to think there a lot of lies on trip advisor

[necromumda]

Currently sitting in a very dodgy B&B which rated highly on reviews. Smells dreadful and is creepy as hell.

There ARE a lot of lies...so annoyed I didnt check my title.

When I was at an awful Indian restaurant once the owner was offering a discount if you submitted a positive review there and then! I didn't as it was genuinely awful.

There are tons of fake reviews. Companies can buy them in bulk.

the only way to trust them is to read through all of them and see if there are any common threads in them. if more than 2 or 3 complain about the same thing then chances are its real.

There are a lot of lies by owners of establishments, I know that. One replied to my honest, but bad review with a pack of them, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Anyone seen a review recently of a hotel that brought out the single ordered starter with all the rest of the food and then the staff abused the guests when the guests were nothing but polite....?

#2roundsofwater

Which hotel Shirley? That was a thread on here wasn't it and people weren't entirely supportive of the poster...

I heard a very interesting article on the radio, which detailed a man who was paid for reviews. He made up a restaurant and left brilliant reviews, got friends to leave reviews etc. It escalated into people wanting to come to the restaurant and it becoming a "hotspot" despite it not actually existing.
So yes- lies and media have a lot to answer for.

Oui indeed Flyme. Would love to know the other side!

Here’s the made up restaurant which became number 1 in the UK despite not existing

www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor

We went somewhere, and the waitress said if we left a positive review on their Facebook page there and then , that she would give us a discount there and then.

YANBU. I've stopped trusting Trip Advisor for this reason.

Of course there are.

I had to laugh in the week when I was looking at one place's reviews. The owners responded to a review but clearly didn't understand the system because they claimed to be a happy customer who just had to refute the bad review left

we booked a hotel based on location and reviews.
It was nothing if basic, with lumpy beds, furnace hot rooms and on a noisy road- none of which had been mentioned. Breakfast was truly dreadful (itmade Holiday Inn Express look like michelin starred fayre), yet received masses of compliments.

My review was badly received ...' we have never received reviews like this before'. Then several reviews like mine appeared. So I think they mass uploaded good reviews to overcome the bad.

Completely agree that ‘bought reviews’ have ruined a Trip Advisor.

You can generally spot them though as they tend to follow a formula.

Don’t you think the review system generally is pointless now though?
Amazon, Google, Trust Pilot etc. are just full of filler reviews, bought en-mass. Same with Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. It’s so hard to find a true, unbiased review these days.

Trusted Traders and MyBuilder are two more sites which are just used by dodgy traders to re-build poor reputations.

I don’t know what the answer is beyond word of mouth but even then Ive been let down and disappointed.

I know a place in Vietnam that will tell guests that if they don't write enough positive reviews on trip advisor they won't get paid for that month. I think they were receiving a bonus when somebody wrote something on trip advisor, but they would make people feel sorry for them. I also know of another general manager who would take negative posts down, especially when the posts were about her.

And I remember being at a conference in Uganda, and the hotel, the manager had quite poor English skills, so his reviews were definitely identifiable. Anyway he wrote that they had hosted a bunch of blind people and how great it was. Granted, the conference was really good, the food was great, they really tried. I stayed in that hotel after the conference and made a few friends in Uganda as well. Since I am a night owl, the surf learned to make a perfect very strong iced coffee for me during the night. And spicy samosas. So I was happy with them. But yes, there are a lot of lies on ship advisor. Trip advisor.

You have to use it wisely - I automatically disregard any reviewer who has only made one or two posts. And as a pp said, look for a theme.

I tend to use the forums more as the information is more rounded.

I reported a Hotel once for having positive reviews from people who lived ten miles away. They were clearly bogus.

YANBU. A friend has posted several FB posts about an awful restaurant that had Fawlty Tower type reviews which were so bad they were almost hilarious. Said shitshow now has 117 positive reviews from one time commentators in poor English. I left a negative pretending I had been to the place and would have been saved a wasted journey had I noticed that all the positive reviews were fake. Naughty, but I really love the type of food the restaurant offers and life is to short to have bad experiences of this cuisine!

I also know of another general manager who would take negative posts down, especially when the posts were about her.

It's actually very difficult to get reviews taken down. It took exh 3 months and a load of evidence to get the to remove a false negative review.

Review sites are always full of lies. Customers lie and exagarated, owners will want more reviews, owners lie in replies.

Shocking. I work for a attraction that genuinely has 97% positive on trip advisor and they are very proud of that and are obsessed with keeping up the rating. The Bain things that let them down are price of gift shop and food. Other wise everything seems to be right.

No one has ever asked me to write a fake review tho.

YANBU. There are also fake bad reviews too. We went on a spur of the moment weekend to a hotel about an hour or so away from us. The most recent reviews absolutely slammed it although previous ones were glowing. It was a fantastic hotel and we got the real story from the receptionist who told us the bad reviews were from a bridezilla and her entire wedding party. As PP's have said, look for a theme

A local branch of a car hire firm does this. Big name, begins with E.

Dozens of one-liner reviews along the lines of, 'Hayley really looked after us,' and 'Dave was a great help.' Fuck all about the actual vehicles and charges. Hayley and Dave are obviously writing them themselves. They're not subtle.

On the back of these reviews, I thought I'd better pop in and see the set-up before renting. What a shit-show. When I asked for details of collision waivers I had thrust at me a hastily hand-written piece of paper with 'tyre' spelled 'tire', my name was copied down wrongly from my driving license, and no-one could give me a definitive pick-up time.

I had the same last yr. Took dp. Away for his birthday. Hotel had great reviews..
There wasn't even curtains in the room but a large blanket pinned up.
First morning had breakfast.. Was ill all day. Thought down to pregnancy.
Next morning went for the continental breakfast. The little sticks of cheese were mouldy and warm.. Can only assume never refrigerated.
No onev would get me a manager..despite trying many times.
Never again.
Luckily we didn't let it ruin our weekend and found some. Lovely places to eat etc.

@LineRunner and yet our branch of E is genuinely fantastic and I would write glowing reviews all day long. So if reviews were genuine customers would have genuine choice about which branch to pick AND management would be able to identify areas of improvement.