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.

His response is gone now. He was very rude about us

Have you googled the owner, wow what a life he's led, fascinating.

Either he has taken it down or Trip Advisor has.

My feeling is it's probably the latter. This is not a guy who ever admits he is wrong. How on Earth he could re read the response that he gave and think 'yes, that's good' is just beyond me. He just pours fuel onto the fire at every turn.

However am sure OP has screen shots of the response.

I for one can tell you her first name, where she lives and her very identifiable job.

I wonder what the GDPR violation compensation is like? OP might be going on some very nice North Devon holidays soon.

Grim

Easy to find this hotel by copying and pasting quotes above. It has had similar reviews in the past. This is not a new problem it seems.

mygenericusername

Copy and paste any of the text into your browser. From the reviews above.

Must've been taken back down, doesn't show now

Gutted I missed his response. Was it very Trumpesque?

If it's as bad as indicated, at least it is a very clear indication that he has no intention of pursuing defamation proceedings

There’s a pub over road from me that has a trampoline with a broken net. I often see the kids playing in it and think is he mad!!?? I couldn’t sleep at night if I ran that pub. Talk about leaving yourself wide open to trouble.

Oh I can’t believe I missed his reply. If someone screen shot it, I’d be grateful for pm. Thank you

If anyone has screenshots and is sharing, please remove OP’s personal details from it first.

TooTrusting
It was rude, arrogant and contained a lot of identifying details about the OP.

In a nutshell, he threw his toys out the pram, thinks Mumsnet is full of meanies and doesn't like people discussing information about him that's in the public domain and has been for ages.

Can someone please PM me the name of this place. All my googling turns up nothing.

He can’t sue. If you truly believed and that was your honest experience and interpretation at the time, then you have the right to post tour review. He just trying to bully you into removing it.

@AdoreTheBeach

Oh I can’t believe I missed his reply. If someone screen shot it, I’d be grateful for pm. Thank you

Me too! Thanks

@AdoreTheBeach

Oh I can’t believe I missed his reply. If someone screen shot it, I’d be grateful for pm. Thank you

I must admit to being curious to read it. If it is defamatory, or even just derogatory and nasty, as the posts suggest, then it's a game changer for how OP should deal with/perceive his solicitor's letter. As a lawyer, I used to do a lot of defamation cases, but haven't been involved in anything like that for a long time.

It’s back up, with some edits.

Highly defamatory, much more so than any potential defamation in OP's review.
He's not intending to take this any further. His solicitor would have told him not to post any reply, particularly one like this. If he does try, OP can counter-claim.

the curtain pole was unfortunate and we have apologised. How she managed to pull it and the whole curtain off the wall is anyone’s guess.

Sounds like he's saying the Op did it intentionally to cause damage.

He can ramble on as much as he likes, the photos speak a thousand words, or a billion, in his case.

This place might have been awful but the thread has an extremely nasty tone.

Oh, Mr M. I have second hand embarrassment for you! >.

@derxa How? There wouldn’t be a thread if the owner replied like a rational human being to any negative comments. Something like ‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your stay with us, please come again and we’ll show you we can do better’
Or ‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your stay with us, we’ve been overwhelmed this season and not been able to keep to our usual high standards and for that we apologise’
Or
‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your stay with us. I don’t think we were quite what you were looking for in a hotel, but I hope you enjoyed everything Devon has to offer’

Rather than ‘you are a nasty vindictive lying woman and I hope you never come back to our hotel or even Devon’ - which is pretty much what he says to anyone who writes anything negative about his hotel.

Nope, I don’t think this thread has a nasty tone unless you are talking about the comments that the owner has made on a public forum which have been copied and pasted on here. They are pretty nasty.

Love the way he says the Consultant Neurologist loved the place. Its Consultant/Dr top trumps