Tripadvisor negative reviews

thomas anderson.

I recently submitted a negative review to tripadvisor about a stay I had in a "top" hotel in the country.

The review was long and detailed, was pending for 2 days and was then published. Checked back this week and poof it was gone.

i also posted a positive review about a different hotel I recently stayed in and that one is still there.

Tripadvisor has some shady bias i think :cool:

coylemj

thomas anderson. wrote: »

I recently submitted a negative review to tripadvisor about a stay I had in a "top" hotel in the country.

Your review was 'long and detailed' - may we ask why so detailed?

Was any aspect of your review positive or was it a complete hatchet job?

thomas anderson. wrote: »

Tripadvisor has some shady bias i think :cool:

Most of which are planted positive reviews i.e. Tripadvisor's biggest problem is fake reviews which undermine the real reviews.

Delacent

Would you not have written to the hotel first and see if they would remedy the issue?

Why do people rush to "punish" places without exhausting the normal decent channels of restitution.

My guess is you exaggerated something and made a defamatory statement.

OldMrBrennan83

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JustAThought

Get onto TripAdvisor & complain. Ask why it has been taken down & their integrity as an independent medium is in question. Don't drop it. Bad hotel is bad hotel - why should the enable & facilitate bad hotels/service etc. Get an answer - from them.

dubrov

They take it down if it violates their guidelines. Some people just end up ranting.

Contact them and they should tell you why it was removed?

Sleeper12

I leave a lot of reviews on trip advisor. I feel that a lot of people waste their time with their reviews. I ignore all one star reviews as most of these are people ranting. A one star review isn't a review if you leave after 10 minutes because you haven't been served.
I usually leave 3 to 5 star reviews.
My own business is online. I have 13 Google reviews eleven are 5 star & two are 1 star. The 1 stars didn't like the advice I gave over the phone (your shower is too old and should be replaced). So the two 1 star reviews tell you nothing about my business.

Phoebas

I've posted a number of reviews on TropAdviser, mostly very positive because I'm just not motivated to post a review about an average experience.

I once posted a negative review but after a few weeks it was taken down. Obviously TripAdvisor have every right to what they publish on their platform, but they didn't involve me in any process at all before taking down my review. They didn't even inform me that it was being removed.

That definitely puts me off posting reviews on their site - reviewers are their bread and butter, so if they aren't willing to engage with reviewers about contested reviews, then reviewers aren't going to engage with them either.

Former Former

Trip Advisor might have received a complaint from the hotel that something in the review was untrue. You might think it's fair comment but the hotel may have disagreed and it's Trip Advisor who are on the hook for it.

L1011

Main reasons I've seen for reviews getting removed are them being ranty, patently exaggerated or naming or hinting at the identities of specific staff. The publishing seems to be semi-automated so these get through. If your review didn't do any of these, I'd ask what rule it broke.

Checked my negative reviews and they're all still there.

_Brian

People give negative reviews for the most stupid reasons.

I've seen people negatively commenting about the weather on campsites or that the pool area was noisy. I think a lot of people have expectations that their stay will be perfect and if this isn't delivered for any reason they bash onto the Internet to rant. But the truth is often it's no responsibility of the eatablishment.

I really think that only in instances where the establishment have been given opportunity to remedy the problem but fail to do so, then they should be reviewed poorly.

Teddington Cuddlesworth

Can you copy and paste the review here op, leaving the hotel name or any identifying features out.

Winterlong

I stopped reading TA reviews a long time ago. Too hard to differentiate the genuine ones from the fake good or bad reviews.

I was in a restaurant once with friends and one of them said to me not to eat the steak as they had read a bad review of that restaurants steak on TA.
But there was no steak on the menu!

coylemj

L1011 wrote: »

Main reasons I've seen for reviews getting removed are them being ranty, patently exaggerated or naming or hinting at the identities of specific staff.

Naming staff is a total no-no as far as I'm concerned and I'd agree 100% if TA have a policy of pulling any reviews which attempt to 'get at' named individuals. Anyone can be having a bad day and to post a review on a public site naming them for what was probably a minor transgression is very bad form - just say that the service was bad or the barman was rude but FFS do not name them.

On the other hand, praise for named individuals is one of my red flags for planted fake reviews, especially for unspecific service - 'Jane on reception was so welcoming and couldn't do enough for us' - the first part is what she's paid to do and the second part is meaningless without saying exactly what she did above and beyond the call of duty.

rubadub

_Brian wrote: »

People give negative reviews for the most stupid reasons.

saw this one on facebook for a takeaway. 3/5 stars, sounds like they like the food too

called in this evening to get some nice food and needed cash back as atm was out of service,was told they don't do cash back , they will take my order by card but won't do cash back. Bye bye Sabba to go won't be back.

