TripAdvisor Under Investigation

CptSternn

http://www.independent.ie/travel/travel-advice/tripadvisor-removes-reviews-you-can-trust-slogan-from-website-2877095.html

TripAdvisor removes 'reviews you can trust' slogan from website

Tripadvisor, the travel reviews website, has removed the slogan "reviews you can trust" from its hotel listings, in favour of the phrase "reviews from our community".

The website is currently being investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following thousands of complaints from hoteliers about allegedly misleading and fraudulent reviews.

Although the slogan has been removed from the website’s hotel reviews, it still appears on reviews for other businesses, including restaurants and attractions.

Tripadvisor carries more 50 millions reviews which it claims are honest, reliable and written by “real travellers around the world”.

However, the online reputation company KwikChex.com has questioned the legitimacy of those claims. It believes that up to 10 million reviews are faked, and alleges that Tripadvisor does not do enough to authenticate its reviews or remove fraudulent posts.

Chris Emmins, the co-founder of KwikChex.com, said it has already been approached by more than 2,000 businesses, and is continuing to receive new complaints.

This is why I use Yelp (www.yelp.ie). When we visited Paris last summer the number one rated restaurant was a small Chinese takeaway. It was rated higher than four star Michelin restaurants. After a quick check it had dozens of great reviews, by people who posted only one single review.

dudara

Moved to Travel

In fairness, anything that's open to public votes/reviews is not to be trusted, or taken with a pinch of salt. How the hell else can you explain the embarassing acts that Ireland sent to Eurovision as part of You're a Star? People have been rigging elections for as long as elections have been in existence.

Savman

They definitely need to tighten the controls on the reviews, although how they go about this I don't know. Some of them are so blatantly fake you have to just hope that anyone using the site would have enough cop on to spot a 'one post wonder' when they see it.

FouxDaFaFa

Honestly, I think they do their best.If you think a review looks dodgy, report it. Tripadvisor is definitely more helpful than not and I check it whenever I'm booking something/planning a trip.

kelle

I always refer to TripAdvisor when deciding on a hotel or campsite, however I tend to look for reviews by Germans or Americans - they appear more critical than other nationalities so if they say a place is OK then it must be of a high standard.

mikedragon32

You have to consider the number of reviews too. For example a restaurant could have fives reviews, all good from new members and hey presto, 5 stars for that one. Another restaurant could have 200 reviews, most good, some mixed, some bad but all from established subscribers and it's got 4 stars or less.

I know everyone is a new member at sometime, but I do tend to ignore them until thy get a few reviews under their belts.

zagmund

I reported what were pretty clearly some fake reviews before and TripAdvisor reviewed them and cleaned some of them up. I was satisfied with the process.

I wouldn't trust (well, I wouldn't value) any review that says something like "this hotel was brilliant in every way and the front desk staff couldn't have been more helpful", especially from a 1 time poster.

There's other giveaway clues too - "My husband & I travel all over the world and have stayed in the best hotels and this place . . ." from someone who has only ever posted one or two reviews. If they're been everywhere and are only posting their first or second review then I would take it with a pinch of salt.

As people found out with wikipedia in the early days (or the BBC vote for the #1 sportsman or whatever), it's easy to rig stuff like this. The onus is really on the reader to determine what looks like a plant and what looks legitimate.

z

finbarrk

I think it's still the best site for checking hotels, etc. If there are a lot of reviews it's usually ok.

jhegarty

CptSternn wrote: »

This is why I use Yelp (www.yelp.ie). When we visited Paris last summer the number one rated restaurant was a small Chinese takeaway. It was rated higher than four star Michelin restaurants. After a quick check it had dozens of great reviews, by people who posted only one single review.

And given your post history someone might suggest you are a shill for yelp.

But it's hard to tell, you might work for them or just be fan.

Daisy M

I am a destination expert on tripadvisor and the hotel rated no 1 in my area is an absolute dive!! However I do not believe this to be from fake reviews but more because it is cheap all inclusive and has good customer service. Many people dont mind going on holiday staying in poor quality accomodation with poor facilities because it is all they can afford it is either that or stay at home. This hotel is geared at the brits who are excellent at leaving reviews. The hotel we stay in in that area is quadruple the price for half board, but everything about it is superior, however the standard we want from a holiday means we get to go away less often than we would like as we cant afford it!
My advice when reading tripadvisor hotel reviews would be to look at the pictures that have been posted by travellers, they speak volumes. Just because someone else thinks its a palace doesnt mean you will, we all have different standards. Visitors pictures give you a better indication of what rooms and facilities are like than professional hotel photos who only put up the best pics.

dilallio

I booked a hotel in Paris last December, based on excellent reviews on Tripadvisor having it in the top 200 of all Paris hotels. It wasn't cheap either.

It was a complete dive - we knew we were in trouble upon check-in, when there were 3 fan heaters runningfull-blast on top of the reception desk with cables lying around everywhere. The rooms were half painted - different colours all over the walls, no heating in the room, and wires hanging down where the air-conditioning unit should be.

I complained to the hotel who told me that they had only opened 4 weeks earlier. 4 weeks??? I had booked it 10 weeks before that, based on 20 great reviews on Tripadvisor. After both of us getting bad colds on the first night, I went down to a shop for lemsip, only to be told at the hotel that their water boiler wasn't working. After telling me where I could get hot water from a nearby cafe, the 'kind' receptionist asked me could I get her hot water also and could she borrow one of our lemsips.

