Wrote a bad trip advisor review and the location responded with my full name and called me a liar. WIBU?

[Thefatedarrow]

I had a truly bad stay at a country house hotel in England over Christmas. I was charged £1500 a night for the stay, raised issues as they happened and nothing was resolved. I resorted to writing a trip advisor review when I got home where I gave 2 stars and gave the reasons why. I was not rude or offensive and I did not describe or name anyone in the post. Just talked about the venue and how vast amounts of it is still under construction, the extras they charged for that we were not aware of, the fact that dinner was booked up every night so we had to leave the venue to eat our meals.

my username on trip advisor is from an old gmail account, so it’s a nickname eg bubbles AT gmail.com and I post reviews eg as BubblesWales - ie unidentifiable.

in their response to my review on the site they wrote “dear my full name” - so they had obviously gone on to their records, looked at who stayed in the room and cross checked with the review timing.

they then proceeded to say I had lied about the events of the stay.

AIBU or is it wrong to NAME me in their response?

Naming you is pretty appalling behaviour op and your hotel management should have been far more professional. For example if they had said something like, "we are very disappointed to hear that your experience with us was anything less than optimum as we strive at all times to offer a five star service to our valued guests, and we invite you to kindly contact us via this number to speak directly and in confidence to our admissions manager in order to resolve this issue at your convenience, blah blah" , it would immediately give you confidence that it was an off day and that you would probably receive some sort of recompense.

Replying in the combative way they did will definitely put new customers off. Especially at that price point! To immediately accuse you of lying without even speaking to you on the phone is outrageous! I'm surprised that they are not more afraid of legal comebacks from you!

But, to go from the specific to the general, I do feel it's unfair when a small family run business is destroyed by someone hiding behind anonymity to make negative review made with mischievous intentions, when the hosts obviously cannot remain anonymous! I do think it's fair if they try and bite back a bit in instances like that, as long as they do it reasonably and politely.

Well, that wasn't a clumsy and trite piece of virtue-signalling, was it? 🙄

This, I had a bad experience in a restaurant once. I wasn't really identified individually but our party was dissed as they realised 2 of us had rated the experience badly.

Crispynoodle · 19/08/2024 22:44

I need to employ a cleaner how many hours per week do I need for a 5 bedroom, 3 reception room, 3 bathrooms bearing in mind only my hubby and I are rattling around in it now. Then how much should I expect to pay per hour?

Lols

You can tell TripAdvisor you want to take down your review and the reply. If the full name was lifted from their own records rather than your username then TA should remove it for data reasons.
They do have a right to reply. It usually makes them look dreadful though. If they won't refund you and you think you've been misssold then you can try and do a chargeback or small claims court.
You can wait a month and do another review but I wouldn't advise it.

Why should OP’s review be removed? TA should just remove the reply.

Do not do this as your name is jn the review. They absolutely should not be using your real name, it is breach of GDPR. It's dangerous for them to do so. Please do not share any further identifying factors, it may just be a breach of GDPR for some but for others it's dangerous.

This!

But obv come back and tell us when your name is safely deleted

OP, you must tell us what country house hotel in England charges 1,500 a night that is partially under construction.

@Choccyscofffy yeah ideally. But if the place are claiming it's a lie there might be some dispute or something. They should definitely remove the full name, that's for sure.

Hopefully their use of OP’s names signals to TA what kind of people they are.

Sounds like Estelle, many of their reviews are shocking, friends have stayed and were horrified by the service and costs, and the marketing manager either seems to reply with Hi There or a first name that isn't part of the username.

Possibly my favourite review is the posh centreparcs for entitled parents

Not only wrong, but illegal - you did not give them permission to use your identifiable data

Report them to tripadvisor, obviously, and also file a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

The hotel can't be teeming with guests if this person correctly worked out who posted the review just based on the timing.

I was going to add that to my first response

Two things going here.

Absolutely they are clearly wrong and breaking all GDPR blah blah blah. End of. Trip Advisor will take that down when you flag it.

On the other side, 2 star reviews can be incredibly, massively damaging to a business long term and personally very upsetting. That level of rating is probably quite offensive for the staff. I get that it feels good to vent and you’re possibly feeling that you’re doing a good thing to warn future guests of the hoteL

Did you complain in writing to the owner of the hotel first? You mentioned you complained as things happened and then wrote the review? The next step should be in writing to the hotel (and give them a couple of weeks to respond), and not straight to keyboard warrior to get your own back.

Play silly games get shit prizes.

It isn't about the amount that has been spent on the night away. It is about protecting data and Identity. They have breached. I have experience of this, (not the "how much spent"). It's not the case here as far as I can gather, but it can be very much about safety. They should not have put your real name connecting location and date out there. It can be all things to alarming and down right dangerous.

Definite GDPR breach - report it to the ICO. They’ll be onto it pretty quick if the past experience of someone I know is anything to go by.

Then when your name’s been removed name and shame them on here!

What a load of victim-blaming nonsense. It’s perfectly reasonable of OP to give a 2 star review, that’s what TripAdvisor is for! To alert future customers of places which are good or bad. If they’re bad then they deserve a bad review. OP doesn’t deserve any repercussions for that.

Exactly this. TA should force them to remove her name and if they don’t then remove the reply.

If Op deletes her review they’ve just succeeded in intimidating her and will do this to others too.

And no one said businesses don’t have a right to reply, we all know they do - it’s the fact they’ve disclosed her name in this way.

Who mentioned anything about amount spent? Not me

Some businesses deserve two star ratings
Businesses who respond like this, for example
Honest reviews are essential
They are the ones playing silly games, not the OP

Yeah there’s absolutely no requirement or expectation to complain to hotels first. There’s no “next step” of writing to hotels first, it’s not 1998.

Businesses are well aware that most reviews negative or positive will be posted to tripadvisor , Google reviews etc.

No-one needs to be faffing around with sending emails then waiting weeks for them to reply unless you’re specifically asking them to do something like refund you.

And even if OP did reach out to them first what could they possibly say ? If you’ve been to a hotel and paid £1500 - or indeed any amount of money - and had a bad experience, it’s a bit too late for them to rectify it now you’ve gone and they’ve taken your money and the trip is over!

They can only learn from your review and seek to do better for other customers.

I hope so. Noone, despite their circumstances ever needs their full name shared online. It gives me the shivers that he might still find me after 17 years of separation. No kids. I have been offline for years. I was brave enough about 3 months ago to give a review. I made sure I had not my name on the email I used to give the review but GDPR gave me some hope.

No you didn't. I was quoting other PP. I agreed with you.