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If Twilio doesn't own the communications system and isn't the one reading and blocking messages, then what system/entity is, and why?

Per the documentation I have seen, it is the telecom carriers themselves - I've seen T-Mobile mentioned specifically, but logically all the others (AT&T, Sprint, etc.) would have the same technical capabilities.  Presumably they do not all have the same policies, but, since the communications channels interconnect and you don't necessarily know upfront what carrier will handle the final delivery of the message to the actual phone, any restrictions must be enforced across the board.  In some cases there are large fines attached to violations.

I also am aware of laws and regulations in various countries restricting certain topics on communication networks.  I'm not personally aware of specific regulations along these lines in the US, and I am not a lawyer, though I know that, in time past, there have been such laws regulating content sent via carriers like the postal service, e.g. the Comstock Act.  You would need to consult an appropriate expert for current legal status.

When I had contacted Twilio directly about messages with "cannabis" being blocked, they had told me that I could make some certain settings to prevent the eavesdropping.

I'm not familiar with this, but, if you'd like to write in to the Helpdesk with this information to my attention, perhaps I can better understand what they might be referring to.

It is in no way the desire of OwnerRez to read or censor your messages.

Thank you for that education, Ken. But I'm still not understanding.

If Twilio doesn't own the communications system and isn't the one reading and blocking messages, then what system/entity is, and why?

If the rationale for blocking messages with "cannabis" or "marijuana" in it, as I have been made to understand it, is for some kind of self-protection on the part of that entity against imagined or real potential investigations or crackdowns by government agencies, then what could possibly be the motive for blocking messages with swear words in them?

When I had contacted Twilio directly about messages with "cannabis" being blocked, they had told me that I could make some certain settings to prevent the eavesdropping. But those settings are not available to me since I get the service via OR. That also doesn't seem to comport with the information you just provided.

The ongoing fight against warrantless government surveillance is related to this discussion but beyond our abilities to impact other than through advocacy to our elected reps. Yet if all our messages, whether via Twilio or directly with the various carriers, aren't encrypted by using the same applications on both ends, then why aren't our regular phone text messages also blocked when we use such words? 

In short, who or what's behind this selective censorship, and why, remains a deep mystery to me.

Let me clarify a few points here.

1. Twilio is not taking this action because they hate weed or want to read anybody's messages.  It's being forced upon them by the actual telecom providers that send the signals (e.g. T-Mobile).  Twilio does not own the communications service, so they have to abide by the policies of the carriers that place the messages in people's phones.

2. The SMS network, like all communications networks these days, is international, and not every country has the same approach to free speech.  In particular, there are certain countries where specific types of message content is illegal.  This is outside of the control of any carrier, Twilio, or OwnerRez, and, since by their nature cellphones are portable, can have all sorts of difficult to handle effects.

3. SMS messages were originally a tech hack used by cellphone service technicians.  They weren't designed in the first place as a proper service to be sold.  As such, much like email, a lot of things weren't thought through in the way we'd do it today.  In particular, SMS messages are simply text in-the-clear - they're not encrypted themselves in any way.  Now, modern digital cellphones do encrypt their entire communications stream between your phone and the tower, so people can't just listen in on your conversations with a radio scanner the way they could years ago - but, inside the carrier network, the SMS messages can be read by any system with authorized internal access to that network.  The same is true of email, which is why spam filters work.  Therefore, yes, the carriers do have the technical capability to read and filter messages, and government authorities have the ability to regulate and require such.

There is no technological capability, by OwnerRez or anyone else, to securely encrypt conventional SMS text messages end-to-end such that they can only be read by the sender and recipient and not by anyone in the middle.  SMS messages just don't work like that natively in their standard form.

There are, of course, various applications that run on top of the SMS message system that can encrypt text messages, and then send the encrypted result.  That way, yes, nobody in the middle including the carrier can read the content.  But to use these systems, both the sender and the recipient must be using the same encryption application, and there is currently no established standard or guarantee that any particular phone number is using the encryption app you've chosen.

In the vacation rental context where you want the maximum potential guests, using such a system would be like requiring all guests to communicate with you only via WhatsApp - sure, lots of people use it, but lots of people don't, some refuse, some aren't allowed to for various reasons, etc.  The result of such a policy would be to greatly limit your pool of potential guests.

The virtue of conventional SMS text messaging, as with standard email, is that you can be pretty much guaranteed that every potential guest can use those systems.

Well, I finally found the settings for lead time, though it seems they can't be changed for only specific dates or seasons. Is that correct? I had a booking in the middle of the week that caused two whole weekends to be blocked. I want to change the settings to allow same-day turnovers on those specific weekends so I don't lose that key income. Is this possible?

I take gigantic offense at Twilio invading my privacy as well as my guests' by reading my SMS messages and blocking them if they don't like any particular words that I use.

I have had messages blocked because guests texted me asking about smoking weed outside on my property, which is legal in my state, and I answered using the word "cannabis."

That is outrageous and disgusting enough in itself, but I just had a message to a guest blocked because I used the word "shit!"

