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Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

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Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#201

Post by aestra »

arrrg wrote: post #190
specialp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is true, but this is the wrong way to do it. I have stayed at many places reviewed badly by people who just do not get it. Like I stayed at a wonderful rustic place in Maine [1] but there were quite a few reviews complaining about the rustic nature and giving them one star. As a human being I can then read these reviews and decide that the people rating it one star were expecting that this should have been s…

This is a general problem with reviews. If it’s written text it’s often possible to figure out whether a certain criticism is valid for you personally. Some people are very sensitive to wait times, I’m just not at all. I can always discount all reviews complaining about wait times because there isn’t enough useful signal there. Sure, even I don’t want to wait three hours for my food, but most people seem to complain…

>when people tell me what a great experience they had with the staff and that the owner came to their table and chatted with them

This tends to be a part of a broad cultural expectation. Americans tend to equate "good service" with [fake] niceness and obligated smiles and cheeriness. Some other cultures are different where good service means simply doing your job. I can't count how many times people have gone to other countries and complained about the "poor service" and "everyone is rude here" not even considering cultural differences.

The US has gone insane in that respect with obligated "niceties."

Now when I go to Walgreens they say to me after any transaction "be well." Seriously? Like I believe the cashier ringing up my candy and soda purchase personally cares about my well being and health? Or that it is adding anything of value to the transaction?

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#202

Post by danielweber »

Karunamon wrote: post #186
danielweber wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your words: "Our immediate response should be to post negative reviews based on the revelation that none of the other reviews are trustworthy." You don't know anything about the quality of their online reviews. No, I mean it, you really don't: 5 minutes wasn't enough time for you to investigate this policy and see how long it's been in place. Perhaps this policy is brand new and hasn't affected any online reviews yet…

It's actually been there since at least 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20130301124243/http://www.unions... Let 'em take the dings. An example must be made of this kind of anti-consumer behavior.

pour encourager les autres

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#203

Post by Spooky23 »

positivejam wrote: post #161
imaginenore wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sarcasm detector is broken. Call the repairman.

personZ understood the sarcasm: -literal meaning of Spooky23's statement: it's unreasonable to expect ice in the middle of summer. -sarcastic meaning of Spooky23's statement: it's completely REASONABLE to expect ice in the middle of summer. personZ acknowledges the sarcastic meaning (that it is reasonable to expect ice in the middle of summer), and is pointing out that based on the article, the guests actually DID in…

As a guest of a lodging establishment, particularly a supposedly nice one that is hosting a wedding, I expect and demand a high level of service. A hotel defines a service business.

The fact that the guests eventually received ice is irrelevant. There is no excuse for a reasonable & customary request in a hotel would be met with a rude response, period. If I want to sit in my room and drink 24x7, that's my problem, not the hotelier.

I've stayed in many hotels, and have actually run into exactly this problem. In fact, it was at a $40 Hamton Inn awhile back. The guy said "No problem, our ice machine is broken, but give us a few minutes and we'll get you squared away."

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#204

Post by gamblor956 »

dm2 wrote: post #16

What 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…

Just thought I'd pop in a point out that fines in a contract are perfectly enforceable in the U.S. Liquidated damages provisions are not. A $500 fine per negative review doesn't reflect the hotel's actual or liquidated damages in any way, so the provision would pass muster in court.

For example, penalties for late payments of bills are examples of contractual fines that have been upheld by the courts many times.

Whether or not the fines at issue here are bad business practice depends on how you feel about the justification for the fines.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#205

Post by dragonwriter »

aestra wrote: post #201
arrrg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general problem with reviews. If it’s written text it’s often possible to figure out whether a certain criticism is valid for you personally. Some people are very sensitive to wait times, I’m just not at all. I can always discount all reviews complaining about wait times because there isn’t enough useful signal there. Sure, even I don’t want to wait three hours for my food, but most people seem to complain…

>when people tell me what a great experience they had with the staff and that the owner came to their table and chatted with them This tends to be a part of a broad cultural expectation. Americans tend to equate "good service" with [fake] niceness and obligated smiles and cheeriness. Some other cultures are different where good service means simply doing your job. I can't count how many times people have gone to othe…

> Now when I go to Walgreens they say to me after any transaction "be well." Seriously? Like I believe the cashier ringing up my candy and soda purchase personally cares about my well being and health? Or that it is adding anything of value to the transaction?

