Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - RomanHomes Dr Abate

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Will all the 7th and 8th Graders please return to their classrooms?

Hey, its really no mystery to me. StCirq immediately believes someone with a name like "nameless" to start a fight. But, when someone like Farrand says her house in the Dordogne is a dump, she immediately disses him and says this is all part of a vendetta by someone named "Lauren". Actually, I didn't see "Lauren's" name mentioned once on the Farrand site. There is appears to be no vendetta (actually Farrand appears as a kindly old gent who had a terrible time in StCirq's home due to lack of adequate maintenance). What there appears to be is a desire--well--to pretend that the Farrand report does not exist. But, it does. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andyfarrand/ I figure that anyone who disagrees with StCirq, gets slammed. That's what I figure; it is all done to start a fight and dominate the board. Of course, it does backfire at times--as the nastiness and unfairness about Dr. Abate should. It really is no mystery. Some people just want to be top dog--even if they have no reason to have an opinion on the subject. She knows nothing about Dr. Abate or Roman Homes except that she enjoys a fight. She knows a great deal about her house in the Dordogne that she won't tell. The Farrand report of their 1998-1999 trip bears reading if you are thinking about renting the place. Then, after reading about the septic tank, flood and melted electrical system, you can make up your own mind. StCirq, why not stop spending all your life on line. Your family needs you. You should spend your spare time getting your property manager to fix up your vacation place. There is more to life than starting fights on the boards.

What is this great debate about St Cirq's house? What thread is it?

St. Cirq now moved to Spain board and creating WW III there (Thread is Hotel Taverno (sp) vs. Hotel Juderia).

Sorry, the right title where St. Cirq is currently creating WW III is Hotel in Seville - Taberna, etc.

Having dealt with Romanhomes and the now famous or rather infamous Dr. A, I would recommend that you look for other lodging services as there are many available in Rome. My experience with company was unacceptable by anyone's standards. After reading this board as well as others and based on my own experiences it would be unwise to risk your hard earned dollars on a company with his service. I am sure that some people have had some luck with RomanHomes, however it is not worth the risk. As for my annonymous post, who needs the aggrevation from Dr. A and his flock.

I had a very bad experience with Dr. Abate as well. The way he treats potential clients could easily have been written into a Jerry Seinfeld episode (the Soup Natsi comes to mind). If you get in touch with him, don't comment about his website. He is very sensitive. If you really want to get his goat, suggest that his apartments are overpriced. We ended up using another agent. Have a great trip.

Dr. Abate is a fictional person. You will find that he is really a writer living in Paris with his lovely wife and daughter and makes up these stories for sheer entertainment.

The person (unknown of course) that suggested that EVERYONE posts anonymously is just as stupid as anyone who makes such a sweeping generalization. I have NEVER posted anonymously. I will grant little credence or integrity to anyone who posts attacks unless the user their real name and email. Every computer that I've ever seen has a delete key. If you use your real email and get spammed, simply post the spammers email on the forum. That will certainly discourage them once they are known.

My great regret is that when the original "Dr. Abate" thread appeared I didn't have the presence of mind to save it before Fodors mercifully deleted it. I did save my own contribution, which provides something of a summary of what happened. Here it is for anyone who is interested (posted in three parts because of the length): What a fascinating world we live in, and what an interesting place Fodors is. I watched nearly 50 messages pile up under this heading before becoming curious enough to open the thread to see what could possibly engender so many replies to a post about a “terrible apartment service.” Herewith some observations and conclusions: Brian, you were absolutely right to ask what an “American Executive Platinum” member is. If indeed Ray meant to write “American Express” then he established the bona fides of his credit limit, not his worldliness. (For someone who still hasn’t earned a free ticket on that airline, learning than American has an “executive platinum” level was a revelation.) Jan, your “amen” posting 20 hours after Ray’s shows what a small world we inhabit. By now, anyone who opened the thread would conclude, “avoid Roman Homes.” Dottore Abate, your swift and amazingly thorough rebuttal, posted less than 30 hours after Ray’s original message (which made no mention of Rome or Roman Homes in its header), speaks volumes about the Internet in general and this web site in particular. You have a reputation to protect; you did so quite well. I note your post, at 7:20 p.m Eastern Time, would have equated to 1:20 a.m. in Rome. When do you sleep? Then comes the barrage of testimonials. Dottore Abate must have emailed many people, imploring them to reply to the “terrible apartment service” item on Fodors’ Europe Forum. The first one, from Lowell Moorcroft, comes just 16 hours after that plea. It is well written, concise, and contains a hearty endorsement that Roman Homes is a superb outfit. Mr. Moorcroft’s posting is followed swiftly by five more, several of which give multiple plugs for Roman Homes’ web site, raising Fodors regular Sally Fowler’s suspicion that these postings are awfully well orchestrated. But not to worry. Less than half an hour later, Ron Walsh, who according to Fodors’ search engine until now has posted exactly once (a week ago in response to a query about Yorkshire), assures Sally that Dottore Abate was up front about soliciting testimonials. How nice of Ron to have scrutinized that lengthy post, and how fortunate that he was right there to answer Sally’s concern! And then in comes Dr. Wolff, who just happens to be surfing the internet from his office, drills down five levels – and the exact five correct levels, at that! -- into Fodors.com and stumbles upon this unjust criticism of Roman Homes, from which he just happened to have recently rented a villa. Dr. Wolff is so enthusiastic in his praise, he posts his message twice. By the way, if you happen to tap in Dr. Wolff’s URL, you’ll find that “golinharris.com” is the home page for a very large Chicago public relations agency. This raises the question of what client will be billed for Dr. Wolff’s time last Friday at 3:23 p.m. Chicago time. (continued)

