Blackmail by Guests is Rife but Against TripAdvisor Rules
- Wednesday, 23 November 2011 15:23
TripAdvisor has been plunged into another PR nightmare as accommodation providers across Europe claim they are being blackmailed by guests threatening to post highly negative comments on the website.
Dozens of customers are using the website's increasing power to try and get free upgrades or refunds despite nothing wrong with their accommodation. Industry experts have said that a bad rating or review on the popular ratings site can be costly, sometimes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds in lost bookings.
TripAdvisor says that threats are "strictly against our guidelines but it may also be illegal". But reports this week claimed that more than 80 hotel and bed-and breakfast owners have reported being subjected to threats from customers.
Incidents include 50% discounts when a guests checks in, in order to prevent a "one-star review", while others have posted false reports on food poisoning and theft after compensation was refused. Frequent examples included guests causing extensive damage to rooms - yet when confronted, say they will submit a poor review, forcing owners to back down.
On TripAdvisor's own message boards, scores of owners describe how guests have made similar attempts to extort money.
TripAdvisor urged owners who experience this to contact it so it can be investigated by the its staff. But owners say it rarely agrees to remove bad reviews, simply letting hoteliers post a "management response".
The website is currently being investigated by the British Advertising Standards Authority following thousands of complaints from hoteliers about allegedly misleading and fraudulent reviews.
Online reputation company KwikChex.com has questioned the legitimacy of TripAdvisor's claims. It believes that up to 10 million reviews are faked and alleges that TripAdvisor does not do enough to authenticate its reviews or remove fraudulent posts.
Launched in 2000, Tripadvisor receives 45 million visitors a month from holidaymakers and business travellers looking for accommodation. But its business model of using completely anonymous reviews, often without any supporting evidence, has been criticised as unfair to hoteliers.
But hotels themselves have been accused of posting bogus reviews. Last month, MailOnline reported that hotel owner Deborah Sinclair was taking legal action after TripAdvisor placed a 'red flag' on the review page of the Riverside hotel which she owns in Evesham, Worcestershire. The message, which was posted on Riverside's page in August, said TripAdvisor believed the hotel had been posting suspicious reviews.
Last week, a bus driver who was sacked after a single bad review was posted about him on TripAdvisor was awarded more than £2600 by an employment tribunal.
TripAdvisor has recently launched new customer support phone lines which allow aggrieved hotels to report reviews it believes are untruthful.
As Expedia shareholders get set to vote on 6 December on the TripAdvisor spinoff, Expedia is telling potential investors that travellers overwhelmingly find TripAdvisor's user reviews to be reliable. Expedia cites July 2011 custom research performed by PhoCusWright and a conclusion that "98% of participants found that TripAdvisor's hotel reviews... accurately reflect the experience."
Subject to the December shareholder vote, Expedia expects to complete the spinoff of TripAdvisor, with its $458 million in 2010 revenue and $261 million in 2010 adjusted earnings, by the end of the year.
