A couple from Cumbria have been ‘fined’ £100 after leaving a one-star review on Tripadvisor for a hotel they stayed in during the summer. Their review doesn’t sit on the fence: entitled ‘FILTHY, DIRTY ROTTEN STINKING HOVEL RUN BY MUPPETS’, it contains such choice critiques as ‘weak tea and coffee. YUMMY!!’ and advises prospective guests, ‘if you are offered this place to stay for a fortnight for 10p, you are being robbed!!’ Clearly they didn’t enjoy their stay.
After venting their spleen on Tripadvisor, the couple were shocked to discover that the hotel had charged an additional £100 to their credit card. After investigating, they were informed of the hotel’s small print: ‘For every bad review left on any website, the group organiser will be charged a maximum £100 per review.’
What a novel way to encourage good feedback. Needless to say, Trading Standards are investigating, but in the meantime it’s set the internet abuzz. We all know bad reviews can be incredibly damaging to a business or individual, but that’s the price you pay for putting yourself ‘out there’, whether by inviting people into your hotel or restaurant, by taking a part in a play, or by writing a book.
‘I wonder if we can talk Amazon into introducing a similar policy,’ joked best selling crime writer Sharon Bolton on Twitter. Just imagine for a moment if that were possible. Amazon book reviews need to be taken with a pinch of salt at the best of times, but if they were to be linked to the price of a book (receive a £2 discount off your next purchase for every five-star review you leave!) they would lose all credibility.
Freedom of speech includes being able to give your honest opinion of a service or product you’ve sampled. It’s down to the provider or creator to offer the best possible experience they can, and to encourage good feedback, but they have to take the rough with the smooth. (Remind me of that when I Let You Go gets its first one-star review…)
The irony is that now the Broadway Hotel has hit the national media for all the wrong reasons, the cost of that bad review is likely to be much more than £100.