(part 2) Dottore Abate makes another tearful appearance a few hours later to say he is touched by the outpouring of support. He goes on at length to describe his properties, and how they are out of reach of 99.9% of Rome’s population (himself included). But the support continues to roll in. Among them, Karen chimes in with an accolade, which contains the curious disclaimer that she is writing “with absolutely no other interest in this matter.” Where in the world did that come from? And, there is an emerging similarity about the way these messages are written. They’re all written by, well, writers. They are concise, they always praise “Dr. Abate,” who either met them at a train station, carried their bags, chauffeured them across Rome at midnight, or pointed them to the best meal in Italy. There is invariably an accolade for the superb web site. The perfect location of each apartment is also described (it is never the same apartment). And they will all be back. Now, the world of individuals who can afford to rent an apartment in Rome is quite circumscribed and those do so will inevitably share certain traits. But Karen and many of her fellow travelers just sound too polished. Either they make no grammatical or spelling errors, or else their posts are so cartoonishly written and spelled as to be viewed as comic relief. Lynn, another regular Fodors’ contributor, begins to smell a rat. Dottore Abate, however, quickly (less than an hour later) suggests this is a case of people twisting facts, and that his agency should get a fair trial from a jury of his Internet peers. His evidence is presented in excruciating detail, and he goes on about Italian law at some length. From its length, he had to be writing that brief long before Lynn gave voice to her suspicions. By Sunday afternoon, after yet more testimonials and speeches from Dottore Abate, Lynn has it figured out and casts her vote as a juror. She writes, “These so-called ‘opinions’ have been solicited (contrived?) by a man who owns a business…” Agreeing, Amanda from Ole Miss suggests Dottore Abate has been just a little bit too over the top in his defense, but Fodors’ newest old hand, Ron Walsh, jumps in after less than half an hour and engages in a little argumentum ad hominen. Ron seems to be monitoring this web site awfully closely. (continued)

(conclusion) Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not a betting person, but if I were, I would place a sizeable wager on this thread’s duration and content being an exercise in what the public relations industry calls “crisis management,” and particularly what has emerged in the past year as “crisis e-management;” the quelling of rumors and innuendo on internet web sites. Dottore Abate is indeed a businessman and clearly not the “idiot” he was characterized as being early on. To the contrary, my suspicion is that he is sufficiently savvy to have a PR agency on retainer, and either he or they caught the Roman Homes negative mention via a web dredging service, and went to work on a perceived crisis. But crisis management is an imperfect art, and the replies were just a little too quick, too slick, and too pat. After a while, it all looked orchestrated. And so Lynn and Sally and the Fodors regulars figured out what which way was up. That’s where it ought to have ended. However, unable to stop themselves, and impressed that every time there was a new reply the thread popped up to the top of the pile, the PR agency kept at it far too long. Ron, I know that when you write this up for the PRSA Journal or submit this for a Silver Anvil or whatever, you’ll neglect to include Jo’s recent reply: “All this lot has proven to me is… never rent an apartment from Roman Homes.” Because Jo probably speaks for lots of us, and you wouldn’t want your client or your peers to think your campaign backfired. But it did. Big time. Note to Fodors: you now have a pretty good list of people whose posts should be considered advertising unless proven otherwise.

Neal, forget the conspiracy and face the fact that a good many of us have had very pleasant dealings with Dr. Abate and RomanHomes.

In response to Neal Sanders, similar patterns of dubious endorsements have appeared on Frommers.com message boards after messages were posted about the quality of Romanhomes.com and Dr. Abate's approach to customer service. "Brent Lawstone" has also appeared frequently enough to raise a flag of suspicion as to his connections to the company.

I was thinking of having my gall bladder removed. Anyone want to recommend Dr. Abate?

All of the fodors postings on this topic long ago also relate to this: http://slate.msn.com/iseefrance/entr...2-25_75791.asp From Slate magazine.

Thanks for the link to that Slate article. It helps me, somewhat, understand this curious controversy going on here.

I don't know a thing about this company, but has anyone else looked at the website? Pretty bad design, hard to navigate, imho. Don't think I trust the opinion of the folks who rave about what a great site it is.

Hello all, I just got back from a month-long trip which included a week's stay at a RomanHomes apartment. It was fine. The apartment was clean enough, the location was good, the service seemed fine. We didn't have any bad experiences. The only 2 drawbacks I experienced are these: 1. The sheets on the bed were old looking and patterned, which (call me crazy) just doesn't seem clean and tidy so I didn't like them. 2. The apartment was overpriced by probably about $500 in my opinion. Otherwise it was fine. It's also all about expectations. No apartment or hotel is going to be entirely perfect, especially not in the old world. If one of these (Abate's) apartments was within my price range, I would stay there again, notwithstanding all the negative comments from previous posters. Have fun debating this more and more, I'm out. Shel

I read every single Blog. Nothing to say but the man should not be in the Service Industry business. I don't care how knowledgeable he is. He is rude, crude and as one man said when asking for suggestions, Dr. Abate will take it offensively and attach like a shark on a half dead seal. He trys to make it sound like you are the one standing on high ground when everything he says indicates he thinks he is better than you so no reason to even try to reason with the man. If you have a vacation booked, just try to avoid him and have a good time and not let him ruin what can be a wonderful vacation. Time for this man to retire!!!!!