Hotel threatening to sue us for bad review

[Itsalongwayto]

Unashamedly posting in AIBU for traffic. We stayed in a truly dreadful place over the August BH weekend. I wrote to the owner afterwards expressing our displeasure and with a long list of complaints including unsecure blind pulls, a trampoline with no safety net, water features with no warning, general filth and 1980s decor (I expect more at £300/night). Additionally one of the curtain poles fell down on my head. He wrote back ignoring most of my points but stating that he was disappointed that I hadn’t said thank you to them for fixing the curtain pole so quickly . I submitted a review on reevoo and Tripadvisor, neither of which have been published yet......but he has emailed threatening to sue us if we don’t take our review down (I’m assuming he has been sent a preview). We have photographs of everything except the awful smell.
I’m assuming it’s safe to just ignore and block? I’m not taking my review down.

I've had my first ever deletion in over 16 years of being on MN

No idea what was wrong with what I said though 🤔

It was probably the vag picture you attached

My post was removed for making what I thought was a very mild joke in response to the letters after the name

🤣🤣🤣 oh dear Mr M, I’m cringing for you.

I cant even remember what I wrote but it was deleted?

I think it was something like my husband, a solicitor, laughed at the case argument and no reputable solicitor would touch this with a barge pole.

Not sure why that was deleted?

Who is reporting all these posts?? I haven't seen any posts that would warrant that. Is the hotel owner or a friend of his an MN poster by any chance??

Admin - for the purposes of full disclosure, can you please clarify why these posts were deleted?

Just hit refresh and a lot of posts I thought were fairly unremarkable have vanished. Sharing PP's confusion as to why? @MNHQ

I too have had my first deletion for stating my opinion of said gentleman based on his reported behaviour, and evidenced by his written replies on TA.

Who is reporting all these posts??
The owner has found the thread as he demanded the mumsnet posts be removed via the solicitor letter i think. A few legal people have confirmed that he has no grounds to sue and is just doing it to intimidate the op. A journalist said over her 20 year career she's had countless solicitor letters but it has never once made it to court as they were factual, like the op's review is.

The owner just keeps digging that hole doesn't he? Keeping his gob shut from day one wouldn't have prompted this thread at all.

A pleasant, apologetic reply with an admission of failures and clear intents to address the issues would have made this a complete non-post.

Now by pushing it and yep, probably reporting comments and replies, he's making himself MN infamous and all those being drawn to read his astonishingly I'll-advised attacks on unhappy patrons makes all of us even less likely to ever spend any money in his establishment in the future.

Silly, self destructive behaviour.

People who are very used to getting their own way and find it upsetting to face any sort of constructive criticism perhaps aren’t best suited to the hospitality industry.

Come on peeps, please stop linking Mr M, the reviews or the hotel in posts!!

Why doesn’t he just fix what’s wrong? Pretty obvious.

What a nasty story testingmitb. I can't believe someone would publicly announce their plan to deliberately neglect a village pub so they can try to build houses that have already been declined.

Based on what is in the public domain already, this man seems to consider himself a permanent victim any time anyone challenges his businesses or conduct.

Panicwiththebisto
Is that why the thread is becoming full of holes?
If so, then I don't see why people aren't allowed to discuss information that is already in the public domain. There's regularly threads on here that link to online news.

I know this stuff is in the public domain, I’m thinking of the OP and her potential legal bills!

I'm not a legal bod, but is the OP responsible for other people talking about something published in the news?

It does seem like this business owner is quite happy to dish it out (based on public replies to reviews and what's already published in the press in case he's still snooping), but quick to try and bully others into silence (again based on items in the press and on Trip Advisor).

Maybe it is difficult to find contractors to carry out remedial works if they think they are not going to get paid without a legal wrangle.

I have posted on the other thread.

No, the OP is not responsible for what other people post on this thread, but she did start the thread, and people have linked to the owner, the hotel, the review, have gone on to the review to mark it as helpful, all of which could be seen as her conducting a campaign against him.

And people say that he can’t do anything. Clearly he can. He’s already sent the OP a solicitor’s letter, people say he won’t go to court, but he quite possibly could.

Having been there on a far less public platform, trust me when I say that the stress this could cause the OP is really not worth it.

If he carries on then this will cost her financially, because she will need to seek some legal advice if nothing else. And the mythical “all solicitors will offer half an hour of free advice” really aren’t out there...

The OP really would be best to remove the review and ask for these threads to be deleted.

The review was perfectly factual, and if he’d threatened to sue then OP could quite probably have called his bluff.

But these threads and what MN’ers have posted on them haven’t helped matters, in fact could have made them far worse for the OP.

And the helpful marks aren’t genuine as people have literally gone off this thread on to the review to mark it as helpful.

So from his perspective it is a deliberate effort to bring down his business.

There’s a difference between reviewing a business as a shithole and essentially encouraging other people to spread the word far and wide by adding their likes to said review even though they have never and will never go there.

These aren’t people who have looked at reviews with the view to going to stay there, these are people who have looked at the review with a view to making sure no-one else wants to go there.

@Fantabulous1

Just reading some of his wankerish responses. Signs off after his name with...

DipFS CFPCM Chartered MCSI FPFS FCIB

Can anyone translate? Lol

Diploma in Financial Studies, Certified Financial Planner (the CM means that CFP is a "Certification Mark" - a type of trademark), Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.

Other thread?

I agree on the ‘helpful’ comments on TA FWIW.