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Tripadvisor is a listed company in the US. Its business model is driven by getting as many page views as possible. But as folks wake up to the fact that some, if not a lot, of the reviews are bogus might that not be a problem? We have repeatedly alerted the company to what is going on. It has not only refused to act but also refused to allow us to publish replies showing why certain reviews are patently fake. It argues we are libelling the reviewers! So..
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Comments
Sherlock
Tom,
have you ever thought of using these reviews as your USP – you should aim to be the the worst reviewed restaurant between 90 and 100 clerkenwell road. This inverse approach worked in the US for a restaurant in the Bay area that was been given the protection racket treatment there:
http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/09/17/richmond-restaurant-owner-encourages-bad-yelp-reviews/
zeronegative
Tom,
Why not play them at their own game. Seeing as Trip Advisor allows made up reviews to be posted why don’t posters on here swamp the TA site leaving 5 star reviews. This would boost your rating and show how stupid the situation is.
Perhaps we can have a target of 50 reviews next week, all positive. I will be quite happy to give it a boost. If they want to play dirty then so can we. I’m sure you will get support.
Bobby Chariot
It shouldn’t be too hard for Tripadvisor to remove the bad reviews with just one post to their name – these are the fake accounts set up by the BBM’s to do the nasties because they wouldn’t dare show their real names.
Hoping to finish this job I am on in Scotland soon so I can have some time off to get down to the Big Smoke for a few days, I’ll maybe pop into Clerkenwell to sample a few things and defend free speech while I’m there.
Take care Tom,
Bobby.
Tom Winnifrith
Zero
Nice thought but I beg readers NOT to do this. I do not wish to counter lies fraud with the same. We are the good guys.
Sherlock you are onto something!
t
Castlewolf_22
Tom, my cousin in London owns a Pub/Restaurant..has similar problems with the ‘Trip’….I could go on as to the futility of some of his reviews by customers where the cctv footage shows otherwise, apart from their taste bud positives, but things like ‘waited ages to be served” where cctv shows complainant being addressed by waitress 4mins and 35sec after sitting down to take their order and food being presented to them with 10-12 mins of order being placed……..this is compared to the review on Trip stating “waited 20 minutes before being asked for our order” and “took so long we left” nonsense…….pure saddo’s….but that’s the deluded for you….thank fck they all own QPP and WRN so we know where they are so we can avoid them…….Onward Christian Soldiers ….as Aiden would say….after all, maybe God told him to do it
Castlewolf_22
Just had a look at the Yelp link posted by Sherlock….how about making a review website for ‘Review’ websites like Trip and Yelp etc etc….we could ask folk what their experience was like using Tripper et al…“did the Trip Advisor reviews influence you in your decision to eat elsewhere”…..“was the information on TripA a true reflection of your experience at the place of bad experiences” etc etc….“did your expectations match those of the sad pathetic reviews left by people with nothing better to do than review restaurants even though the author has no expertise in the culinary marketplace “, “will you use the ever so accurate TripA again”…..you may have guessed by now that I hate Trip Advisor and the meek’ons that have the time to post on it, I also think it is a ‘leech’ of a business that relies on joe public, the sad joe public that is, to create it’s only product,,,,which is reviews and cheap shots from saddo’s….what a business model….and just because they get X amount of hits, they can then start charging for ads to be linked to their site so the saddos can click the link that tells them “we found 23,476 registry errors on your PC, to clean this up please give us $14.99 to speed up your ‘porn’ portal”….,,,,social media eh….the way forward, is that not where Tony Blair got his proof that Saddam had his weapons of mass destruction….truly the meek are inheriting the earth….so they think
Harry
I don’t know if you saw this story over the weekend but heres a link:
http://bit.ly/1Bs32zx
basically this kid left a false review on a website about a lawyer. The lawyer got the bit between his teeth and pursued identifying the individual that left the false review. End result a judge found in favour of the lawyers complaint that the review had damaged his firms reputation & awarded £100,000 in costs & damages.
Maybe TripAdvisor’s attention should be drawn to this. They are knowingly allowing these trolls to post these false reviews of your restauarant & storing them on their servers & publishing them and making them available to the public worldwide thus damaging your restaurants reputation and then TripAdvisor have the cheek to say you cant respond for fear of libelling the trolls with their fake reviews? It seems totally unfair.
