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?

Absolutely this. I couldn't help smiling at the posts claiming the hotel will be in "big trouble" and could have to pay a four-figure fine for this.

But what if it's a vexatious/CF review? Surely they shouldn't have to either apologise or keep silent when somebody has behaved appallingly towards them and then makes themselves out to be the victim?

I see a reply to a review as a valuable part of the review itself. As long as people stick to the facts and respectfully counter any lies or exaggerations, it speaks volumes - one way or the other, and is very helpful to me in deciding whether to use their business or not.

Some people - whether they have Main Character Syndrome, narcissism or are just generally entitled and arrogant - will claim anything to 'justify' the claim that they're trying to make. Also, some people thrive on complaining about everything: the only thing that would genuinely make them unhappy would be if their experience was perfect and there was nothing whatsoever to complain about!

For example, if they had to wait 20 minutes for their food in a restaurant (as opposed to, say, McDonalds), they might have wanted it instantly but realise that the waiting time was perfectly reasonable and realistic - so instead of just not posting a bad review, they will frame it as "waiting an hour and a half for our meals"; complain about "filthy cutlery" when they themselves knocked a fork on to the floor etc.

This reminds me of this campsite, hilarious replies by the owner to negative reviews, whereby he publishes the campers' full names, addresses and workplaces 🤣

https://www.reddit.com/r/galway/comments/13atcyw/anyone_ever_been_to_clifden_eco_beach_camping_the/

Oh and he apparently emails people's employers to let them know too 🤣🤣🤣

There's a difference between a respectful reply, which factually explains the situation and goes on to show how it was rectified at the time or what measures are put in place to stop it happening again and the 'well, you were a filthy skank who tried to run off without paying and anyway that window has never closed and anyway...' replies.

I agree completely; however the PP I quoted said that businesses shouldn't respond at all.

I quite agree that businesses should have a right of reply. It always aggravates me that Amazon book reviews won't let you go in and point out the total stupidity and point-missing of someone who's left your book a 1 star review because they have misread something!

Why should OP have complained in writing to the owner first, and waited weeks for a response? Surely the whole point of Tripadvisor is to tell other prospective visitors about the author's experience at a place. If the experience was not good, it warns others what might happen to them.

If the complaints made at the time had been dealt with sympathetically and effectively, the OP would not have wanted to write the review as they did. And if it was a one-off problem the review would not harm the establishment as it would be obvious to readers, from all the other reviews, that such a poor experience was highly unusual.

Presumably you don’t object to reviewers writing glowing reviews after just one visit. Do you think only good reviews should be allowed? What would be the point of that?

Why should OP have complained in writing to the owner first

because the ICO ask you to go through the companies complaints process first

How could anyone possibly "evidence" things like unfriendly staff, long waiting times, bland-tasting or cold food, facilities deemed by the consumer unworthy of the high prices charged, etc?

Thanks, whether or not that is the hotel in question here that gave me an enjoyable 20 mins reading all the crap reviews!

Before complaining to the ICO, yes. But the ICO wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the post I was commenting on. The poster recognised the GDPR problem and recommended asking TripAdvisor to remove the offending reply, and the rest of the post was purely about the poor experiences during the visit. That was what they said should have been discussed in a written complaint from the OP before the review was posted.

I got a one star review because they said my book turned up with a ripped page or it looked second hand or something 😂 I’m assuming it either got damaged in a warehouse or someone returned it in bad condition and amazon resold it.

Personally I really don’t mind not being able to reply . That would just send authors on a bad spiral IMO you can reply on goodreads though but most authors very sensibly don’t.

So yeah anyone who thinks due to me supporting the Op, I don’t know what it feels like to get bad reviews I certainly do! And it’s way more personal when someone drags your creative work.

Exactly, if you’re a business owner or like me - a creative writer - you do hope people won’t make up fake reviews etc and you should flag it with the review company if that’s what you think, but at the same time you’ve got to suck it up when someone expresses their subjective opinion.

You'd be surprised. The ICO has been very helpful to me. I guess the hotel can find out for themselves.

Yes agree with this - I once had a hotel reply that I must have stayed months ago as all issues had been resolved. I posted the review two days after I stayed (and obviously you state what month and year you visited the place) but couldn't reply to correct that assumption.

OP's not been back but this really sounded like an Oxfordshire location which has terrible reviews, if it was, the review is there but they've removed their reply!

Aha someone already named it

What "big trouble" have you got companies into, and for what breach?

I just had a look at the reviews for the hotel someone mentioned upthread and they are awful.

I was so put off by it. The most recent review mentioned having wet dogs, paw prints annd hair everywhere including sitting up at dinner tables sounds like madness.

I just can’t imagine paying £1500 or anywhere close to that for per night for that sort of environment. Yikes!

What is this Oxfordshire hotel?

Estelle manor.

£1.5k per night and there is no swimming pool in winter unless you pay £100 pp for 2 hrs.

Even the positive reviews say things like it takes 45mins to get a drink at the bar...
It's absolutely pathetic.
they should be ashamed of themselves....

Nonsensical comment.

People can spend their hard earned cash how they like.

Behave

I see.

Assuming it is Estelle Manor (OP has not come back to name it), it is probably one of the Instagramable places which looks good but is poorly executed and the experience does not live up to the hype.

Looking at the reviews, another guest paid 4,000 a night and gave a bad review. That must hurt.

Doubt I would pay that much for a country manor experience or any hotel really. Reminds me of the places I stayed for team off sites, so it is bringing back vibes of group exercises for corporate bonding.

I actually think that Trip Advisor shouldn’t allow them to respond

I don't know, you have to accept that some people who post reviews are completely unreasonable as well.

Often it's the only way a restaurant/business can respond. It's unfair for people to have their livelihood or even themselves publicly slated with no way to defend themselves against what could be completely made up allegations.

If I read a bad review I might decide not to visit the restaurant. However if they responded apologising and giving a good explanation and/or explaining changes they have made so the same thing won't happen again (e.g. "sorry you had an issue with your food, however if you had told us this at the time we would have remade it for you" or "thank you for pointing out that our allergies labelling could have been better, I can confirm we have now reprinted our entire menu to better highlight all potential allergies and trained our staff") or pointing out that the customer is completely fibbing ("You have complained that you waited an hour for your food however we have reviewed the CCTV and it was 32 minutes"), then I'd think fair enough.

Similarly if they respond in an arsey or rude way, as pps have said it just makes them look even worse so they are only shooting themselves in the foot! Although of course identifying OP isn't appropriate in any circumstances.

I once left a bad review and the customer services team responded with a direct email for me to contact, and when I did they sorted it out, if they hadn't been able to respond I wouldn't have got the issue fixed.