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Regarding the chap who had his reviews deleted, I had something very similar happen to me. I booked and prepaid for a room in a decent hotel. Upon arrival they

Regarding the chap who had his reviews deleted, I had something very similar happen to me. I booked and prepaid for a room in a decent hotel. Upon arrival they asked for a £150 deposit. I offered them my Visa debit card, but they said they only accepted Mastercard for deposits. This really set my alarm bells ringing, but it was late and I had tired kids with me so I had go look for an ATM to get cash to pay the deposit. The rest of the stay was Okay, just this weird deposit thing that really jarred me. So I mentioned that in my TripAdvisor review - the review dissapeared and TripAdvisor wouldn't tell me why. Looking at other review sites, plenty of other people had the same experience. It would appear that it was easier for the hotel to get these negative reviews taken off TripAdvisor than from other sites. But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me.

Avalaxy 7y ago
So... what was the scam here?
- jfk13 7y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich for a summary. IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ddeck 7y ago
    >IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found... The VICE piece is here: How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant The Shed at Dulwich was the number one rated restaurant in London, with foodies, celebrities and bloggers trying to get a table. The main obstacle for them, however, was that it didn't exist. Over the course of 8 months VICE's Oobah Butler used an assault of fake reviews to get his 'restaurant' to the hallowed top spot on TripAdvisor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8
- jlg23 7y ago
  It does not have to be a scam at all, it can just be very annoying and I would mention that in a review as well. * It might be a way to save the hotel the cc processing costs (or even just time, if outside a 1st world country). This easily adds $10 to my bill for having to use my EC card (EC := debit card used a lot in Europe) in a foreign country at a foreign bank's ATM. * That deposit could just be the daily limit for your card in that country. You'll unfortunately have to eat at the hotel because they are the only ones who graciously let you pay the day after. * It might be a scam to get you seek the next ATM where someone is waiting for you and you start the millionaires' tour: Use all cards at gun- or knife point until their limits are reached.
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    > get you seek the next ATM where someone is waiting for you Am sure this is what a bar in the Canaries tried with me, a 4 level bar/restaurant with about 10 rooms and their story was "this card machine is broken" "this one's out of battery" etc, then "there's an ATM just over there, I'll take you there...". If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, don't be surprised if they steal your bread.
    - jlg23 7y ago
      On the Canary Islands I'd rather expect a skimmer in the ATM, not getting mugged. Also, the tourism industry there is notorious for exploiting employees - when people pay in cash tips tend to be higher.
- DoubleGlazing 7y ago
  I'm not saying it was a scam. What I am saying something odd was going on. I booked and prepaid the hotel with my Visa debit card. When I arrived they wanted a deposit for £150, which they would only accept using a Mastercard. I have never encountered any business that only accepts Visa OR Mastercard. I don't have a Mastercard, so I was told I had to pay the deposit in cash. That was just really odd.
  - Avalaxy 7y ago
    Aha. When you wrote: > This really set my alarm bells ringing I interpreted this as "red flag", or "something fishy going on".
    - hnal943 7y ago
      Right, but it turns out it was just bad customer service, not fraud.
  - kingofpandora 7y ago
    > I have never encountered any business that only accepts Visa OR Mastercard. Me neither ... except Costco, which - in Canada at least - only accepts Mastercard.
    - Wistar 7y ago
      Same in the US. They used to only accept American Express.
flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
>It would appear that it was easier for the hotel to get these negative reviews taken off TripAdvisor than from other sites. Did you mention anything about the 150 pounds in your review? IMHO, "complaining about price" in any arguable fashion seems to be reason enough to get something removed. If you would have said "I really disliked their checkin process", the review would probably stand. I have done consulting for an extreme micro-manager of a small business who was on the phone to trip advisor with every single negative review she received. The only time she was ever able to get a review removed was if it mentioned her prices in some fashion.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  "I really disliked their checkin process" doesn't really explain the situation
- DoubleGlazing 7y ago
  I posted a paragraph describing the hotel, room and restaurant as being nice and clean and that the food was good. THen another paragraph starting with "You should be aware of the strange deposit requirement.." and then going into the detail of what happened and ending with me saying that I found the experience soured my opinion of what was otherwise a good stay.
  - flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
    >THen another paragraph starting with "You should be aware of the strange deposit requirement.." and then going into the detail of what happened and ending with me saying that I found the experience soured my opinion of what was otherwise a good stay. Yes so again, in my experience, if the price of the "strange deposit" was mentioned whatsoever anywhere in the comment, that seems to be all tripadvisor needs to see to get a review deleted.
    - EpicEng 7y ago
      Your statement >IMHO, "complaining about price" in any arguable fashion seems to be reason enough to get something removed. Comes off as a defense of TA here. It seems like you didn't mean it to be, only a statement of fact, but that's why you got the response you did.
fredophile 7y ago
In my experience paying a deposit when checking in, even when you've already paid for the room, is very common. The deposit is to cover things like room service charges, use of the mini bar, etc. If you don't use it then they cancel it with your credit card company and you don't actually get charged. Having said that, £150 is definitely a bigger deposit than I would expect and only taking mastercard is unusual.
- ptha 7y ago
  I noticed this for a few hotels when traveling to New Zealand recently, a few hotels required a $100-200 deposit - in cash only. As I'd been using a Revolut card for purchases and it was near the end of the holiday so I didn't want to have to try to spend the deposit before returning home, I simply went with a different hotel that didn't have this condition (it was clearly stated on their booking.com page). I don't know if they'd had problems with stag nights in the past with people leaving a mess...
paggle 7y ago
> But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me. Becuase when I've traveled I've just hit up the top TripAdvsior attractions and restaurants and have always had a great time. I've never ended up at a "Shed at Dulwich."
- Crespyl 7y ago
  > I've never ended up at a "Shed at Dulwich." Of course not, they're booked solid through the end of the year!
  - paggle 7y ago
    Haha. And I think I would have had fun at the Shed too.
turc1656 7y ago
"But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me." Let's be fair - the Shed at Dulwich was done by Vice and took a fake phone and months of effort, along with an entire network of friends to "verify" the restaurant via fake reviews. That level of effort needs to be taken into consideration I would think before you just write off the whole site/service. That being said, there are many, legitimate issues with all of these review sites like TA and Yelp.