All of this is just so incredibly deeply offensive. We don't live in the Soviet Union!

Besides the fact that Twilio has zero business reading and blocking texts with words they don't like, my understanding is that OwnerRez can adjust settings to keep inquiring bots/minds out of our business. I wish that OR would look into this.

It Worked!!!!

Yay!! I guess it's my lucky day!

Thank you for all your hard work in getting the VRBO Channel Bridge back up and running!

I got to test the “initials” of paragraph and pages in court. Because I had it in my contract, the judge immediately ruled that I had established that the guest indeed knew the terms and agreed to them. 
it is not to say that I would not have won otherwise, but it made the first part of my case very easy to establish. 

Totally agree about hoops to jump. If the banks/courts were to accept the scroll down instead of initializing that would be ideal. 

In the event that we do add a more formalized initialing feature, it would certainly be optional.  Naturally, you'd have to designate where the initials should be put and be required, so if you didn't place any in your agreement, there wouldn't be any.

Speaking as a guest, though, I know I myself personally loathe the super complicated "jump through hoops and initial everywhere" type of rental agreement.  And I have bailed on rentals because of those - I just wanna go on vacay, darnit, I don't wanna bring my lawyer with me!  So there's definitely a tradeoff.  There's a great deal of research in the Internet world emphasizing how you want to require the fewest possible number of clicks to make a sale.

But ultimately it is your choice.

Corporations deal with this by having ironclad contracts that they follow up on when they feel the need to do so.

I have heard no-one say that initialed pages make for a stronger contract.  So I went to look and indeed found the opposite:

"The “every page” requirement is a hold out from a bygone era, before word processors, email, document management, and fax machines. There is no statute or law that demands that each page of a contract be initialed. Written contracts are binding if signed once by the parties to the contract–so don’t assume you wan wiggle out of a contract because you did not initial it on every page; the contract is binding if signed on the last page. Lawyers are creatures of habit though, and older lawyers tend to include a place for initials on every page of a contract, and will likely continue. The practice is waning, although you may expect to see it on real estate contracts for decades to come."

-- https://gimmelaw.com/must-contracts-be-signed-or-initialed-on-every-page

My contract is very strong and foresees many of the contingencies that you mention. I enforce it when I feel the need to do so.

To my mind, calling out all of the house rules and getting them initialed on a contract does nothing to protect me, and does a lot to annoy the guest.

But as you said, not everything is for everybody.  As long as I can opt out of this, I'm fine with it.

I'd like to sound what's possibly a discordant note in this cry for new initials, callouts, etc.

I like a good contract, but I like happy guests too. This much initialing and choosing introduces friction into the process and will make for a suspicious and unhappy guest, who may feel like they're walking on eggshells.  While some may be OK with that, I'm not. It's totally off-brand for what I'm selling, and I'm dubious that a bunch of initials adds much weight to a contract.

I think you should just take a page from the legal book of the large online consumer brands like Ebay and Apple, and indeed DocuSign itself -- a simple slider that ensures that the guest has scrolled through the text. I wouldn't doubt that each of these brands went through a protracted battle with their legal departments, who wanted many of the same "features" but were overruled by people the people who had to deal with sales and customer service.

If you do decide to implement these changes, please give me a way to opt out. I try hard to keep my customers happy, not my lawyers.

I am pretty sure the callouts will be made optional, just like custom fields, you do not have to use them. Others like myself would rather have that option available so we do not have to deal with "we did not know" [insert here]: {your cancellation policy, that yours is a no-pets property, that no parties/events are allowed, that we cannot move a pool table from its position, that we cannot put bath oils and bubbles into the hot tub, that we cannot leave fire pit burning unattended, flush diapers down the drain into the septic} etc. Ebay and Apple have huge legal departments and deal in billions of dollars. Losing a few (thousand, hundred thousand, or million) bucks (on preventable stuff) here or there is OK for them, but not for the individual owners. So apples and oranges, an inapplicable example of a "playbook" to use. I prefer to keep myself happy 1st, then the guests, which means (for me) finding a balance between a positive stay experience for the guests (current ones and subsequent ones) while preventing misuse/abuse/damage to my property. My property is not for every guest and not every guest is for my property - and if these callouts serve to prevent mutually unsuitable stays, that will be a win-win.  

I like that option.  The biggest issue is that guests don’t get away with fraudulent chargebacks.

And it was recommended to me by Ascent that I have them initialize in certain places in order to protect against that. 

I’ve gotten ripped off twice because of fraudulent chargebacks. 

I would like the feature. 
I won a case against a guest because I did have each page initialed and specific paragraph individually signed. 
this proved that the guest did read and accept the terms. 

I'd like to sound what's possibly a discordant note in this cry for new initials, callouts, etc.

I like a good contract, but I like happy guests too. This much initialing and choosing introduces friction into the process and will make for a suspicious and unhappy guest, who may feel like they're walking on eggshells.  While some may be OK with that, I'm not. It's totally off-brand for what I'm selling, and I'm dubious that a bunch of initials adds much weight to a contract.