Its a corporate slogan with tie-ins to Walgreen's marketing and branding. Like most aspects of branding, its not designed to operate at the level of rational thought and analysis at all. Its more like the use of corporate colors and logos on retail employees uniforms, but in auditory rather than visual form.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#206

Post by aestra »

peroo wrote: post #128
ctdonath wrote: post #108

Maybe it's the "star rating" system that's broken. When reviewing rated product/service offerings, I go straight to the 1-star reviews. Skimming those, I differentiate the "valid complaints" from flukes (a small failure rate is understandable), unrealistic expectations (it's a vintage hotel, not a new Hilton), tangential problems (Amazon didn't smash the box, the shipper did), hysteria (political opposition isn't a r…

As bad as the star system is, I'm not sure there's anything better. I think Amazon has the right idea with the "Was this review helpful to you?" buttons, though that may not work quite as well for Yelp if you consider the possibility of review-burying by owners.

>I think Amazon has the right idea with the "Was this review helpful to you?" buttons

Doubtful. "Was this review helpful to you?" is actually the "I disagree with this review" button in practice.

Amazon reviews are so crappy. There is tons of reviews that say JUST "I haven't used this product/read this book yet." plus any number of stars.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#208

Post by 67726e »

personZ wrote: post #191
67726e wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I walked into a restaurant and the owner threatened to kick my ass if I posted a bad Yelp review and I decided to leave without eating, would I be qualified to write a review about their practices? I didn't eat at the restaurant. There was no business exchange. I'm reviewing the business' policies and warning others of something I find distasteful. In your example, what if I read the online menu and found some fin…

None of these people walked into the business. I doubt any of them are planning a wedding reception, if even in the target geographic market. This is a standard internet lynch mob. They are always vile, reprehensible things, with real humans as victim. But pile on, everyone.

And my point went entirely over your head. If someone finds the business policies reprehensible and wants it to be made known, they have a damned right to let it be known. One doesn't just have to purchase a product or service to be allowed to comment.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#209

Post by DanBC »

ben1040 wrote: post #145
ctdonath wrote: post #108

Maybe it's the "star rating" system that's broken. When reviewing rated product/service offerings, I go straight to the 1-star reviews. Skimming those, I differentiate the "valid complaints" from flukes (a small failure rate is understandable), unrealistic expectations (it's a vintage hotel, not a new Hilton), tangential problems (Amazon didn't smash the box, the shipper did), hysteria (political opposition isn't a r…

>Maybe it's the "star rating" system that's broken. While less so for product reviews, I feel like restaurant/hotel reviews are more like movie reviews. Just like Battlefield Earth, there are some bad restaurants that universally will get panned. And there are some just wonderful establishments everyone will love, just like Shawshank Redemption. But for everything in between, it's a matter of taste, which is why Netf…

> And there are some just wonderful establishments everyone will love, just like Shawshank Redemption.

Interestingly Shawshank was panned by critics on release, and was a "cult classic" / slow burner that took a while to get to the status of universally loved.

One of the problems of reviews is that so few of them just give me the mechanics.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#210

Post by DanBC »

madaxe_again wrote: post #158
ctdonath wrote: post #108

Maybe it's the "star rating" system that's broken. When reviewing rated product/service offerings, I go straight to the 1-star reviews. Skimming those, I differentiate the "valid complaints" from flukes (a small failure rate is understandable), unrealistic expectations (it's a vintage hotel, not a new Hilton), tangential problems (Amazon didn't smash the box, the shipper did), hysteria (political opposition isn't a r…

It's not just the star ratings that are broken, it's the entire hospitality system. Having had the opportunity to take a good, long stare at the underbelly of how hotel rooms are arbitraged, marketed, booked, and how the ensuing reviews and PR is cultured, the whole damn thing is a cartel controlled by surprisingly few entities and individuals. Bookings all funnel through systems like TRX and concur, all of whom take…

That sounds like an excellent indie documentary. If you have the stomach for it you could Kickstart it.

Or at least a series of blog posts about how the free market for hotels is broken.

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