Is Trip Advisor paying for bad reviews?

So GET THE TRUTH AND GO has bitten the dust! There's no way TA could continue to justify such a claim and you will note the replacement phrase isn't so snappy.
Rumour has it people are not rushing to pay them good money for people to read bad (and often false) reviews about their establishments.
Two UK newspapers are now checking into TA's activities....
Maybe, finally, the writing is on the wall? Reply to this

Its amazing what research on Tripadvisor reveals,something new and surprising everyday. Apparently a Detroit restaurant has sued them for $25000 plus punitive damages and costs etc. The last court records dont go beyond 27 July 2009. so I dont know whether the lawsuit has been settled or is ongoing. Apparently a trip advisor reviewer recommended "staying clear of the ****** unless you and your family enjoy sharing your evening with the local prostitues"
I take this from the court papers as the offending comments have been removed from TripAdvisors website.

I took the trouble to check out the restaurant in question and it is obviously not a corner cafe. Indeed it is substantial and obviously extremely popular, to the extent it is difficult to get in without prebooking. It is very well reviewed on at least four other review sites.

So popular is it that when a Tripadvisor reviewer turned up on a busy weekend evening in September 2009 (Note the date) without a reservation and could not be accommodated without some delay, they proceeded without having eaten there, to pan the establishment yet again on TripAdvisor.

We all know that TA is a pain, but the more I learn it is developing a very distinctive personality, and it is not a very attractive one. You could not make it up!
If they havent already done so I hope this restaurant tales them to the cleaners, and masny others follow the same path. It can be done. Reply to this

Has anyone contacted Rick Sanchez on CNN and told him to investigate TA's "Get the truth...oops...we decided to change our slogan to "the most trusted..." He may really interested how TA is now trying to get businesses to pay for a listing...or actually pay to get removed...seems like extortion. Reply to this

I have recently opend an EBAY account and much to my surprise the account had to be veriried by givng a land line number (mobile number not acceptable) that they sent an automated call to the given number , I was then told if I was expecting this call to press a digit and then I was given a code that had to be typed into my registration form in order for the account to be opened. With all the IT personnel and services available to Tripadvisor, surely they too could add a similar type of verification to their registration precess, then and ONLY then will they be able to prove who and where the person who sends the review is based, and this will do away with the once off negative reviews by a disgruntled ex employee or person who was charged a fee by an owner because they failed to show or otherwise and it will also do away with the marketing companies or owners postng the once off 5* reviews. Anyone else think is a good idea. This way if people know that they must positively identify themselves they will think twice before sending the review and also it would benefit Tripadvisor because they could be certein that it is a genuine person sending the review. I believe Tripadvisor should then remove any suspicious reviews and could then get their old logo "get the truth then go " restored.

Also has anyone noticed the large numbers of hotels placing advertising with Tripadvisor that are having all their reviews removed? Perhaps there is some truth in paying to have the reviews removed, in otherwise when you pay for a listing your get a clean slate! Maybe in co operation with a proper verification system it would not be a bad thing! Reply to this

Stephen Kaufer must pay for his crimes. Reply to this

fairreviews, I have heard through a hotel owner in Ireland that a friend of hers who also owns a hotel joined the Expedia booking program, and the bad reviews magically disappeared from her hotel's review page.
I cannot independently verify this, so it is only hearsay.
However, given the utterly unprofessional and downright unethical way that Tripadvisor does business, I believe the account to be true.

Stephen Kaufer, enjoy the time you have. One way or another, sometime your life will become less enjoyable. You have made a lot of money screwing other people over but you have no idea how much it will ultimately cost you. Reply to this

Authenticity of hotel reviews questioned
By Bev Fearis
Published: 5:00PM GMT 20 Feb 2007
A UK spokesman for Tripadvisor said
"A handful of hotels try to manipulate the site and most don't do it very cleverly," he said. "It tends to be the smaller establishments that are a little bit naive. It is not worth it for any hotel because if we catch them we will penalise them and it can ruin their reputation."

A clear admission that TA knows they are ruining businesses and we all know they are happy to do so without listening to their victims.

Also useful when we get them into court is the fact that they clearly by their own admission monitor, edit, and censor posts to their site. It is standard practice in the UK for owners of bulletin boards to issue a disclaimer to the effect that they do not edit or moderate postings. There is a good reason for this.
if you moderate you are liable for the content posted.if you do not you are not liable.

Seems to me that TripAdvisor are clearly accepting liability for what is posted on their site and admitting with apparent relish their clearly malicious and vindictive policies.

Uk hoteliers if you believe you have a good libel case please send me a PM.

