Trip Advisor Reviews and Ratings are Fraud
Posted by: Jane in chiang mai, hotels, tags: review fraud, sira boutique hotel, trip advisor, trip advisor fraudWe have stay at a number of places based on reviews on Trip Advisor in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai. In almost every case, the ratings and reviews on Trip Advisor did not resemble the actual property. In addition, when we submit accurate, factual reviews to Trip Advisor, they are not published.
Trip Advisor is simply a fraud. Most of the reviews are fraudulent designed by property owners to boost their ratings. The ratings have become so useless because of this fraud, that Trip Advisor should be classified as a fraudulent web site. You cannot trust anything you read there.
Making matters worse, property owners and managers manipulate Trip Advisor as a part of their normal business operations, working hard to inflate their ratings by posting fraudulent reviews and encouraging their friends and employees to do the same.
Recently we stayed at two properties in Chiang Mai where the mattresses were so bad, worse than any we have seen. When I complained to the manager of the Sira Boutique Hotel, his first reply was “we are highly rated on Trip Advisor.” He seemed to imply that my complaint was not valid because of his Trip Advisor ratings. Curious, I looked at all the Sira Boutique Hotel ratings and found that almost all of them were written by “people” who had created an account for the purpose of posting only one review. This is a certain indicator of review fraud.
When I posted out to Trip Advisor their review fraud I was surprised to see that instead of acting on my complaint of review fraud, they simply deleted my factual reviews. The simple fact of the matter is that Trip Advisor is a fraud. Be very careful when you pick a Chiang Mai hotel or resort based on reviews on Trip Advisor.
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Could not agree with you more Jane! Just had first-hand experience with this clearly owner/manager biased site. Will never bother posting a review again, nor will I waste my time reading the posted propaganda in the future. Good call, and thanks for posting!
I too have seen the Trip Advisor fraud. I’ve had several of my customers indicate that they have left positive reviews and that TA will not publish them. TA offers no response.
they are frauds. I posted a negative review and they wouldn’t put it up. In addition, they allow some posters to totally take over forums and insult anyone who dares post anything negative about Punta Cana. Go check it out. I only decided to travel there based on their reviews. total sham.
Could not agree with you more Jane, Nigel, Doc Stewart and jen. I wish I could trust Tripadvisor, but it is not possible.
Go check Sultanahmet Suites in Istanbul on Tripadivsor, too. This place is infamous for soliciting rave reviews and posting self-promotions using various pseudonyms. Almost all the reviews of this apartment on Tripadvisor are overly positive. Those reviews often include very intricate details of the accomodation and even future business/improvement plans, which genuine travelers would never notice or write in reviews. When a critical comment is posted, Sultanahmet Suites is very quick to post glowing comments to counterbalance. So it is obvious that they are working very hard to inflate reputation and go up the ranking. On Booking.com, the same apartment receives a lot of criticisms. Unfortunately, Tripadvisor is totally indifferent to this malpractice. It is said that some hotels in Sultanahmet hire professional PR writers to have good reviews written for them, and I have a reasonable doubt that Sultanahmet Suites is one of those employers.
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Could not agree with you more Jane, Nigel, Doc Stewart and jen. I wish I could trust Tripadvisor, but it is not possible.
Go check Sultanahmet Suites in Istanbul on Tripadivsor, too. This apartment is infamous for soliciting rave reviews. It was also detected that the owner of Sultanahmet Suites had created various pseudonyms to write self-promotions on numerous travel sites, including Tripadvisor. On Tripadvisor, almost all the reviews of this apartment are overly positive. Those reviews often include very intricate details of the accommodation, which genuine travelers would never notice or write in reviews. When a critical comment is posted, Sultanahmet Suites is very quick to post glowing reviews to counterbalance. Sometime those “reviews” even write about future expansion and repair schedules to rebut negative remarks. How would a genuine tourist have any idea about a repair plan?! So it is obvious that Sultanahmet Suites is working very hard to inflate reputation and go up the ranking. On Booking.com, this same apartment receives a lot of criticisms. Unfortunately, Tripadvisor is totally indifferent to this malpractice of Sultanahmet Suites and its peers. It is said that some hotels in Sultanahmet hire professional PR writers to get good written reviews in English. I have a reasonable doubt that Sultanahmet Suites is one of the employers.
I totally disagree with you. I have written multiple reviews of hotels I have stayed in and all of my reviews have been published as written. I rely on the reviews of others when booking a hotel and have never been disappointed or misled.
Hi Janet,
It is really great that you have never been duped by fake reviews so far. It is good that you rely on and trust reviews. There are genuine and honest reviews out there, of course, like the ones you wrote. But let me tell you that there are also reviews that are not. Therefore, I must say that sometimes it is too dangerous to be naive, or to ignore the facts. Travel review sites are now heaveily used by business operators to promote businesses. Unfortunately tripadvisor has turned an especially popular self-marketing tool, and you often see clearly bogus reviews - glowing ones written by disguised hotel owners, and others possibly written by competitions. It is sad, but also is a sheer reality. As far as you know this, you will be fine. If you refuse to understand these facts, it may lead to an unexpected disappointment and anger.
Hi Janet,
Which dept in TA do u work for? Marketing or Support?