Rant: Fake TripAdvisor Reviews

4

45th Birthday

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
May 11, 2008
Messages
472
Location
Treasure Coast
I'm beginning the process of planning our annual migration from south to north by car (by car necessary because we have a dog).

We like to vary the route a bit if we can, and while we have a few go-to stops and hotels along the way, I research places on TripAdvisor to decide where to stay.

I'm extremely irritated with the number of places that are highly ranked because of what are obviously fake reviews. One place I looked at (Residence Inn Columbia Northeast/Fort Jackson Area) is a case in point. Most reviews are five star and by people who have written only one or two reviews. Most of those mention the same employees over and over again by name, and they describe esoteric features of the place in rapturous language. Drilling down, after wasting serious time, you find the place is in need of renovation and has room cleanliness and pest problems, among other issues.

I wonder why TripAdvisor can't/won't police their reviews better. They don't have to have someone read each one, they can use algorithms to do this. It makes the site much less useful.

Don't even get me started on the fake Amazon reviews where you see reviews written by people who happen to write ten or more reviews each day about low-priced Chinese junk.
 
TripAdvisor can be very useful, but always use multiple sources when researching your travels.

For example, here is a site I find useful for finding out when a hotel was built and when it was last renovated. In the case of the one you mentioned, I see it was built in 2005 and has not yet been renovated. A fairly long time for a Marriott property.

TravelAge West
 
I use Trip Advisor, and contribute to it as well. The thing I do not like is they allow the reviewee to message you back. Normally not a bad thing in case a provider wants to make it right. However one place we used to like now uses TA as their excuse for terrible food and service. "See we gave you a free meal". So what? Your food sucks, free is too much.

Some of the phoney Amazon reviews are hysterical. I can't find the one where the fellow bought an air mattress thinking it was a huge ice cream sandwich. His excuse was he was at[9].[emoji12]
 
I use Trip Advisor a lot.
But I discredit the reviewers that only have a few reviews.

If I'm really interested in a property I'll go into the reviewers history to see how they review other properties--are they giving rave reviews to a Days Inn type of property or do they only review 4 and five star ones.
 
Have you considered AirBnB? I think it's difficult to fake reviews there because they are limited to people who have actually booked and paid for a property. I suppose a host could have his friends book, then refund the money, but they would still be out the AirBnB fee. Most listings also have a generous number of photos.

We look for stops that have private baths and some kind of kitchen, like maybe a monther-in-law apartment. In Vancouver a couple of years ago we ended up in a stand-alone mother-in-law cottage in the host's back yard. It was great!. With a kitchen we can carry OJ, croissants, butter, etc. and a few beers in a disposable foam cooler in the car. We don't generally make coffee but carrying some coffee and universal filters would probably get you coffee in most AirBnB kitchens.

We also prefer stops where we meet the host and can get advice on restaurants and/or other activities.

Staying in a cookie-cutter motel is an absolute last choice for us.
 
Within a chain, quality and safety can vary wildly. That's why I like to read reviews. I feel like I can sniff out fakes fairly well, but who knows? I try to leave accurate reviews, especially for hotels, good or bad, but especially if I had a different experience than the reviews.

The worst offender was a bar/restaurant called "Bad Bob's" in Dublin. Reviews were almost all good, and it looked ok when we got there, but the food, service, atmosphere, everything, was all bad. I left a pretty detailed review. TripAdvisor removed it because the restaurant said that I must've gotten it confused with another place. I told TripAdvisor I was absolutely certain I had the right place, even had a picture in front of it, and that this was a bogus way to get a good overall rating, by getting the bad ones removed. I said I'd never contribution or read TA again if they didn't restore my review. They did restore it, but the place still has a 4.5 rating so I'm sure a lot of people just didn't bother.
 
I like tripadvisors also. The thing for me is to take it as one piece of my investigating. If it's a chain hotel there is a lot more lead way but if it's a smaller independent hotel I definitely go beyond TA

Restaurants are not that big of a deal, I've pic whoppers a time or two without the help of reviews.
 
OldShooter said:
Have you considered AirBnB? I think it's difficult to fake reviews there because they are limited to people who have actually booked and paid for a property. I suppose a host could have his friends book, then refund the money, but they would still be out the AirBnB fee. Most listings also have a generous number of photos.

We look for stops that have private baths and some kind of kitchen, like maybe a monther-in-law apartment. In Vancouver a couple of years ago we ended up in a stand-alone mother-in-law cottage in the host's back yard. It was great!. With a kitchen we can carry OJ, croissants, butter, etc. and a few beers in a disposable foam cooler in the car. We don't generally make coffee but carrying some coffee and universal filters would probably get you coffee in most AirBnB kitchens.

