Is Trip Advisor paying for bad reviews?

"Tripadvisor: Get the truth. Then go."

I think that it needs altering for accuracy.

"Tripadvisor: Get subjective opinions and downright lies. Then go to a hotel which is totally unsuited to your needs based on your reading of a biased review and miss out on the good hotels which have been blighted by malicious false reviews left by their competitors. We don't care. Just click the damn links and make us more money".

Is it legal for a company to create a trademarked slogan which is proven to be false?
"Get the truth" - seems pretty untrue to me. Reply to this

Tripadvisor had a major virus yesterday that corrupted all the files and reviews yet the engineers reposted them back on the site so many reviews are now not posted where they should be. I agree that they pay for negative reviews and that many advertisers are being duped into believing that they are advertising on the No 1 Travel site. But it is people checking their site that is making it that, delete the owners and how many genuine travellers log on? It is the negative reviews that is bringing people onto the site to check them out.
All the forums are run by the same few people so are they also getting paid. This is a very suspect site and needs investigating. Will anyone logging on now get the virus that they had in their system yesterday? Just logged in and cannot believe that they have reviews on that site going back 7-8years. who wants that type of old review, travel industry has changed a lot in last 12 months never mind 7 years ago -- a maximum of 10 recent reviews on any hotel/property should be sufficient for anyone to come to a decision. anyone logging is making the CEO and directors millionaires. some of the click are $1.20c per click. Check out the stats on the net Reply to this

Wow! I didn't realized how many people dislike trip advisor. I have been traveling with my husband lately, and have had a bad experience with a five star hotel. Since I haven't travelled as much as other people have, maybe I can get a few links to other review sites from some of you.

As a traveler/consumer, I just wanted to know if you can provide me a specific bad/bogus review from trip advisor? It would be great to see what a bogus review is like. I checked trip advisor and surf the net for random reviews before I booked a hotel. After seeing this posting, I just got worried since my husband and I just booked a hotel from Expedia and are traveling to Beijing and Tokyo next week.

Also, as a consumer I just wanted to know if I should actually believe some of what was said in this post? I noticed that some just recently joined this last august and have no travel blog entries for their travels. Another thing, some of the account at travel blog was just opened and some are almost right after the other. So, I am a little confused with who to believe…

Hatetripadvisor 2 - First, I am sorry for what you've experienced. I just wanted to ask you as a consumer as to why I should take your word for it? Since you're a hotel owner, how can I be sure that you are not just upset because your hotel have had bad reviews? How can I be sure that you have a fair system that you use to read all the reviews filled out by the people who have stayed at your hotel? And taken the necessary actions to better your service?

Another concern of mine, how can I be sure that this posting is not just another marketing tactic to get rid of trip advisor? That, some maybe planning to just start their own review site, and needed to get rid of a competitor? As a consumer, how would I know that if there is another site that it would be more fair compare to another? Specially when their system of choosing reviews is also not know to the consumer? How will other smaller review websites can assure me that they will not turn into a monster either the minute they get popular and money is involved?


As a consumer, what do you think we should do in terms of giving reviews after our stay, and reading reviews from others? Reply to this

You can usually tell which reviews are fake. Reviews that are all five stars, are usually fake. No place is perfect. Reviews that are all one stars, are most of the time fake. The reviewer is either a competitor, or had some unreasonable request that was not satisfied by the hotel (like the queen bed was too small, or the classic one for us, the weather was terrible, or the ocean was too cold). Reply to this

where is my 200 bucks???



Hello again

below is a forum in the Support Forum of TA and this one is called "Where is my 200 bucks"??? The original poster is asking where the money he was promised for submitting photos is as he had received an email from TA for a shopping site, but he had not received it and so is asking where his moneyy is - the replies are from other contributors to the forum -

This can be read on the site by logging on the TA Support Forum and go to 9th Dec to see start of forum listed by sidz and called "Where is my 200 Bucks"?