I think you should just take a page from the legal book of the large online consumer brands like Ebay and Apple, and indeed DocuSign itself -- a simple slider that ensures that the guest has scrolled through the text. I wouldn't doubt that each of these brands went through a protracted battle with their legal departments, who wanted many of the same "features" but were overruled by people the people who had to deal with sales and customer service.

If you do decide to implement these changes, please give me a way to opt out. I try hard to keep my customers happy, not my lawyers.

Can I choose which amenities to show when someone uses the search widget on my website?

Especially since it shows Oceanfront when it really should be Lakefront or Beachfront? Note Listing Analyzer recommended choosing Oceanfront for Airbnb

And the amenity GamesRoom is not highlighted? The latest from Airbnb and Rental Scaleup says the "Play" category is searched much much more. 

This is a tricky one... I don't think you can currently automate it entirely end-to-end, even with Zapier, though that might be possible in the future.  However, you can automate parts of it to save you time.

Guest booking comes in
I email the HOA

That's easy - you'd set up a template configured to email the HOA directly (instead of the guest), including the necessary information from the booking using our field codes, and triggered on either the "Booking is created" event or possibly the "Rental agreement is signed" event if you are gathering information there that is required by the HOA.  This would be somewhat similar to the "Reminder to Myself" sort of email discussed here, though sent to the HOA not you:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/reminder-to-myself

HOA emails me the codes
I then copy and paste that into an email and send it to the guest

Yes, you're going to be doing copying and pasting.  However, you could save some time in not actually creating the emails yourself.

First, create a Booking custom Field Code for the gate code:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/custom-fields

Then create an ordinary email template and trigger to send the code to the guest, using that custom field code, just a day or two before arrival.  It would be very similar to the "Pre-arrival door lock code" in our template library:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/email-template-pre-arrival-door-code

The only catch is that you have to manually copy/paste each code from the HOA email into each individual Booking, into that waiting empty field code, which is on the Custom Fields tab of each Booking.  If you don't, they'll get an email with no code.  But this should still save some time.

Hello, 

I hope all is well. 

Currently I have a few homes in a gated community. The HOA provides codes on a weekly basis and on a per guest basis. Their is no generic code I can provide to guests that defaults open the gate all the time. 

My current work flow is this: 

1. Guest booking comes in
2. I email the HOA
3. HOA emails me the codes
4. I then copy and paste that into an email and send it to the guest

Is there any way I can automate a task like this. For example as soon as the guest booking is confirmed a trigger is set to send to the HOA, The HOA responds with the gate codes. email is then forwarded on to the guest. 

I've considered using Zaiper. 

Thanks for your help.

Hi Alyssa,

Thank you for pointing this out, it looks like you've found a typo. We'll hopefully get this corrected shortly, though I can't provide an ETA I'd recommend keeping an eye on our weekly change logs for this to be corrected.

Here is last weeks: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/update-2024-04-10

~Caleb

Got it, thanks!

Yes, you'll just want to Create Agreement, and edit it to suit your needs.  Assuming you don't place any restrictions on its use (at the very bottom of the edit screen), the presence of an actual agreement will automatically override the default one that's built-in.

Ok, one more question for Ken about this rental agreement.... I don't have one on file. I deleted the basic one that came with OR. So, do I now need to create a new rental agreement since I can't make any changes to the one that is currently being sent with the booking cleanup form?  After I create my own rental agreement, will that be the one that's sent to guests automatically with the booking clean-up form?

Thanks Ken! That said, is there an insert field that will just request contact information? So I can create my own letter? (I didn't see one right off the bat...)

Deleted comment 

We are in the midst of a complete overhaul of how all the guest portal functionality works, which will offer a great deal more functionality.  This should be available later this year.

That said, I should mention that we strongly recommend requiring all guests to sign a rental agreement, because that gives you a legally valid and binding contract between you and the guest that you can use with law enforcement, which isn't the case with just an email from a listing channel.

I just found another form letter I'd like to adjust. How do we make changes to the internet-based form letters?? 

Where it says booking will be held for 24 hrs, that's perfect. Then later it says 24 days? I want to change days to hours. I will not be holding any reservation for 24 days to await a payment. 

See also this thread:

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/support-initials-within-the-rental-agreement-form 

And as always, no ETA on development, but, the entire guest portal concept is getting a complete overhaul that will eventually provide more flexibility.

Hi!

I do not use a rental agreement. I have disabled it in system messages. However, I would like to use the booking clean up form with my airbnb bookings so they can enter a valid email address to use with OR messaging. The booking clean up form requests a rental agreement and leads guest to a signature page after they fill in contact information. I don't want to use the rental agreement for airbnb bookings..... how do I change the booking clean up form letter? So far, I can't find a way to edit those types of form letters that have the online links.  (I just want line item #1 to show where they need to fill contact info. I don't want #2 so show up. What's the fix?)

Five years later, I just now made a Feature Request for this. What's the status now on it?

The simplistic "work-around" isn't cutting it.

Thanks Ken!

Unfortunately not, but, it is very high-priority work as you are far from the only client stuck waiting for it.