To think if you’re not happy with a service you’re free to post a review without raising it with the vendor?

It does speak well of the company. But not as well as them having perfected procedures so as to not make mistakes in the first place.

I think a review that leaves out the efforts a company has made to fix an issue or compensate is dishonest. But not as dishonest as, for instance, leaving a review that didn’t mention the problems because the company, effectively, bribed you with an particularly generous response.

Depends on the service that you are using. If it’s fixable, then yes I’d give the owner an opportunity to fix it. If it’s a more fundamental flaw, then no.

We stay in Air BnB type places a lot when visiting the UK. One we stayed in was really cold during the day and we couldn’t get the heating to come on so I contacted the owner. Turned out the heating was set on a timer that was in the main house (where they lived) and they were unwilling to change it (they expected guests to be out all day like tourists - we were using it as home from home so had friends and family visiting during the day). So I’d given them the chance to fix the issue, and they didn’t, so that went in the review.

Another place we stayed in was filthy. Like really grimy, with broken furniture and an ingrained smell of cigarette smoke. The kitchen surfaces and the bathroom were clean but nothing else. The crappy furniture and smell weren’t something that could be fixed for our one-night stay, so I didn’t contact the owner but left an honest review.

As another example, I'm a theme park enthusiast and a lot of people have noted that Alton Towers have rammed the park full for Hallowe'en with very poor ride availability, resulting in 5 or 6 closed coasters and 3 with 2 hour queues.

This is a No Shit Sherlock moment! you're never going to stop a commercial company like Alton Towers from ramming the park full of people on Halloween. Their one reason for being is to make money. Anyone who takes their family to Alton Towers for Halloween needs their head tested !

I left a fair review for a hotel I recently stayed in on their website. They tracked me down, emailed me and tried to defend themselves. I thought that was poor form to be honest. It felt intrusive.

Yanbu!

I had an absolutely shit pedicure a few months ago. I didn't say anything, just decided I would never go there again. I got their email spam later that day asking for a review, I think I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Like fine, but not great, no extra words, just the star rating they ASKED FOR.

Over the next 2 days I was absolutely spammed with phone calls from this business. It was outrageous actually. I blocked their number. Nothing they could have said to me on the phone could have persuaded me to go back there.

People are weird!

The caring and timely action would be to proactively offer customers refunds or tickets for another date as soon as the place became overcrowded. But instead they ignore it then moan that they "didn't get a chance" to put it right.

YABU to go to a pumpkin patch in the first place

Mistakes happen. I think that the way an honest mistake is put right is part of the service. If it is corrected with good will, timeliness and care, I see that as speaking well of a company

All of this seasonal nonsense is a money making scam.

But in this case it wasn't things going wrong despite careful planning. It was the company deliberately worsening the customer experience due to greed. The company caused the issue and their reaction to complaints shows they clearly have no interest in rectifying this for future events.

No, I think that generally you should give them an opportunity to make things right.

Things can go wrong for anyone despite careful planning. I think it's far more indicative of what a company is like to see how they handle issues than almost anything else.

This. Honest reviews might make them sort their issues out properly.

You're defo not unreasonable

If you paid for an item and there was an issue, that would be one thing

But this is for an experience. They can't go back and repair the experience you had, you just need to review it as it was

Social media is full of crazies these days, just weird people

I heard that pumpkin patches were just bits of grass with aldi pumpkins thrown about anyway? X

I think a factual review is fine even if it is a bad one, but in many cases it would be fair to give the company chance to put things right. I am often sceptical of bad reviews as some people see them as a money making opportunity.
A few months ago someone left a review about my workplace. Yes something had gone wrong I can't remember what, I think a till had stopped working whilst they were scanning, but they were frustrated and angry. I was called when they asked for a manager. I agreed their experience hadn't been the best, apologised, and helped them complete their shopping gave them a 10%discount and a gift card of £10 towards future shopping. A few hours later a review went up listing what had gone and how bad it was. No mention at all of any of the measures we made to compensate

Sometimes things go wrong and it’s just unfortunate and not a sign that there’s an underlying problem. Sometimes the problem is that the customer misunderstood what they were paying for. I think people underestimate the power of a bad review and the fact you can cause a business thousands of pounds in lost sales. But of course you are free to do what you want 🤷‍♀️

It seems that people don’t quite understand the point of a review

But why? I’d like to know before I go somewhere whether I’m likely to encounter an issue. Even if it gets resolved, I’d much prefer to deal with businesses that don’t cause issues and that don’t require my time and energy to seek a resolution to get the service or goods I’ve paid for.

A review is to help others to decide whether to go, and to give the business honest feedback. Not to support them per se (although I don't make a point of leaving poor feedback unless really shamelessly bad).

Whether it's fair or 'kind' depends whether it's rectifiable if so whether you've given them the chance to rectify it, if so whether theyve done so with grace. In this case it wasn't. They couldn't change the attraction, they'd packed it too full. Poor planning and greed. They could maybe offer money back but that doesn't change the fact that it's not a great experience so the reviews were fair.

Families are struggling so I think it’s mean not to warn them they are wasting precious cash in this way.

Exactly!

I don't! If the review is truthful then it is useful for other potential customers.

How can they put right an experience that has already been experienced though? I suppose they could offer the event again for free after making changes to it, but how many families want to go back next weekend and do exactly the same thing, not many. I think online reviews are the perfect way to hold companies like this to account so they improve it next year, and think carefully about doing similar for Christmas soon. It's not ok to rip people off most of whom pay good hard earned money to go to these things.

Agree with op 100%. Bought jumper on Vinted recently. Arrived with hole in it. Left review saying 'hole in jumper' . Seller incredulous that I wrote that, suggesting I should have contacted them directly to 'sort it out'. Er no, don't sell clothes that have holes in, I don't want to have to engage beyond receiving what I've bought in the condition in which it was described

You’re free to do what you want but it seems fair to give the company a chance to put it right before taking to the internet.

This. I try to let services solve solvable issues, and give a review including their willingness or ability to solve them. But with this there was no way to solve it.

I also leave many more positive reviews than negative, which deals with the karmic thing.