Regardless of whether is is 5.00$ or £5.00 or 5.00 rupees The FACT is that this is Proof that Tripadvisor is paying for content supposed to be photos, but what else are they payng for that we are unaware of ???
Negative Reviews??? Positive REviews??? Fake REviews???? Very possibly.
Therefore this is no longer an unbiasis Travel Forum - the owners are paying for reviews and some people will do anything for money ? All they have to do is log and select any place Good Bad or indifferent and send a review - Who knows if they ever stayed there ?????????????????????????????????? Probably not and while they make money, people planning trips are put off by bad reviews and good places loose income by the fact that false fake reviews are placed on their site. the only checking TA do is to make sure that the review is not coming from the hotel website. hardly a fraud check!!!!!!!!

More about sidz...

WHERE IS MY 200 BUCKS?
Posted on: 9:36 am, December 06, 2008 Save
i got an email saying that if i post images here i get 200 bucks gift voucher on indiatimes shopping... i did so ... where's my voucher???



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Posted on: 9:45 am, December 06, 2008 Save
Hi and welcome to Tripadvisor




Other people have raised this recently as well - see link to the post which is just a couple of posts under your yours as I write this:




tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g1-i12105-k23981…



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Posted on: 1:28 pm, December 06, 2008 Save
What's that?




Any details on this?



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Posted on: 2:35 pm, December 06, 2008 Save

it's a incentive for users of the tripadvisor.in website (The India version of Trip Advisor - launched this past summer) Usually these premiums are limited to users in certain countries. The ad for this on the India site is at: http://www.tripadvisor.in/shoppingoffer







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Posted on: 2:40 pm, December 06, 2008 Save
Oh, and I don't know if "Buck" has a meaning over in the UK or India - in the U.S. it refers to a US Dollar. But the promotion for 250 Indian Rupees. Not what I would normally refer to as "bucks" since the exchange rate is huge, but that is just me.







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Forum posts: 3,608


Posted on: 3:05 pm, December 06, 2008 Save
Hi;




For those of you who are curious, the equivalent of 200 Rupees is about $4 US dollars, and 250 Rupees is about $5 US dollars.




Best Regards



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Posted on: 6:58 pm, December 06, 2008 Save
I followed that link and this is what it says:




"Contribute your reviews and opinions on www.tripadvisor.in and get rewarded with a gift voucher worth Rs.250/- absolutely FREE from our partner — Indiatimes Shopping. All you have to do is write a review on a hotel you've stayed in, an attraction/restaurant/destination you've been to, or add a photo or video you've taken on one of your trips. It really is that simple!"




Well obviously this may present a problem. Since people in what is admitedly a quite impoverished country are being paid for content, there's an incentive here for *anyone* to write a review about *anywhere* regardless of whether they stayed there or not.


I followed the process to write a review and nowhere was there anything to verify if the reviewer has actually stayed where they are reviewing.




PLUS, it asks for photos to be posted. Since photos of a particular hotel for instance are copyright of the hotel, and since it is up to the hotel whether pictures of their establishment are posted for financial gain, what compensation are the hotels getting? Are they getting "250 bucks" as well?




Paying for reviews is highly unethical.



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Posted on: 10:49 pm, December 06, 2008 Save
"Paying for reviews is highly unethical."




A property paying for a favorable review to be written about itself is unethical.




A third party not affiliated with the property, paying someone to write a review is not unethical. Most travel guides are written by paid reviewers.




In the U.S. (agreeably, not where the offer stems from ) this would not constitute "payment for services" it is just a premium, a reward, for participation in a website.















Posted on: 11:09 pm, December 06, 2008 Save





"PLUS, it asks for photos to be posted. Since photos of a particular hotel for instance are copyright of the hotel..."




The photos that are requested would be ones that the reviewer took themselves, so the poster would be the rightful owner of any copyright, not the hotel.




Best Regards






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Schotzi, that's not true about the photos.

If the establishment claims copyright and forbids the posting of photos in their terms, then the guest must abide by this or accept the consequences. If the guest really, really wants to post photos somewhere then they can stay at another hotel which allows it.
The only part of a hotel which cannot be copyrighted is the exterior, as this is on public view. If the hotel wishes to copyright its own property (the interior) then it may do so. Reply to this

The interior is subject to limits, since items inside such as artwork, etc. are copyrighted, but I am referring to the exterior, views, etc.

But then again, TA doesn't follow any rules of fairplay, decency, integrity...they will keep pushing the limits and will continue to do so until someone stops them with a lawsuit.