Avalaxy 7y ago

So... what was the scam here?

jfk13 7y ago
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich for a summary. IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ddeck 7y ago
  >IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found... The VICE piece is here: How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant The Shed at Dulwich was the number one rated restaurant in London, with foodies, celebrities and bloggers trying to get a table. The main obstacle for them, however, was that it didn't exist. Over the course of 8 months VICE's Oobah Butler used an assault of fake reviews to get his 'restaurant' to the hallowed top spot on TripAdvisor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8
jlg23 7y ago
It does not have to be a scam at all, it can just be very annoying and I would mention that in a review as well. * It might be a way to save the hotel the cc processing costs (or even just time, if outside a 1st world country). This easily adds $10 to my bill for having to use my EC card (EC := debit card used a lot in Europe) in a foreign country at a foreign bank's ATM. * That deposit could just be the daily limit for your card in that country. You'll unfortunately have to eat at the hotel because they are the only ones who graciously let you pay the day after. * It might be a scam to get you seek the next ATM where someone is waiting for you and you start the millionaires' tour: Use all cards at gun- or knife point until their limits are reached.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  > get you seek the next ATM where someone is waiting for you Am sure this is what a bar in the Canaries tried with me, a 4 level bar/restaurant with about 10 rooms and their story was "this card machine is broken" "this one's out of battery" etc, then "there's an ATM just over there, I'll take you there...". If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, don't be surprised if they steal your bread.
  - jlg23 7y ago
    On the Canary Islands I'd rather expect a skimmer in the ATM, not getting mugged. Also, the tourism industry there is notorious for exploiting employees - when people pay in cash tips tend to be higher.
DoubleGlazing 7y ago
I'm not saying it was a scam. What I am saying something odd was going on. I booked and prepaid the hotel with my Visa debit card. When I arrived they wanted a deposit for £150, which they would only accept using a Mastercard. I have never encountered any business that only accepts Visa OR Mastercard. I don't have a Mastercard, so I was told I had to pay the deposit in cash. That was just really odd.
- Avalaxy 7y ago
  Aha. When you wrote: > This really set my alarm bells ringing I interpreted this as "red flag", or "something fishy going on".
  - hnal943 7y ago
    Right, but it turns out it was just bad customer service, not fraud.
- kingofpandora 7y ago
  > I have never encountered any business that only accepts Visa OR Mastercard. Me neither ... except Costco, which - in Canada at least - only accepts Mastercard.
  - Wistar 7y ago
    Same in the US. They used to only accept American Express.

