"If you exercise your rights to freedom of speech and post anything other than a stellar review, we are going to penalize you, to improve our business reputation online instead of finding out why there are negative reviews in the first place."
Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
171–180 of 249 posts
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#172What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them. http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson?sort... 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch... http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie... Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the page, http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/ obviously this was someone's first website. It's probab…
Nice: If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event If you stay here to attend a wedding anywhere in the area and leave us a n…
If anyone tries to say we suck, you're gonna pay. Otherwise, we might actually have to get better at our jobs!
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#173Before mob justice drives this place out of business, perhaps those posting 1 star reviews should promise to take them down if the policy changes. Not that I agree with the policy, but a mistake like this might not be worth ruining some's life.
seriously? They are in hospitality business and such level of rudeness, lack of empathy for their customers and such superiority feeling about themselves should ideally take them out of business.
Yeah, the fact that they insult guests who leave bad reviews (see their Trip Advisor reviews) shows that they have a level of contempt for their customers that is incompatible with a good hospitality business.
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure how this is a response. It's not enough to have language in a contract. There needs to be understanding by both sides about what is being agreed to. Since the Internet engaged mob-mode before engaging investigation-mode, we don't know how clear these terms are to people who are booking weddings. It might be very clear because they send an email explicitly telling the bridal party about these terms and as…
Obviously there needs to be mutual understanding of a contract for it to be enforced. The original question included the phrase "if I carefully read and then sign that contract," which I think indicates that the contract was mutually understood and agreed upon.
Mutual understanding is not the only ingredient that constitutes an enforceable contract. Issues such as duress, inequality of bargaining position, and in this case, the plain bizarre unreasonableness of the terms, can enter into the equation.
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#175What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them. http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson?sort... 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch... http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie... Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the page, http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/ obviously this was someone's first website. It's probab…
off topic, but why don't people use image maps anymore?
Accessibility was always a concern, and mobile is probably now another one. You'd have to recreate the image for mobile screens, re-map it...
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#176Yes. And because of this you should definitely go to Yelp and give them a one-star review. And destroy their Facebook page. And maybe go take a shit on their doorstep. That's definitely the answer when a small business makes an error like this. They're frustrated by something they don't feel is fair and made a ham-fisted attempt to fix the problem. Ruin them. (The ice machine thing, though -- that actually seems like…
"An error" suggests a lack of intent - a mistake, if you will. This isn't a mistake. It's a blatant attempt at gaming a review system.
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#177What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them. http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson?sort... 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch... http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie... Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the page, http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/ obviously this was someone's first website. It's probab…
LOL; they have more than 300 negative reviews so far today now.
Coming soon: The Hotel Formerly Known as Union Street Guest House
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually kinda see where they're coming from. I'm sure they do get complaints from people who never stay anywhere besides upscale chain hotels. But obviously this is not the way to address the issue. It's mean and ultimately self-defeating.
Perhaps they could have sent a gift voucher to the wedding couple for every negative review, including a message that you wanted a "vintage" inn and we provided the best service we could, but your guests weren't happy. It could probably guilt the wedding couple to request the guests to take the reviews down. And, perhaps led to a positive story on HN instead.
Paying people for negative reviews probably isn't the best strategy.
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#179This seems like it would violate Yelp's rules. If you fine people for bad reviews, is that any different than paying people for good reviews?
It's illegal to sue people for bad reviews (SLAPP); I think it's just against Yelp TOU to pay people for good ones.
They way you write it is not quite right.
SLAPP certainly would make it illegal to sue people for defamation for online reviews (depending on the state, it may only be for politics related stuff)
That is not quite what is happening here.
Having a contractual penalty, freely entered into and mutually agreed upon, for something harmful to their business, probably does not interact with SLAPP in most states.
Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online
#180They posted this to their facebook:
The policy regarding wedding fines was put on our site as a tongue-in-cheek response to a wedding many years ago. It was meant to be taken down long ago and certainly was never enforced.
The commenters on the post do not believe this not surprisingly.