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?

I once reviewed a restaurant on Tripadvisor after having a very poor meal. The manager actually called my MIL, who had done the booking, to complain. She was very upset and I ended up removing my review.

I know poor reviews harm businesses but honestly some businesses deserve these reviews.

Write to trip advisor to ask them to remove your name.

It's not something you gave your consent to and there's no legitimate interest.

Oh for goodness sake. For all you know the OP might typically spend £5k a night on a hotel and have donated £7k to a food bank already.

OP they aren't allowed to do this, so echoing others, report them! My business uses a third party review system and it actually has an auto pop-up that stops us posting a reply to an anonymous review if it thinks we've written the name in our response.

Actually I disagree quite a bit. You can complain in a more decent manner than a crap review. More often than not you’ll receive an apology and something appropriate to make amends (example: I had an awful night at Claridges and they gave me an apology and a whole weekend for free after I emailed them). In general, businesses do reply and do try to make amends if you give them a chance. I’m not talking a Virgin Media or RyanAir, but a five star hotel should.

Absolutely not excusing them for revealing OPs name though. That’s truly awful. I wonder who did it? I’m imagining a Basil Fawlty type character but equally could be a misguided member of staff.

You can do what you want in terms of sending an email first, but what i’m saying is it’s perfectly reasonable and very normal for a disgruntled or unhappy customer to go straight to a review in 2025 after a bad experience.

It’s not necessarily more “decent” to email first before writing a genuine review of the experience you had. It’s just a different choice. It’s really helpful for customers when people are bold enough to let others know their experience of a hotel.

Especially in this case considering they raised the issue during their stay and the hotel didn’t solve the problem. They had their chance to deal with it at the time and they apparently failed to do so.

And yeah if OP emailed they may possibly have fobbed them off with an offer of a free night or something, but her initial stay there was still impacted.

And anyway if this hotel was the kind of business who were up for trying to make amends, they would’ve handled her review very differently and replied with something like “sorry you feel like this, please contact us to discuss this”. This is what many places do in response to bad reviews partly in the hope that they can make some kind of amends which will lead to the reviewer updated and amending the review.

OP did the right thing and their response proved that.

It’s a fair point.

I just honestly wouldn’t go nuclear like that without a formal complaint first. I just don’t think that’s fair unless we’re talking ‘Wonka Experience’ levels of ineptitude.

Either way, ‘Basil Fawlty’ is going to love it when their response gets taken down by Tripadvisor. Doubt a free weekend to make amends is going to arrive anytime soon for the OP!

OP have you asked for a refund? Might be worth speaking to your bank? You can also contact trading standards if your stay was that bad.

The very fact the hotel has done that would suggest to any reader that there's truth in what you're saying and make the venue look even worse!

To the person suggesting a Trustpilot review - they’re actually much worse. The reviews on there are hugely skewed to the business as they’ll insist anything vaguely negative be removed if it can’t be traced to a direct review link. It’s also full of bot responses.

Its absolutely horrible of them to announce your full name to the internet, and their response was completely uncalled for. You were completely reasonable.

This is absolutely unacceptable & a reckless misuse of your information.

What if you were staying in that hotel and location because you were leaving a domestic violence situation ?

If you used a booking agent or site to book your visit you could make a formal complaint against the venue and the owners.
Unfortunately this can be a bit fruitless if you booked as a group and are not the lead name on the booking. It this is the case and they still used your name to respond to your review, they are clearly in breach of data protection and after paying the price you stated then you should take every action against them for yourself and future customers from the unpleasant experience and disrespect you have suffered. Good luck

If it’s possible, edit the review and downgrade to 1 star, include the reason why and ask trip advisor to remove the response as it has your full name.

Take print screens, report to the ICO as a GFPR breach. Also calling you a liar is highly unprofessional seen as trip advisor is not a fact based site. It’s reviews based on experiences and opinions. Two people having the exact same experience will interpret the trip and experience differently.

Cardboard box?? Save the trees! Sleep on the street.

I believe it’s unlawful to publish personal details, including a name, without consent (GDPR). Threaten to complaint to IOC unless they take it down immediately. And add the unlawful data breach to your review.

For £1,500 a night, they should be bending over backwards with a ‘customer is always right’ attitude. People with that kind of money to spend will complain or sue at the drop of a hat. So, they don’t have a great business model.

I think this is a tricky one. The business doesn’t get to be anonymous so it is a bit of an imbalance of power. I don’t mind my name on reviews as I don’t think you should be able to write something potentially damaging to someone without putting your name to it. Also, a lot of people name individual employees in trip advisor reviews.

How disappointing. V v unprofessional. I am surprised a hotel at this cost did such a thing.

If a business like a hotel were anonymous it wouldn't be a business for very long though, would it? It's a hotel not some nefarious set up on the dark Web.

I would be spitting hairs if I paid £1500 a night and it wasn't an absolutely transcendent experience....crazy!

NOPE!. if you are charging that amount, you should be absolutely perfect.

Of course the business can’t be anonymous! That is my point and why there is an imbalance of power when reviewers can be.

This is 💯 gdpr breech and I’d screenshot it all now and report to ICO

At £1500 pn I’d expect perfection.
depending on the issues I’d be looking at the stay in detail and whether there is scope for raising a dispute with your credit card company or going via small claims to receive a partial refund.

ideally you have NC for this thread should also name and shame the hotel on here too… what fuckers…

I also question whether they’d be responding this aggressively if you were a man.

Well said👏🏿. They had a chance to rectify already. Shocking customer service for that price point

@femfemlicious & @Thecrawdadssing
YES! exactly this.
from the op:

I raised issues as they happened and nothing was resolved.

I don’t get why the op is supposed to give them multiple opportunities to do the right things. She raised the issues during her stay, that was the opportunity to correct it.

she is perfectly entitled to say she had a sub par experience and frankly as a potential customer if I was paying £1500 pn and was going to have to leave the hotel to dine every night I’d want to know that before I dropped 10k on a stay.

There isn't an inbalbalance of power though is there. The hotel knows exactly who she is. Why does the rest of the world need to know?