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

>It would appear that it was easier for the hotel to get these negative reviews taken off TripAdvisor than from other sites. Did you mention anything about the 150 pounds in your review? IMHO, "complaining about price" in any arguable fashion seems to be reason enough to get something removed. If you would have said "I really disliked their checkin process", the review would probably stand. I have done consulting for an extreme micro-manager of a small business who was on the phone to trip advisor with every single negative review she received. The only time she was ever able to get a review removed was if it mentioned her prices in some fashion.

NullPrefix 7y ago
"I really disliked their checkin process" doesn't really explain the situation
DoubleGlazing 7y ago
I posted a paragraph describing the hotel, room and restaurant as being nice and clean and that the food was good. THen another paragraph starting with "You should be aware of the strange deposit requirement.." and then going into the detail of what happened and ending with me saying that I found the experience soured my opinion of what was otherwise a good stay.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
  >THen another paragraph starting with "You should be aware of the strange deposit requirement.." and then going into the detail of what happened and ending with me saying that I found the experience soured my opinion of what was otherwise a good stay. Yes so again, in my experience, if the price of the "strange deposit" was mentioned whatsoever anywhere in the comment, that seems to be all tripadvisor needs to see to get a review deleted.
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    Your statement >IMHO, "complaining about price" in any arguable fashion seems to be reason enough to get something removed. Comes off as a defense of TA here. It seems like you didn't mean it to be, only a statement of fact, but that's why you got the response you did.

fredophile 7y ago

In my experience paying a deposit when checking in, even when you've already paid for the room, is very common. The deposit is to cover things like room service charges, use of the mini bar, etc. If you don't use it then they cancel it with your credit card company and you don't actually get charged. Having said that, £150 is definitely a bigger deposit than I would expect and only taking mastercard is unusual.

ptha 7y ago
I noticed this for a few hotels when traveling to New Zealand recently, a few hotels required a $100-200 deposit - in cash only. As I'd been using a Revolut card for purchases and it was near the end of the holiday so I didn't want to have to try to spend the deposit before returning home, I simply went with a different hotel that didn't have this condition (it was clearly stated on their booking.com page). I don't know if they'd had problems with stag nights in the past with people leaving a mess...

paggle 7y ago

> But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me. Becuase when I've traveled I've just hit up the top TripAdvsior attractions and restaurants and have always had a great time. I've never ended up at a "Shed at Dulwich."

Crespyl 7y ago
> I've never ended up at a "Shed at Dulwich." Of course not, they're booked solid through the end of the year!
- paggle 7y ago
  Haha. And I think I would have had fun at the Shed too.

turc1656 7y ago

"But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me." Let's be fair - the Shed at Dulwich was done by Vice and took a fake phone and months of effort, along with an entire network of friends to "verify" the restaurant via fake reviews. That level of effort needs to be taken into consideration I would think before you just write off the whole site/service. That being said, there are many, legitimate issues with all of these review sites like TA and Yelp.