I would never trust anything I read on that site.

mikedragon32

is mise astra wrote: »

I am a destination expert on tripadvisor and the hotel rated no 1 in my area is an absolute dive!! However I do not believe this to be from fake reviews but more because it is cheap all inclusive and has good customer service. Many people dont mind going on holiday staying in poor quality accomodation with poor facilities because it is all they can afford it is either that or stay at home. This hotel is geared at the brits who are excellent at leaving reviews. The hotel we stay in in that area is quadruple the price for half board, but everything about it is superior, however the standard we want from a holiday means we get to go away less often than we would like as we cant afford it!
My advice when reading tripadvisor hotel reviews would be to look at the pictures that have been posted by travellers, they speak volumes. Just because someone else thinks its a palace doesnt mean you will, we all have different standards. Visitors pictures give you a better indication of what rooms and facilities are like than professional hotel photos who only put up the best pics.

Therein lies another tripadvisor trait.

There's nothing wrong with a dive getting rave reviews on the basis that people (particularly the brits) are quite happy to give a dive a great review on the basis that they got what they paid for and in terms of value for money they're good. Of course you have some at the other end of the spectrum who find a spec of dust in their room on arrival and next thing it's on to Watchdog to complain about how Falcon or First Choice destroyed the holiday they'd been saving all year for (but actually only spend about £800 for an AI holiday for 4!).

Americans are also notorious for bad reviews, particularly for older city hotels where you generally get small rooms.

You have to evaluate all reviews on their individual merits.

+1 on the photos by the way, we were looking at a place in Fuerteventura for our holiday (off in three weeks) which looked fantastic on their website and indeed on the Booking.com website, but when I saw the photos on TA, it was a complete dealbreaker! As the saying goes a picture speaks a thousand words!

Daisy M

You have hit the nail on the head Mike! A lot of the time you do get what you pay for. It does annoy me a little that this particular hotel is no 1 because I think my destination has much much nicer hotels to offer. Having said that the customer service in this hotel is second to none and it is a very very cheap all inclusive, so when I see negative reviews on it I cant help but think 'what did you expect for a weeks AI for 400euro in peak season?'. I nearly booked this place myself once but had a niggling feeling it was too good to be true so went through the travellers pics which was enough for me to decide no way.
Another tip when choosing a hotel in a particular area is to go on the tripadvisor forums and ask members and destination experts for their opinions, people who take the time to repy are genuine and usually have a good idea of the area and will be as helpful in giving advice that will suit your requirements.
By the way enjoy the holiday Mike!

ejmaztec

Of course, some bad reviews can come from someone working for the competition, or ex-employees looking for revenge after getting the sack.

I suppose reading between the lines is the thing to do, and at the same time ignore the one-off extreme reviews.

CptSternn

jhegarty wrote: »

And given your post history someone might suggest you are a shill for yelp.

But it's hard to tell, you might work for them or just be fan.

Nope, I work for an IT company in Ireland. I just like Yelp. I wrote quite literally dozens of reviews for TripAdvisor and Menupages before I found Yelp.

I stopped using Menupages when they lost the courtcase which banned them from giving anyone less than three out of five stars. Under Irish law it appears that counts as defamation, or at least the judge thought so in this case and in one foul swoop rendered that whole website useless.

I then moved on to TripAdvisor and started posting reviews there, only to be met with an onslaught of fake reviews. It's hard to get involved in a site where so many fake reviews are so blatantly left unchecked.

That's when I found Yelp. A mate I work with turned me on to it. Some people here are asking how you combat fake reviews, well, there are a few ways. First off, anyone who joins and posts one single review and within tweleve months never posts anything else, filter those reviews because obviously they are a shill. Same goes for people who review two or three businesses only, and in turn those three never return. Yelp is good like that - they have certain criteria which gets reviews 'filtered' so they don't show in the results.

I got fed up with TripAdvisor when in my local area the really good restaurants were rated below some crappy places which just opened. They had multiple reviews from users that had just one review, and their profiles had no information. They were obvious shills, yet after they were reported by multiple people they stayed. It's annoying for people like myself who leave real reviews, well thought out and use the sites to plan holidays and trips.

Yelp has another great feature that none of the other sites have yet - real life events held monthly. If you leave enough good reviews you can then petition them to join the 'elite' which means once a month you are invited to a free event. They usually go to a new restaurant and you get a private night with the other Yelpers where you go and everything is free. All you have to do is review it afterwards. I have been to dozens since I joined and it has been brilliant.

But no, I don't work for them. I'm just an avid foodie who hates to see my reviews alongside shills for crappy restaurants.

mikedragon32

So effectively, on Yelp, they are bribing you to write reviews by offering free events in the places they want you to review.

Wow. I'm inspired to trust that.

I think I'll stick to filtering out the shill on TA.

CptSternn

mikedragon32 wrote: »

So effectively, on Yelp, they are bribing you to write reviews by offering free events in the places they want you to review.

You do realise that all better restaurants do that for the media as well when they open? The reviews you get in papers, on foodie websites, radio, and telly are handled in the exact same manner.

Wow. I'm inspired to trust that.

I think I'll stick to filtering out the shill on TA.

Just because some places opt to give some reviewers a free meal doesn't mean they will get a good review. I have lambasted a few places that simply were not up to par. A free event does encourage me to get there faster and post my opinion, but it in no way influences what I have to say about the product or services I review.