Getting rid of competition

[GutHend]

Ethical question: Suppose you found out that a lot of your direct competition wasn’t abiding by the law, rules and regulations of your city / state / country: Would you take advantage of the situation and actively help (=report them) to get rid of them. Thus giving your own, legal, business less competition and better income.
If not, why?

• YES
• NO

Show results

[Helsi]

Do you mean like hosts who let their property through Airbnb without their landlord’s permission

[konacoconutz]

Great question. I would feel like a heel if I answered honestly. Truth is I would probably live and let live… unless it was someone I knew getting taken advantage of.

[Gardenhost]

No. My life motto is basically ‘don’t be a bloody busybody’. I live in town full of them and it drives me mad!! Unless someone’s actually getting hurt, then it’s justified. Never just for your own gain

[Zandra]

I wouldn’t say anything. It’s not the same as unemployed benefit fraud or pretending to be disabled so you can claim incapacity benefits. I’d leave it alone and mind my own beeswax.

[Helsi]

I would only say something if for example I saw a listing that I was sure was fraudulent and I was concern that guests could get ripped off.

[GutHend]

No, that is not what I meant since there is no way of knowing that .

[EllenN]

No, I would not report a competitor in order to eliminate the competition. The best way to eliminate the competition is to do a better job than they do.

I would think long and hard before reporting people to the government. One of the things that all totalitarian governments do is encourage/require citizens to tattle on each other (Communist China, Fascist Germany, East Germany). I would report violations of Airbnb’s anti-discrimination policy to Airbnb. I would only report serious safety violations to the government.

[GutHend]

The best way to eliminate the competition is to do a better job than they do.

Good point, but if one abides by the law and another one doesn’t, this might create a non-level playing field, thus making it impossible to compete and do a better job.

[GutHend]

Please do all vote .

[EllenN]

That’s exactly what the hotel industry is saying about us.

[Debthecat]

Yes. I have gone through the process of getting local government permits, been inspected and followed the rules and done it correctly. Why should they think they don’t have to go through the same process?

[Zandra]

Why does it create a non level playing field ? Ultimately they still need to be rated by guests … and that quickly draws out bad hosts.

[Gardenhost]

Let the government workers do their jobs. Concentrate on your own business. These things have a way of sorting themselves out. The know it all do-gooder always turns out to be the petty, small-minded, bad guy ultimately

[GutHend]

E.a. if you need to make an extra investment of US$ 300.000,00 - 500.000,00 to get legally into business, it is quite hard to compete price-wise with illegal competitors. (This is NOT just an example .)

[GutHend]

Since the hotel industry and I offer quite different things, I don’t consider them direct competition. And they shouldn’t consider me as direct competition either.

[Zandra]

Ah well it doesn’t cost me anything to be legal (except for a higher insurance premium but that’s not a legal requirement just prudence). So maybe that’s why I don’t see what the advantage is.

Perhaps you could explain what you’ve have to do to be legal so I understand the issue better.

[cabinhost]

Ethical question: Suppose you found out that a lot of your direct competition wasn’t abiding by the law, rules and regulations of your city / state / country

I am guessing your are referring to a hypothetical situation like this: Let’s say you have a property and are required to pay $100 a year to have it registered, and $50 a year to have it inspected, and have to spend some other annual amounts that are required.

In addition to this, let’s say you have a 15% hotel tax you are required to collect and remit from your guests (Air does not collect it).

So much of your competition has 15% lower rates because they do not collect the tax, and they also have extra money to pamper the guests because they aren’t spending it on the annual required regulations.

If so…that’s a tough call. I think I would first have to have first hand knowledge that those hosts are 100% aware of what they are supposed to be doing, before I would report them. A lot of hosts have no clue that they are supposed to be collecting hotel tax, so I would feel bad for getting them fined, etc. especially for back taxes owed. But it would be a different story if I overheard them bragging about getting away with it.

Now if they don’t want to pay their IRS taxes, that’s between them and the IRS, but if most of my competition wasn’t collecting hotel tax on purpose…then yeah I’d be a bit pissed about it!

[Zandra]

No idea how you could know those things though @cabinhost unless you were intimately involved with someone’s tax return etc.

But yes these are irritants…

It seems to me the only thing you can know for certain is if someone is renting against the terms of their Housing Association. But even then you could only know this about your immediate neighbours and only because you were bound by the same rules.

All the rest is guess work.

[cabinhost]

No idea how you could know those things though @cabinhost unless you were intimately involved with someone’s tax return etc.

My hypothetical post was based on Guthend supposedly having intimate knowledge or it is public records that he has access to. I would never suggest guessing about someone’s business affairs. That’s why I mentioned I would be pissed if I heard people bragging about getting away with not collecting hotel tax.