What I cannot understand, is why none of these big chains with all the big bucks have not gone after them...what are they waiting for? In the meantime, TA is affecting many small businesses who don't have the resources. Reply to this

We have contacted and lodged acomplaint with Mass Gov Consumer complaints.

You know that nasty statement they have been putting on the info page of some places that states the buisness is interfering with their rating system? It is no longer on there BUT they never replaced 4 of our positive reviews so they have us placed below businesses that aren't even rated! It looks soooooooooo blatantly obvious because all the reviews that people see are wonderful.....sooooooo how can they justify putting us at the bottom....it just shows how poor their system works. The problem is that some potrential guests aren't savvy enough to actually read the reviews. It infuriates me because the businesses at the top are such a joke and we actually put them all to shame. We are doing well inspite of TA...but we are not going to let this go.

We have kept copies of all their ridiculous emails accusing us of all kinds of things...the best is the "holier than thou" emails telling us of how we should write our replies...I am looking forward to exposing them and their illegal tactics. Just the fact that they put back one of the reviews after the reviewer told them that she was actually from one of the competitor sites...How can they possibly defend what they have done????????? Reply to this

We have made copies of all our correspondence with them and we are sending a hard copy to the attorney general, which we are cc to TA...we want them to know what we are doing...who knows...you may see us on TV. The reviewer who contacted them about her removed review, sent us the email she had gotten from TA "apologizing for the delay in posting the review" and it wasn't signed by anyone....like someone was told to send it but the person sending it didn't want to be held responsible. The real clincher is that the reviewer who wrote the one particular review, works as a media specialist for another site and had visited us as a rep of the other site...so we have them cold!!!!!!!!!!!! We don't know who wrote the other 4 reviews...because we obviously had nothing to do with the process! We have also made copies of the local rating page which shows how punative they are...it says it all.

The real issue is that TA claims they have a filtering system which indicates fake reviews...well...we proved their system doesn't work. Now, since they know it doesn't work and they are continuing the punative actions against us-this constitutes MALICE. We have decided that we are going to pursue this and hopefully the attorney general will want to speak to us. Oh, I forgot...I had also made a complaint with the FTC. Now if they contact us and try to strong-arm us...wouldn't that be considered witness tampering since we have lodged a complaint with the attorney general?

We also went back and found the email where we advised them of what we were going to do next...and the very next day, we got the notification from the contentintegrity...Eric....advising us that we were being monitored for suspicious activity...and that is when they put the statement on our description and took off the 5 very positive reviews...the timeline is very revealing...I think they have a bunch of cocky college kids who are wielding their power over all of us. Reply to this

We have had all of the same problems with TripAdvisor. We have two properties, however, only one of those properties is listed on TripAdvisor. We do not want to create a listing for our other property, however, people are posting false reviews about the property that does not have a listing on the listing for the other property.

These reviews are completely untrue, slanderous, and malicious. "Guests" are allowed to post anything! We have tried to post "management responses" to these reviews, however, they have proved to be unsuccessful. The first time we wrote a management repsonse, TripAdvisor sent it back to us saying that our response did not meet their criteria. We revised our response and sent it in. We heard nothing from TripAdvisor. After several weeks we contacted TripAdvisor to see why our repsonse had not been posted. They claimed that we never filed a response. Since then, we have filed two other repsonses which were never posted. When we contact TripAdvisor about these responses. They claim that they cannot find any reponses for our property.

So unhappy, unreasonable people can write horrible reviews about any business, completely anonymous, with no criteria to follow. However, if a business tries to respond with their side of the story, it does not meet TripAdvisor's criteria or is lost and not posted. Why is it that the businesses have to follow certain "criteria" to respond to reviews, but guests are able to post any false, slanderous statement they wish. The horrible thing is that these guests did not let us know of any problems during their stay so we are completely clueless and shocked when these reviews show up on TripAdvisor. The odd thing is that this same property has excellent reviews on Expedia and Hotels.com. It just doesn't make sense.

I do not know how this can be a fair review system when only one side is able to post false statements and the other side is completely helpless, not even allowed to post a response that meets TripAdvisor's criteria. Not only are these people being allowed to attack our business, they are attacking us personally. Reply to this