Apologies for the delay in launching the ihatetripadvisor.org.uk site. Still have a few details to tie up. Reply to this

Very good - keep us posted! Reply to this

I can't give you a correct answer on your question since I don't know and don't have any inside information. I do know that some postings are not correct. I stayed at a hotel that I rated and a day or so later another poster had an entirely different view of the hotel. My review was conservative and their review very liberal. When I see a very professionally written review I also suspect "hotel written". When I see a very poorly written review I toss it out and when I see a review "off the wall" either conservatively written or liberally written" I take it the person does not travel much and had a problem in his mind about his one time a year stay. Same for restaurant reviews. Reply to this

Open letter to Chirstopher Rodriguez CBE 11 February 2010
Chairman Visit Britain
Department of Culture Media and Sport

Dear Mr Rodriguez,

I am in receipt of your letter to my MP, William Hague, in connection with my concerns concerning a link between Visit Britain and the review site TripAdvisor. My concerns about this company are very justifiable, and are shared by a very large and exponentially growing number of people from within the trade but also now from members of the public. TripAdvisor are already the subject of a number of legal actions on both sides of the Atlantic, and I am aware of several more that are in preparation. These are instigated not by sour grapes on behalf of a few hoteliers with bad reviews. but by genuine concerns about the practices and integrity of the company. Even a group of their own staff are in litigation in the Boston Courts.

Trip Advisor is a fatally flawed and unsustainable iconcept in the log term. It accepts reviews from any source with no attempt to verify the bona fides of the reviewers.who remain anonymous. As a result competing hoteliers can damage their competition with impunity. Unscrupulous hoteliers can game a rating system that is derisory to gain advantage and mislead the public.( see The Times where journalists were able to propel a number of not very salubrious London hotels to top TripAdvisor ratings within a few days by posting fake reviews) There are instances of members of the public blackmailing hoteliers with the threat of fake reviews on the site. Even having actually stayed at a hotel is not a prerequisite for posting comments.

Why do they do nothing to allay the criticism and preserve their reputation?. The answer is that they cannot. The revenue generated by PPCs is a fractional sum per click. The cost of verifying the millions of postings to the site would eliminate any profit. In addition in many jurisdictions including Europe, as soon as you start monitoring and editing postings you become the publisher, and therefore legally liable (as Visit Britain republishing the material would also be) for the veracity of the content. They do of course monitor and manipulate content but can’t state that openly. Instead they claim to they have utilised sophisticated alogorythms that will identify patterns of writing and eliminate regular fake posters like the PR companies who openly offer to create favourable reviews for businesses for a price. It is hogwash anyone could post a half a dozen reviews in the style of Samuel Pepys. Thus any accusation of human intervention and the consequent liabilities is averted at an affordable minimal cost. Similarly their Boston employees, if they win their action, will add another substantial financial blow to the fragile economic model that cannot be avoided.

This is probably why they have now started charging hotels ($600) to have the contact details, (that used to be displayed when they first signed up but were subsequently removed), reinstated. There are numerous comments on the internet that suggest that if you pay negative reviews are removed. Whether that is true or not, no one is going to pay to have their business ruined by questionable reviews, so one must assume that those who don’t pay are in for a very bad time. The main question is, how can a company that is charging for the entry on their web site be trusted to maintain an impartial service. There is only one logical answer.

I will not bore you with the details of the disgusting manner in which any hotelier who has the temerity to challenge TripAdvisor is treated. The examples on the web are legion. If you take the trouble to look You will find a rating sytem that is a mathematical joke, you will discover that the “commitment to investigate reports of abuse” is very selective, and certainly does not apply to hoteliers reports. There are also in my view serious breaches of the Data Protection Act for which TripAdvisor UK mysteriously has not registered, not to mention alleged copyright infringements.

I obviously did not state my case clearly enough in my original letter. I do not as you suggest advocate a publicly funded alternative to Trip Advisor. I suggest a UK company of which there are many who could provide an equivalent service ( and incidentally I have no association with or vested interest in) that employ British people, pay taxes in this country (Check out TripAdvisor Uks’ accounts to see how little stays here) and can distinguish between ethics and a county to the east of London. Instead of paying an American company, you have a valuable asset in the form of the excellent and verifiable data provided by the hotel assessment scheme, that could be exploited to the benefit of the British tax payer, and the travelling public.

I was well on the way to my fourth star this year, but I will not be joining the assessment scheme and I am sure that many others will follow suit, when they become aware of our own governments foolish plan. Disappointing after a lifetime spent in the Tourist Industry. Thank God I am retiring next year!.

The above is of course my subjective opinion.

Sincerely

Frank McCready
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