TripAdvisor Lawsuit

I think there needs to be some way that people who left reviews actually stayed at the hotel/hostel. TA and other review websites probably need to have a "trusted reviewer" membership level, where the member proves their identity in some way and develops a history of providing fair and accurate reviews.

Interesting idea... They are owned by Expedia so they should be able to have verified reviews of some of the properties...

No one should be allowed to submit reviews anonymously. It simply isn't fair on anyone and cannot be challenged. People should have to state their name and when they stayed at the very least. Also accommodation should be able to reply to reviews at any time they want, not just the current short time period. If accommodation doesn't reply then that is their own lookout, but often at peak times it may not be possible to reply as quickly or timely as we would all like to.

To a certain extent I think it's Tripadvisor who need to be setting the rules and the ones being held responsible for the content on their site. Individuals leaving comments need to understand that if they are untrue then they can be sued as they are damaging someone else's business.

Goody bye, free speech.

Hi,

My hostel has a '4-bubble' rating on tripadvisor, and about 30 reviews, 26 of which are great and 4 of which are crap. I understand we can't keep everybody happy all of the time, and I can live with some bad reviews however much I disagree with their content, but what I don't understand and am finding it hard to put up with, is that tripadvisor, in the name of something called 'property index algorithm' sticks one single review under the name of each hostel that comes up in the search result. That review basically makes or breaks you. So far, over the last (at least two whole months), the same review, from March 2014, has been under my name... It says my hostel is 'not recommendable, dirty and badly conserved'. It pops up when you insert 'hostel - itacare' in the search option. Then all the listings come up, and we, who are actually about number 8 or 9 on the list, have this dirty little review, that is in no way accurate. Nobody of course will click on the link, but if they happen to be crazy and they do they are directed to a booking site that my hostel is not listed on, so people are immediately just offered alternative accommodation. It's so unfair! It is putting me out of business. I have been calling them every single day and I have emails to and from them leadng me on, but never resolving the problem. I would like to sue them, but imagine sueing a huge corporation like tripadvisor. A first step to a solution would be to take off the 'title review' that they stick on the listing, before you click to have a better look. If people want to review the reviews, they can see them all by date when they want to get a better look at the place. (I think that tripadvisor has a black list and they are manipulating the industry, and trying to monopolize the industry too. Please if this is happening to other small business we could get together to try and make them change their unfair policies.