Delacent

Delacent wrote: »

Would you not have written to the hotel first and see if they would remedy the issue?

Why do people rush to "punish" places without exhausting the normal decent channels of restitution.

My guess is you exaggerated something and made a defamatory statement.

Because sometime people don't want to complain as they are not looking for any recourse, but they want to advise future customers of any shortfalls.
If I stay in a dive in another country, I'm certainly not looking for money off any future stays. And the likelyhood of any refund is 0%, so what's wrong with leaving an honest review

These reviews are their to reward good service and punish bad service. Any right thinking person will roll their eyes if a bad review just details nonsense, which a lot of them do, which can funny. Generally if I read 10 good reviews, and the one bad review which mentions the spider in the bathroom, I'm going to get a good idea of a hotel. But if all 10 reviews are all commenting on the same bad points, well, don't book it

Phoebas

TripAdvisor would be a pretty useless service if people only posted positive reviews - what would be the point of that?
The way I generally use it is not by reading the individual reviews, but by looking at the aggregate ratings. If a place gets a lot of reviews and they're mostly positive, then that's on my shortlist. Or if I'm visiting a city I'm not familiar with, I'll get a list of the most popular attractions as a kicking off point.

The business owners have a right to reply where they can challenge or explain bad reviews anyway. But they are being unfair to reviewers when they take down negative reviews without even informing reviewers.

ted1

I only ever read negative reviews, then make up my own opinion on weather it's a rant or accurate.

I tend to ignore reviews by Americans or Germans as they are usually stupid.

pwurple

I have put down ~150 trip advisor reviews over ten years and have yet to have one removed. I read back over them the odd time if i am going back to a place. Only two of those were 1 star... and that was for a serious problem or some kind of health hazard. think "poo floating in the swimming pool."

And if I ever say something like that, I add a photo to back it up.

I've never mentioned staff by name, and I always make sure my reviews are specific.

mine over overwhelmingly positive though. If i like something or someplace I will say it. It's people's livelihood's your messing with.

Graces7

Some are just clearly sheer bad temper after a bad day. I have had only one refused and the reason was valid enough; I had not been able to access the facilities and TA said that therefore it was not a valid comment on the facilities.When I go on the site, they still ask me for a report on that site...

They let all kinds through. Like the comment re Priests Leap, a wild wild drive, that there were no bathrooms at the top...American of course.

But ranting attacks? No way. Diverging thoughts on how much it cost get interesting too.

OldMrBrennan83

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ted1

Patww79 wrote: »

Judging by the attitudes here, hotels and restaurants don't need to try too hard at all. The practice of only giving good reviews and seeing all negative ones as wrong makes the standards so much worse for us all.

Not all negative ones are wrong , just those by Americans and Germans.

Americans would give machu piacco a bad review for not having a Starbucks, or a three star a bad review for not having a bell boy. They tend to lack taste and prefer false modern not authentic goods and services.
Germans are just mad.

coylemj

Patww79 wrote: »

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All negative reviews are not 'wrong', it's just that an awful lot of them are done for pure revenge and not as a public service i.e. as objective guidance for other travellers and diners.

You can quickly detect when a review is done for all the wrong reasons and in most cases you can write the reviewer off as someone with an axe to grind or who started off with unrealistic expectations e.g. they arrived to their three star hotel at 10 p.m. and found that the restaurant was closed so they write a long harangue about the crap hotel that made Fawlty Towers look like the Ritz!

OldMrBrennan83

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Diziet

ted1 wrote: »

Not all negative ones are wrong , just those by Americans and Germans.

Americans would give machu piacco a bad review for not having a Starbucks, or a three star a bad review for not having a bell boy. They tend to lack taste and prefer false modern not authentic goods and services.
Germans are just mad.

Not a lot of stereotyping going on there at all.

coylemj

Patww79 wrote: »

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For most service providers in the travel business, you sound like the customer from hell. What you're saying is that you should not draw attention to any deficiencies on the spot (where they could be fixed), instead you fume away all week, then you go home and whinge about it on TA.

Patww79 wrote: »

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Who is this generic 'they'? The Four Seasons? A B&B in Kinsale? A three star family resort in the Canaries? Prices are different and so are standards, you cannot apply the same benchmarks to all businesses.

Patww79 wrote: »

I want better service, not apologies.

Better than what? Sounds to me like you're just looking for something to complain about.

