Idiots on TripAdvisor
Further proof that TripAdvisor staff and policies are just as stupid as some of their reviewers.
Here’s a “Terrible” review for “Le Tasting Room Wine Tours” – a company that specialises in taking people on wine tours in the Loire Valley. http://bit.ly/MroElK
Although TripAdvisor groups this tour company under “wineries” anyone who takes five seconds to read the company description will realise immediately that it is a wine tour company, not a winery or vineyard. “1-3 day Loire wine tours led by experienced English trade professionals. Discover the diversity of Loire valley wines, visit wineries and vineyards… ” The classification as a winery is a vagary of TripAdvisor, not the tour company’s fault.
“Le Tasting Room WINE TOURS” – the clue is in the name!
However, this reviewer decided that Le Tasting Room is actually a winery and set off to find out where their “vineyard” was located using a GPS – they didn’t bother trying to telephone or email, just drove around the French countryside looking for a non-existent vineyard.
Then when they couldn’t find a vineyard (surprise, surprise) they wrote a snotty TripAdvisor review in order to ruin an otherwise perfect review record for the hapless tour company.
To make matters even worse, TripAdvisor’s ludicrous response to this when the owner points out the reviewer’s mistake is to say that the review must stand because “The reviewer is entitled to their opinion”.
What a farce. Can anyone give TripAdvisor an injection of common sense and fairness, please?
TripAdvisorWatch: Hotel Reviews in Focus 
TA may have had noble intentions, but they cannot ignore that they have created an avenue for abuse and dangerous, disastrous effect on good businesses who are predisposed to blackmail by free loading clients. Perhaps sooner or later TA will be totally discredited is not sued out of existence. The laws of the land will catch up with the changes technology has brought.
Well, I’m not sure the intentions were noble, more like a means to make money! But I think the dodgy reviews and manipulation of the system – from both members of the public and owners themselves – were results they did not foresee and something they prefer to sweep under the carpet rather than deal with.
TripAdvisor should be sued for allowing fake hateful reviews without confirmation that a guest even stayed at a hotel. Tripadvisor is like the wild wild west…..anything goes…….
I can’t believe how inept tripadvisor are in resolving suspicious activity by competitors. We had 2 malicious attacks by the same person in different names claiming poor hygeine and food being poor, the waiters can’t speak a word of English with expired passport, food is made and stored in freezer bags, kitchen staff smoke in kitchen… Need I say more. I contacted trip advisor via there 200 char limit email form about 12 times phoned them up still no response or a heads up in what they doing about this… No response. The call line is only for handi caps who need help to navigate around the site… That’s how awful they are!. At my restaurant we ensure all our customers are well looked after and we have comment cards which most leave. Our rating are 9-10/10 however the following is the kind of malicious atictivity trip advisor are allowing: “I know this place inside and out!!!!!! cheap frozen food and rocket prices!!! I use to work for them!!!!” and there was new one by the same people again. What can I do I am thinking of reporting it to the police or pursuing legal action against TA for being useless. Help! Please advise and please check out Bombay Palace coventry
Agreed! TripAdvisor is completely unaccountable for the libelous statements they put on their site.
There are only a few things, I think, that people can do to combat this mess:
1) Demand that your listing be taken down
2) Report TripAdvisor to the BBB for not doing anything to protect business owners from blatantly false reviews
3) Demand revenue sharing for all the advertisements they place on your business’ particular page on TripAdvisor – they are essentially making money off of your trademark/intellectual properties. They should not be able to make money off of your property without splitting the revenue with you.
Are these tough arguments? Absolutely. But TripAdvisor is completely irresponsible and getting away with it.
Unfortunately, none of those will work. A listing will only be removed if the business ceases and TA is protected under US law which says they are not responsible for any “third party content” i.e. reviews that they publish.
There is some hope, I think, represented by the action that Kwikchex is taking. I’ve signed up for their service as they are currently delving into false accusations of food poisoning, and for some time have been particularly targeting the anonymity aspect of TA. Seems like a couple of good causes that deserve some support.
Call Federal Trade Commission, I did. They said to have people contact them to stop this practice of unverified reviews.
The only thing you need to know about Common Sense is that it is not common , , ,
It is a pointless exercise looking for it in TA; reviewers, staff or policies
Like it or not Trip Advisor is here to stay you just have to learn to weed out the blatently destructive reviews from the ones that provide opportunies for improvement, unfortunately there are far too many quasi hotel inspectors on the loose with little or no knowledge of what it takes to run a successful business.
Quite so. It’s because TripAdvisor is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, that we need to highlight its failings. We’re under no obligation to accept whatever crap they deal out 🙂
They are completely unaccountable and that is very very worrying! This site is open to abuse an fabrication!
“Can anyone give TripAdvisor an injection of common sense and fairness, please” er no – they are on record as saying that they don’t “fact check” anything – with an attitude like that the value of a TA review is worth less than zero, so common sense is a long way off.