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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be shocked to receive an abusive private message on Tripadvisor

35 replies

Organa · 14/10/2011 12:43

I posted a few reviews yesterday that got published this morning. Some were good but but here was one place I'd been to where the staff were really not great and I said so, describing what I'd seen and experienced.

After I sent the post I read through the other bad reviews and I noticed that the manager almost always responds but usually by trying to discredit the reviewer e.g. in one response she points out that the person was a not the bill payer, so they had no grounds for complaint that their room was dirty/ food was cold etc.

Today I get a private message from someone telling me to mind my own business and I am slightly shocked!

OP posts:

aldiwhore · 14/10/2011 12:45

Great customer service that! hahah!! I'd be tempted to write another review about the lack of politeness from the manager... is it Basil Fawlty?

sloggies · 14/10/2011 12:45

Not sure what to suggest. Didn't know that there was a facility to PM you, as it were.

kelly2000 · 14/10/2011 12:46

Write another review copying in the message along with the sender details saying you had no idea who sent it, but this is what you received.
The complain to tripadvisor.

DorisIsTheDarkDestroyer · 14/10/2011 12:47

Can you forward it to the trip advisor team to let them know this is happening on their site (if they don't already know).

ChippingIn · 14/10/2011 12:47

Do what Kelly said.

I didn't even know you could get private messages on Trip Advisor?!

Hullygully · 14/10/2011 12:48

Someone needs to tell Buppy.

CertainlyToomsRemains · 14/10/2011 12:51

arf.

I just did Hully.

Original poster

Organa · 14/10/2011 12:51

I didn't know you can do PMs either, until I got an email saying I had one. They are supposed to be to ask questions about your review.

I've forwarded it to trip advisor and blocked the sender. TBH as name-calling goes it was school playground like. I've seen much riper language on MN!

OP posts:

LadyEvilEyes · 14/10/2011 12:52

And talking of Trip Adviser, someone on MN had a link to the funniest ever Trip Adviser reviews which I've never been able to find again.
So if anyone can find the link I would be very happy.

CertainlyToomsRemains · 14/10/2011 12:54

It's in Classics LBE.

Putrifyno · 14/10/2011 12:55

Here

LadyEvilEyes · 14/10/2011 12:58

Thank you, both Certainly and Putrifyno .

Bunbaker · 14/10/2011 13:17

I once wrote a less than complimentary review about a hotel we had stayed in three times. We returned each time because it had been so good. However, it had gone down hill a lot by visit three. The owner wrote a very defensive reply and accused me of making some things up.

The irony is that the hotel has now undergone extensive refurbishment and the reviews now are brilliant. The old reviews have now disappeared so it looks like this place has always been excellent.

Sadly, I doubt whether we would be made welcome there any more. Which is a shame because the place is one of my favourite holiday destinations and the location of the hotel is the best in the area.

Original poster

Organa · 14/10/2011 13:27

Its a bit strange when a hotel gets lots of poor reviews and lots of good reviews. If half the reviewers say that the staff are rude, the rooms dirty and the food unappetising but the other half say the opposite, then who can you believe?

OP posts:

sloggies · 14/10/2011 13:35

Tis odd Organa, but I have had that experience. Been to same hotel a couple of times, all fine. The next time had bad experience of one staff member who was quite rude, and very intermittent wi-fi coverage. Trip Advisor had about half and half reviews, like you said.

Fifis25StottieCakes · 14/10/2011 13:40

id post the pm

MrsChemist · 14/10/2011 13:44

People are more likely to post poor reviews. So if it's half and half, it's probably not bad. We were told at work that for someone to tell their friends about a good experience, service had to be spot-on and exceptional, but you only have to make one mistake for them to give a bad review.

ShirleyKnot · 14/10/2011 13:45

On our latest holiday we ended up in a...well, I hesitate to say shithole because it would be offensive to my opwn lovely anus, but it really was an actual shithole.