OldMrBrennan83

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Guy Sajer

Went on a walking tour in London recently and the guide told us someone once 1 starred her on TA because it was raining.

It's stories like that why TA is dying a death. Motivation to give a bad review comes around far easier than to sit down to give a good review.

I usually leave a few weeks before I leave a review to give time to get over initial annoyance.

OldMrBrennan83

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ted1

Diziet wrote: »

Not a lot of stereotyping going on there at all.

Complete stereo typing which when reading negative reviews transpires to be accurate

davo10

Patww79 wrote: »

But all this 'offer the hotel the chance to remedy's is wrong. If it's bad it's bad and with the prices they charge then they need to be on the ball at all times. I want better service, not apologies.

Dear God, is this the post of man who has never once had a bad day at work or whose service to his employer or a customer has never fallen short?, I salute you, you are one of a kind.

For most of us a hotel or restaurant experience involves many people and services, reception staff, room, cleaning staff, waiting staff, bar staff, chefs etc. Any one of these can put in a "bad shift" which can cause a customer to become disgruntled. But I believe it is the hotels response which is all important, if they tell you to F off then the problem is endemic and they should receive a bad review. If on the other hand you receive an apology for their short comings and an offer of redress, then you can take for granted that your complaint is being taken seriously and that they understand your unhappiness.

There are bad hotels, but there are also bad customers. If you don't tell them while you are there then you do not give them the opportunity to address your concerns.

Nightmare customers often leave long ranting reviews which appear to emotional and in some ways vindictive. Like others have said, I ignore the ones which have gushing praise and the ones which are hatchet jobs, the truth usually lies with the majority of posts which are in between

OldMrBrennan83

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Delacent

Patww79 wrote: »

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Arrogant keyboard warriors who "punish" an establishiment because of what they perceive as failings and not giving even the slighest chance for the establishment to correct the issue is what makes tripadvisor bad.


But as above - some people are so perfect in the world and never ever make an error or do something a ittle off or ever have an off day. The Perfect Person.

So wonderful to meet you sir.

Delacent

Patww79 wrote: »

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now we see it - a classic Tripadvisor Keyboard Warrior.

Most people of intelligence ignore all reviews by Keyboard Warriors

OldMrBrennan83

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Melendez

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Delacent

Patww79 wrote: »

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The classic response from a keyboard warrior "you must be in the business" - That tells me enough. You not as perfect as your posting made out.

davo10

Patww79 wrote: »

So only leave good reviews or you're a keyboard warrior? You're absolutely deluded, are you running a charity for these establishments or what? Why do you want false reviews and inaccurate ratings? Have you a vested interest in keeping them false?

You are missing the point. None of us are perfect, we all have bad days (with exception to yourself). It's what we do in response to a mistake or failing which sets good customer service apart from bad customer service. Even the very best hotels have disgruntled customers and have to have CS departments. Simply because human nature being what it is, you can't please everyone.

If you are not happy with the cleanliness of a room, tell reception and see what their response is. If they say "tough s**t, the room was cleaned to the standards we expect", then by all means rip them apart. But if they apologise and send someone up straight away or upgrade you, then you be confident this is an abarration and they are very sorry for their mistake, would that deserve being ripped apart? I don't think so.

You on the other hand give no opportunity to the establishment and just ripped them. That is why posts like that on TA are usually ignored.

But hell, its great that you're perfect.

Melendez

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davo10

Melendez wrote: »

Patww79 said that if he arrived at a dirty room he would mention it in his review. If it was fixed he would mention that in his review. That is just honest reviewing that should be encouraged. Some people would see it as a positive that a problem was quickly and efficiently fixed and maybe book on the basis of that. Possibly going through multiple reviews a trend might emerge of many people arriving to dirty rooms and some may choose to go elsewhere because of this. Alternatively there may be no such trend and the review showing a rare error being satisfactorily resolved stands out like a shinning beacon amongst the reviews.

I don't see any evidence of patww79 being a "Keyboard warrior" or "ripping apart" businesses without cause. I don't think you really understand how review sites work.

I travel extensively to many countries around the world on business and pleasure. And I use TA regularly when booking hotels and restaurants. I've stayed in fantastic 2star hotels and god awful 5star ones. I read reviews of both and have left multiple reviews both good and bad. So, I'd say I've a bit of experience and understanding, do you think it's a degree course?

If you read back through the thread, you would see patww77 said he does not agree with giving a hotel the chance to rectify the problem.

Here's what he posted:

"But all this 'offer the hotel the chance to remedy's is wrong. If it's bad it's bad and with the prices they charge then they need to be on the ball at all times. I want better service, not apologies."

