth is: the truth somehow always comes up. Sometimes it can take years other times just a few minutes. Some people are more untruthful than others.

Kings, Queens, Presidents, - skip -, City building commission, Architects, Builders lie

Company owners lie, I saw this 2 years ago with one new vacation website. Large companies "lie" or let's say: "change the truth", we all know a few of those..

You might know, I worked on Wall Street. After a 3 month test with family friends, I found a job at a brokerage firm though a connection at the "Dutch Club" in New York. Wow, cool, I was 25 and a dream was coming true.

The firm was: a "Boiler Room": the brokers came from different firms including from the same business as the famous movie: The Wolf of Wall Street! I had no clue what it was about. Worked from 6 AM till 12 PM, 6 days a week!

Job: calling, opening accounts and getting funds from "wealthy" businessmen worldwide. I sold Callaway Golf Co stock. ELY was/hmm still is the symbol. Why? Good company and I knew a LOT about Golf. Raised quite a bit of funds for the "partners". Then: it started clicking, quite quickly, they were selling ELY and buying small cap stocks, which they "controlled" with large spreads. I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but let's say there were quite a few times very similar to what you see at the movie Boiler Room!

I did not stay very long with them and lost quite a bit of funds of my parents as well as 2 good friends of mine.

Then comes serious life: Wife, children, hmm a "deja vue" catching the kiddos lying.. smile, and explaining them it's not good to lie!

In 2008 we moved to Morocco, a muslim country, totally different culture. And we got fooled, many, many times. First you get told a tiny lie, then another, and another. The lies did not stop. You start working with french expats and oh, dear.. much worse.. fired all of them.

After 7 years of living there you realize why people lie and for who they are doing it.

What does this have to do with vacation rentals? Do you hear about the "scams" on Facebook or Craigslist? or you "think" you are renting to a group of nice people and your home gets destroyed. Many things happen in the rental business we are in.

This is another reason why I am making Houfy! I need to know who enters our places before booking! I'm sure you do too!

Another one: You see these really cool posts about joining a site, because this or that.. really? Do you believe all you read? Even when it is in the famous newspapers? Or the outside of the site looks so great with all the free tools they give you! and the "over 50K listings" or "the guaranteed 7 inquiries or money back deal" really?

I'm online a LOT and see all these people selling stuff.. or being social, I somehow do not understand.. do they not have something better to do? What is the true reason?

It is most probably a small fraction of our society who lies, however: be careful out there, especially with the internet and on social sites. (Maybe that small fraction is actually larger than you think! When was the last time you saw someone not doing so GREAT! - smile)

GREAT seems to be the new word, I'm great, my kids are great, everything is great!

Have a GREAT day!

T