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?

They should not have used your real name, TripAdvisor have whole posts on how users can stay anonymous; pointless if a hotel is then going to use your real name!

Do report onto TripAdvisor.

Don’t be ridiculous.

We can all play that game. YABU spending time on Mumsnet - that time would have been better spent volunteering for a worthwhile cause. While you are at it, you should sell whatever device you are using to access the internet and give that money to charity.

I often think the combination of anonymity and the big audience that the internet provides harms more people than it protects. Calling something ‘enshrined by law’ makes it sound sacred but maybe the law is wrong.

I’m talking more generally than a random poster who may be completely justified in complaining about a hotel. People get away with saying so much nasty stuff online without having to take any responsibility for it.

Oh dear, they've been very foolish. The ICO take these kind of data breaches very seriously and the fines are pretty steep.
It's incredibly unprofessional and they will be in a lot of trouble. Please do report them as if that is the attitude to personal data they need a short sharp wake up call.

A new cafe opened up in my town , it was advertised as quirky & unusual so I thought my kind of place .
I visited about 4 weeks later and was not impressed .
They had furnished it in 2nd hand unusual furniture , think sewing tables for a table , a small door for another , different types of chairs all mismatched etc .
Yes quirky & unusual , so that's ok , but the place was filthy .
The longer you waited for your coffee the more grubby you noticed . The waitress / person at the counter was very uninterested in customers as well , but not her phone , was on that constantly .
Needed the loo , one toilet , but no paper. Reported it to the waitress ( still scrolling on the phone ) so I went back to my seat to wait for her to go sort it out . She didn't bother , so I went to the loo , and used a paper hanky I had.
Put a review on TripAdvisor saying place needed a clean , an inattentive waitress & about the loo .
The owner did a reply and basically called me a liar , the place is spotless & her staff fantastic .
Didn't go back and I assume due to lack of customers the place closed a year or so after .

I would report to ICO as a breach of GDPR.

Not this again 🙄

Ha. Well the hotel has done a good job of damaging its own reputation by trying to shame the OP then. I accept that many people only tend to review in extremes of liking or hating a place. So I take occasional bad reviews with a pinch of salt.

But if there is a defensive or rude response from a business, I will avoid it like the plague.

Report it to trip advisor and they should remove the post with your name on it

I wouldn't report them to the ICO to begin with.

I would look up their privacy policy online and issue a complaint following the process they outline in the document. Following that, if they don't issue you with what you believe is an adequate response, then raise a complaint with the ICO.

Honestly - I don't believe they'll get much come back from the ICO who are very understaffed and the backlog is ridiculous. Therefore if you can prove they've not followed their own privacy policy in naming you online (newsflash: they 99.99% haven't - no privacy policy would say it's Ok to post PII online in that fashion) , when you issue your complaint, I'd suggest asking for the response to be removed, however they are going to avoid this happening in the future and a potential refund.

They're in the wrong - I just wouldn't expect the ICO to be overly helpful in this instance.

I'm sure posters are right re the data protection. However, when I read a review and then the place concerned comes back to defend itself I think they are even worse. They should either not respond or apologise.

Have you looked through other TA reviews, to find out if they bullied other customers who left negative reviews?

Complain directly to the hotel management about your original concerns and also regarding their behaviour on TA. If you haven't already, try and complain directly to TA regarding their response to you.

You can report to TA and probably include evidence and the unpleasant response. They should uphold it.

Just a quick note that whilst a full name is personal data, it is highly unlikely to be sensitive personal data (what is categorised as ‘special category’ under GDPR) as that is a separate category, which includes sexual orientation, medical data etc. Still agree that what the location has done is a breach, but mentioning sensitive personal data when it’s not will undermine OP’s complaint.

This happened to me as well with a UK Clothing company! They were horrible in the reply, emailed me personally and reported me as being a competitor. 🤣

I haven’t reviewed anywhere since. It was quite stressful.

£1500 a night? I’ve stayed in some amazing 5 star hotels in my life and the cost has rarely been anything approaching that!

Can you clarify what you received for that rate - was it a suite for a family with full board?

Regardless, that’s really poor behaviour - they should take a bad review on the chin, apologise and offer to investigate.

Doesn't matter how much it costs if op wants ti spend 1500 or 50e that's up to her. sweet f all to do with you.

My thoughts exactly.

I mean there could be a possibility that it was a group booking, vouchers for a stay, a gift to/from the OP, or, that OP already donates generously to food banks but let's not let that get in the way of the opportunity to lecture a person on how they lead their life....

I'm sure that's illegal. If I saw a review where a company or worse, a hotel did that I'd make sure to never do any business with them.

Name the hotel please OP so we I can add it to my blacklist.

While the OP's details should be removed from the hotels reply, I would really like the rest of their reply to remain for posterity.

It's very useful as a potential customer to see how businesses respond to negative reviews. If they refuse to accept responsibility and blame customers for their own fuck ups, I would always avoid.

OP said it was over Christmas - I suspect a lot of hotels charge MUCH higher rates to stay over those dates than at any other time (I know holiday cottages double or triple their prices for example).

I disagree: you have bad, lying businesses and also bad, lying customers. I think they should have the right to their say - particularly as their business is the publicly known party, whilst the reviewer (should be) a private, anonymous person.

Usually, you can read between the lines and have a pretty good idea whether one side or the other seems to be the one in the wrong, or if it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Normally, people - businesses or individuals - 'show their hand' and over-egg their 'case' when they're being mendacious and/or have something to hide; but if they don't, it must be devastating for an excellent, caring, attentive 5-star business to get a bad review from somebody seeking attention/wanting a freebie/with narc tendencies. If there are 999 5-star reviews and a single 1-star review, which one will everybody look at first?

Reputation management is important for any discerning, well-run business. You can't just say that, because they elevate themselves and charge high prices, they need special treatment and 'understanding'. If anything - not that I believe they should have to - a lot of higher end businesses that value their 'premium' reputation will err on the side of being taken for advantage by 'difficult' customers in order to protect their good reputation.

As for them thinking they have 'the right' to intimidate OP because of a bad review, that's like me saying I have the right to punch a Tesco cashier if she didn't smile at me and offer to help with packing my bags.

For everyone saying ''OW MUCH???!!' if it was over Christmas then I'm not surprised at the costs, but I am surprised that Christmas dinner at least wasn't included, especially since 'eating out' around Christmas time is a bit hit and miss with a lot of places being fully booked/closed, so the hotel was definitely pushing its luck there. Did they not give you priority booking for a table? Sounds very shoddy to me.

I'm another who always look at the replies to negative reviews. If they are respectful, whether or not they agree, then it's a huge positive for the place. As soon as they make any problems the customer's fault or start lengthy bullshitting explanations - I am not using them.