Melendez

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OldMrBrennan83

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youcancallmeal

OP hasn't even replied yet. Maybe something has changed recently but I've always found tripadvisor are transparent and fair when it comes to reviews. OP have you tried asking tripadvisor why it was taken down?

thomas anderson.

Sorry guys, long weekend of rugby.....

Let me just say that the hotel did ask us if we were happy with our stay on leaving and I said no. I gave a few examples of what happened and they did ask if we wanted to speak to a manager, to give feedback. Now the sweat was pouring out of me due to an illness (not going to say it was food poisoning) but myself and the missus were in the horrors, so we declined. Should have said something to the manager then but the missus wanted out.

I did email they hotel the next day when we received their survey and got the general canned response of "we'll take a look at the problems you pointed out" etc. Posted the review on tripadvisor the day after, which went into a pending state for 2 days and was then posted. I posted a detailed review not only outlining the issues we had but also the good points and the good experiences we had we hotel i.e the spa, swimming pool etc.

But when I checked the review again last week it was gone. Not only was it gone but the notifications from the posting were missing from my profile. They scrubbed the whole lot. I don't have a copy of the review, which in hindsight I should have taken, lesson learned there.

I should also just mention that we were only back from honeymoon and had stayed in some 5 star hotels abroad which were miles ahead of the 5 star standard that we experienced here.

I've emailed TA about it and am waiting on a response

Sam Kade

Delacent wrote: »

Would you not have written to the hotel first and see if they would remedy the issue?

Why do people rush to "punish" places without exhausting the normal decent channels of restitution.

My guess is you exaggerated something and made a defamatory statement.

The whole idea of reviews is for other people to make up their minds. If you travel half way across the world and stay in a hotel and have a bad experience there's no point in contacting them to remedy the problem, no point in closing the stable door when the horse has bolted.

Sam Kade

dubrov wrote: »

They take it down if it violates their guidelines. Some people just end up ranting.

Contact them and they should tell you why it was removed?

Would they do the same if people were exaggerating with a positive review, somehow I doubt it.

fionny

I've written a fair few TripAdvisor reviews good and bad... only one never went live in that instance my wife suffered food poisoning after dining there... the day we checked out we asked for a manager and flagged it they didnt actually apologise just made excuses... I felt it was worth pointing out after we'd given the hotel the chance to address it in person.... 

The review didnt get published because allegedly TA contacted me to check what I had done about the food poisoning... I never actually got any email though...

I had put a similar review on booking.com and the hotel at that point contacted us and apologised properly for the food poisoning as well as for the poor service when we gave them an opportunity to address the issues.

I will credit any place with good and bad points no place is perfect.

davo10

Melendez wrote: »

You left bad reviews???

Was this for people who were not as perfect as yourself?
.

For those that understand, no explanation necessary, for those that do not, no explanation possible.

Yes I have left bad reviews, no I am not perfect, but I understand that nobody is.

I had a meal a couple of months ago in a top restaurant in New York where I had brought some clients. The service and food was terrible, We sent 2 steaks back, I asked to see the manager before I paid, I explained my gripe and then he proceeded to tell me I knew nothing about fine food and dining. I left a bad review, not a scathing one because I knew no one would read it.

Now had he apologised and acknowledged the validity of my complaint, and maybe threw the wine in for free, I would thought it was just a bad night and tried it again some other time. But he was an arse, so bad review.

My point being, you base your review on one isolated incident when someone could be having an off day. By not telling them about your experience and allowing them to redress it, you come across as a keyboard warrior when you then rip them anonymously on TA.

Squatter

Graces7 wrote: »

..... Like the comment re Priests Leap, a wild wild drive, that there were no bathrooms at the top...American of course.

Now that's a classic! The main reason for driving The Priest's Leap (a hair raising route, my missus hates when I drive it!) is its scenery and views, its remoteness, isolation and wildness.

The Yanks were probably completely p1ssed off that the nearest McDonalds was in Killarney!

coylemj

There's possibly a simple explanation for why some posters' negative reviews get pulled, you only have to look to a local restaurant review site for how it works. www.menupages.ie offers people in the restaurant business a premium service whereby they pay for a subscription which allows them to delete negative reviews concerning their business. Look at the bottom of their homepage and you'll see a link for 'trade login'.

There are two glaring problems with this system, the obvious one being that bad reviews get deleted but also that it gives rise to the temptation on the part of the website to post fake negative reviews, then send one of their salespeople out to offer the restaurant the option to have them deleted by paying for a subscription - good old-fashioned blackmail. Of course I'm sure they would never stoop to these tactics.

Melendez

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