Hostel owners posting fraudulent reviews

For those that aren't aware, I publish travel guidebooks and run a hostel review website (it was the very first hostel review website and has been around since 1997).

Like any travel guide publisher or review website that takes itself seriously, we value the integrity of our reviews and only allow reviews submitted by genuine travellers. A few years ago we went through a major upgrade with new software and systems put in place to prevent fraudulent reviews.

We are now very effective in catching any fraudulent reviews submitted to our site - so don't even think about doing it.

Over the weekend a fraudulent review was posted by one of the hostels that use these forums. Our system caught this review, the review was not allowed on the site and the hostel has been warned that any future reviews will be delt with more seriously (with a public notice stating that the hostel uses dishonest and fraudulent means to promote their hostel and in some cases legal action will be taken against the hostel).

Writing bogus reviews of your own hostel is fradulent and dishonest. A travel guide's role is to give consumer advice to travellers and if we know that hostels are using fraud and deceptive means to promote their hostel it can be assumed that this dishonesty will be applied to their interaction with guests as well. Our duty to our users is to warn guests about dishonest hostel managers.

So be aware that BUG does not allow hostel owners, managers and staff and friends of hostel staff to write reviews on our site. If you are caught doing this - and if you try you most likely will be caught - we will give you a warning and repeat offenders will have a very prominent message placed on their hostel's page that states:

[INDENT]This hostel has been found trying to post fraudulent reviews. Fortunately our review system is very good at detecting fraudulent reviews and these reviews were not allowed on our website. However in some cases this sort of deceptive activity may indicate other not so honest business practices and all travellers are urged to take this into account when choosing their accommodation.[/INDENT]

In many countries this type of fraud is illegal and if you are in a country were it is illegal we WILL do what we can to help the authorities press charges against you.

Now that we have a blog on our site we will highlight dishonest hostels here as well. In some cases we may also contact the media to highlight these cases of fraud. More reasons to leave the reviews to your guests.

We are committed to ensuring that the reviews on BUG are authentic, honest reviews submitted by genuine travellers and we will take whatever steps necessary to ensure that bogus reviews are not allowed on the site.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT WRITING DISHONEST, FRAUDULENT BOGUS REVIEWS ABOUT YOUR OWN HOSTEL. IT IS NOT WORTH IT!

Sorry to appear so tough, but I can not stress enough how seriously we take this.

I cannot speak for other review websites but I assume that they are as concerned about fraud as I am.