Aimless
Good idea Sherlock. Can highlight on the odd menu item ‘Chef’s Dish to Avoid’ and maybe the Quindell special pizza deal of buy 4 get 1 free! (2+2 can = 5)
Sherlock
Interesting article Harry, but not sure if it would make much impact on the types of people that are posting these fake reviews, and though it might slow the rate of generation of new fake reviews it would not get the existing bad reviews removed. Once Trip Advisor allows fake reviews to remain then the whole Trip Advisor approach becomes worthless, and certainly damaging to the restaurants imperiled, thus I think the only way to eliminate TA as a factor, and possibly to turn it to a positive, is to invoke the negative approach.
Once we have gone through the looking glass, so to speak, we would be in the strange inverted world where the BB morons would be posting incredibly positive and gushing fake reviews so that Tom would have to start printing these and posting them on the walls of the restaurant and hassling TA to take them down. After all, once one has committed to trying to get the very worst Trip Advisor rating, as part of a wider marketing plan of becoming the worst rated free speech and liberty restaurant in the whole of the UK, you have to go through all the way with it. I say, ‘Drink Me’ and don’t look back.
Lonster
With TripAdvisor it’s got to the point where you don’t know who to trust and who to believe. I see awful reviews sitting right next to super reviews for the same establishment for the same day. What really annoys me is that this company is making huge amounts from user generated content (that’s not always true and they do nothing about it) and all they are doing is sticking ads on it to make their money.
wolfcastle_22
AIMLESS – yes, house Specials……The Quindell, a tasteless piece with essence of fraudt, the Afren, diluted to near flavourless, for all you vegans out there, the WRN……essence of suspension is rife on this classic (Sold Out)
GrindertraderUK
I visited the restaurant on Clerkenwell Road yesterday before I attended the Mello Tech Event. My review is here
http://www.grindertraderuk.com/?p=88
and i am waiting for trip advisor to approve what is a very real review. My worry would be the lunatics who are hell bent on attacking this restaurant somehow manage to find a way to get my review removed. It wouldn’t surprise me
I am sorry I missed you Tom. But one other concern that struck me was when I asked for you. The lovely manageress simply asked in a bit of a wary smile “are you a friend or enemy?’. She was lovely and very upbeat during the time i was there. I told her I was going to write a review and she said in concern ‘it probably will not do any good’.
I think she is maybe hardened but also deflated slightly with all the hostility towards her and her staff on a daily basis through fake reviews, silent telephone calls and the like.
Please pass on my highest regards to her. She was lovely and fantastic and I am glad I went to your restaurant to make up my own mind.
The lunatics will NOT win. All they will do will continue to be angry behind their keyboards frustrated that you’re business is continuing to function, and continue to be busy.
Bloody well done Tom.
Simon
it is not just trip adviser that suffers from these problems.
Whenever I am booking a hotel I do tend to look at a few of the reviews. Some of them are so massively contrary to others that you do wonder what is going on.
are the very complementary ones posted by the owner ?
are the very negative ones posted by ex-girlfriend/ex-husband/ex-employee ?
there is no filter at all. One would expect that the reviewer would (at the least) have to post a picture of a recent receipt to verify the post. Not that trip-adviser (or who-ever) would need to check it at the time just that it could be removed at a later date if the owner were to complain and a proper receipt was not attached.
J P Spaghetti
CASTLEWOLF_22: “Just had a look at the Yelp link posted by Sherlock….how about making a review website for ‘Review’ websites like Trip and Yelp etc”
That is a BRILLIANT idea!
And HARRY’s post details an interesting case (for once I’m on the side of the lawyer). I commented on the possibility of doing TA for facilitating trade libel not so long ago and I now know it’s not your style Tom but perhaps you should e-mail TA the details and outcome of this particular case?
The posting of bogus reviews really sticks in my craw for some reason. I mean really. I realise there are far worse examples of human behaviour to be had but it’s just so cowardly and pathetic and plain wrong!
B Sanderson
Actually Trip Advisor does follow up on reviews. I reviewed somewhere and my review was pushed, it was then pulled. Trip advisor then asked me a load of information to prove that my review was genuine. i gave them all information they requested and offered them the receipt. Its now back up, and no its not your place :)
David Atherton
I have a restaurant (suzannas.com) and we get this all the time. Pick any that personally attack you, any that are demonstrably false (say why), and then a selection of the one-review-only people. TA will remove most of them if you ask.