How Oyo bribed officials - give them a room for the night

So to deter trouble from authorities over the illegal rooms that Oyo has, Oyo sometimes gives free lodging to police and other officials, according to nine of the current and former employees and internal WhatsApp messages viewed by The New York Times. So Oyo is bribing police. Bribing is an offence in India now. Another question is what were these officials doing in Oyo rooms. Did they need the rooms for their extra curricular activities away from theit families?

Looks like India’s We Work funded by the same guys called Soft Bank.

https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/at-softbank-oyo-a-toxic-culture-and-troubling-incidents-6197844/ more

At SoftBank’s prized India investment Oyo: A ‘toxic’ culture and troubling incidents

Oyo offers rooms from unavailable hotels, such as those that have left its service, according to the company’s chief executive and nine of the current and former employees.

Helpful Startup/Making Doing Business Easier in India Jan 03

Viewed by 1310

G. C. Mathur (Consumer Activist.)

Bribery is something very common. The officials mentioned are cultured for taking and giving bribes. Bribe is the price for doing illegalities. Otherwise how would Oyo survive. Illegal income alone is responsible for the so called development and capitalists'. Those who cannot bribe will suffer the indignities, will remain poor and honest. RSS is the believer. We must not encourage this kind of extreme capitalist-ism. more

Feb 01

Ram Manohar

Any business in india has to bribe some people or else govt officials (specially the state govt people) will not make anything happen. Try for shops and establishment registration or ESIC or Professional tax registration you will understand what I mean. So giving bribe in India should not be a method of analysis. Yes some people below giving bad services by OYO is a concern and that is not due to govt officials. Problem with OYO really is that they have bad hotels and have no idea on quality at all. They are centered in quantity rather than quality. Real approach should be quantity mixed with quality. If quality not available in a hotel, just ignore them. OYO goes and finds hotels to just satisfy the investors to get some numbers up and running. They lose quality in the bargain and below comments are attributed to that really more

Jan 04

Padmanabhan G

Oyo should be barred from operating in India (at least). The horrible experiences of customers (including me) are there to read on social networking, travel and billboard sites. And their customer service is unresponsive. I travel a lot and have stopped looking at OYO rooms. If it is OYO, just skip. more

Jan 04

Desikachari Venugopal (Restaurant Owner)

I agree. I'm very wary of OYO. They have a special mention of whether the property concerned allows unmarried couples to stay in a room or not. And I also saw youngsters, with no luggage checking in. So they seem to thrive on such activities. And many property owners report that they are forced to spend to upgrade their properties, Oyo leaves them in the lurch if the Oyo marketing fails. more

Jan 03