Anyway, the sexpestmanager was bribing people with free drinks if they let him fill out the questionnaire that the holiday company provided for feedback (ARE YOU READING THIS OLYMPIC YOU PILE OF POOP?) and I have a strong suspicion that the same was happening with Trip Advisor reviews.

If there's a 50/50 split and the bad reviews are specific and repeated by many (stuff like..."The smell coming from the drains was enough to make a maggot retch") then you can bet your bottom that the place is probably a hole. (I also check complainers' previous reviews if poss. If they are a Victor then it will soon become obvious)

Fifis25StottieCakes · 14/10/2011 13:45

Sorry pressed post. In 2010 i went to Bulgaria, it was awful. I put the review on trip advisor. I got a message from a woman from Norway who was there the same time as me and had an awful time. She started a group on FB warning people what it was like and to discuss complaints. Turns out it had been on watchdogand. She the made me an administrator. I got absolutely loads of horrible messages from Bulgarians and Russians so i had to leave the group

GnomeDePlume · 14/10/2011 13:46

Organa my experience is that hotels can be very different at weekends compared to in the week and whether it's a business booking or a private one.

I stayed midweek in quite a posh golf hotel for a work jolly. Great experience, great service. Went there again a few weeks later at a weekend with DH. Completely different. Poor service, off food, poorly prepared room. It seemed like a completely different place except that the buildings were the same.

Original poster

Organa · 14/10/2011 13:47

what about the repeated use of the phrase "ignore the bad reviews" on the good reviews? Does it make you wonder if the same person is drafting the good ones?

OP posts:

ShirleyKnot · 14/10/2011 13:49

You can report "suspicious" reviews.

The place we went had really quite good reviews before we went. I've just checked it again and there's been an avalanche of "HOLIDAY FROM HELL!!!!" type ones this year. God it was horrible.

Pandemoniaa · 14/10/2011 13:56

I'd report this email straight to Trip Advisor. I'm sure they have, within their terms and conditions, the customary requirement not to harass other users of the site.

It's very odd though the mixed review thing. We recently stayed at a fantastic B & B in Italy. Fortunately DP had booked it before I discovered two reviews that described it as "dirty" because while I take quite a lot of what is said on Trip Advisor with a pinch of salt - in particular you have to be careful with some reviews from less well travelled Americans who have difficulty with bathrooms that don't have tubs or the size of rooms in hotels in medieval cities! - but I don't like dirt. Let alone see it mentioned in more than one review.

However, in reality the place was clearly very clean and this cleaning took place thoroughly every singe day. I can only suppose that the negative reviews came from people who have a bizarre idea of what constitutes cleanliness. What I will do is write a very positive review in order to redress the balance though.

We do live very close to the town which has one of Trip Advisor's "Hotels from Hell" in it and certainly, I can imagine anyone having the nerve to add their abominable experience to the 76 pages of negativity would get short shrift from the owner. But that's tough. Her choice is simple. Improve the fucking place or sell up. It's never acceptable to send shitty private messages.

Suckstobeme · 14/10/2011 14:32

I posted on Trip Advisor, and while the place was lovely we had a terrible time with the owner. I never cry and he had me in tears twice in a week.
I posted that the hotel/pool were amazing but I wouldn't bring a toddller again. (fast dangerous rd/no paths/loooong walk to shop) The next poster was really horrible about me!
I just pm'd her saying i'm glad she had a great time but we all have different experiences.
The whole essence of trip advisor is that everybody speaks from their own personal experience! I would pm them too Organa.

Original poster

Organa · 14/10/2011 14:44

I suspect that the person who wrote to me is connected with the hotel. They wrote to me within two hours of my post going live. Their username used the county name where the hotel is.

The message was semi-literate and childish though, so either the hotel manager is clever enough to able to write in two styles or she's got her seven year old to do it for her!

I sent it to tripadvisor with a note saying that I think it breaches their code of conduct but I am going to forget it now because the hotel is just not that important. I'd already decided not to go there again anyway. (The whole place smelled of school dinners circa 1980! I can't think how they achieved that effect!)

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