We also prefer stops where we meet the host and can get advice on restaurants and/or other activities.

Staying in a cookie-cutter motel is an absolute last choice for us.
Click to expand...

+1
 
45th Birthday said:
I'm beginning the process of planning our annual migration from south to north by car (by car necessary because we have a dog).

We like to vary the route a bit if we can, and while we have a few go-to stops and hotels along the way, I research places on TripAdvisor to decide where to stay.

I'm extremely irritated with the number of places that are highly ranked because of what are obviously fake reviews. One place I looked at (Residence Inn Columbia Northeast/Fort Jackson Area) is a case in point. Most reviews are five star and by people who have written only one or two reviews. Most of those mention the same employees over and over again by name, and they describe esoteric features of the place in rapturous language. Drilling down, after wasting serious time, you find the place is in need of renovation and has room cleanliness and pest problems, among other issues.

I wonder why TripAdvisor can't/won't police their reviews better. They don't have to have someone read each one, they can use algorithms to do this. It makes the site much less useful.

Don't even get me started on the fake Amazon reviews where you see reviews written by people who happen to write ten or more reviews each day about low-priced Chinese junk.
Click to expand...
Yeah - unfortunately it's turned into a jungle like eBay and Amazon third party sellers.

When TripAdvisor bought Viator, and subsequently featured them heavily on their location pages, and also started doing hotel bookings, they had crossed the line.

I find the restaurant reviews pretty unreliable. I have to really comb through the hotel reviews and check other sites as well.
 
Yelp has a similar problem.
I read 300+ Yelp reviews daily and flag all the fake ones.
Many, most, get nuked.

You can do the same with TripAdvisor.
 
Tripadviser has an issue with fake reviews. I wrote a review about a garden to counteract all the fake reviews and the garden owners quickly added enough glowing reviews to push mine off the first page.

Apparently they are pretty easy to publish fake reviews on -

I Made My Shed the Top-Rated Restaurant on Trip Adviser
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor

It is about a guy's garden shed, not an actual restaurant named the shed.

Oh and I put a bad review about the garden on a fake blog that had no links to prove to DH the garden owners were making up the reviews. The only people who could ever find this blog would be SEO marketers because it had no ranking and no links from other sites so you could only find it using Google alerts. Sure enough a day later the fake marketers put comments on the blog how I was mistaken and what a great garden it was.
 
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Fake reviews on all sites: yelp, amazon, TA, etc.... Just part of the reality of the world we live in. Sucks for sure. Funny websites on the topic if you google buying fake reviews.
 
I'm a compensated reviewer for a big box store. I've told my story before. I get free product for review. It is all in the open, as our reviews are tagged.

Nothing fake about it if you follow the given rules.

However, the psychology of writing a review for compensation plays with your brain. I recently had a kitchen faucet that was the biggest piece of garbage I ever saw. Gave it a 1, wish I could have given it a zero. Yet, my fellow compensated reviewers gave it a 5. I swear that many of them didn't even install it or open the box, they just resold it on ebay. This is all against the rules. No matter, when money is involved, the fakery creeps in.

I wish my Big Box sugar daddy would pay more attention to these people, who, by the way, the big box outlet chose. You don't apply for this. They need to cull more of the reviewers who fall into this bad habit.
 
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Human said:
I use Fakespot.

https://www.fakespot.com

It analyzes reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon...and assigns a grade. Super helpful.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Incredible site, just what I'm looking for. TripAdvisor (and all the others) can easily construct the same analysis this site does.

The grade for the Residence Inn Columbia Northeast/Fort Jackson Area is F. Only 20% of the reviews are reliable. I can reach the same conclusion, but after spending a lot more time.
 
OldShooter said:
Have you considered AirBnB? I think it's difficult to fake reviews there because they are limited to people who have actually booked and paid for a property. I suppose a host could have his friends book, then refund the money, but they would still be out the AirBnB fee. Most listings also have a generous number of photos.

We look for stops that have private baths and some kind of kitchen, like maybe a monther-in-law apartment. In Vancouver a couple of years ago we ended up in a stand-alone mother-in-law cottage in the host's back yard. It was great!. With a kitchen we can carry OJ, croissants, butter, etc. and a few beers in a disposable foam cooler in the car. We don't generally make coffee but carrying some coffee and universal filters would probably get you coffee in most AirBnB kitchens.

We also prefer stops where we meet the host and can get advice on restaurants and/or other activities.

Staying in a cookie-cutter motel is an absolute last choice for us.
Click to expand...

We aren't interested in airbnb for various reasons. What I am interested in is accurate reviews for established mainstream places.
 
Luvdogs said:
I use Trip Advisor a lot.
But I discredit the reviewers that only have a few reviews.

If I'm really interested in a property I'll go into the reviewers history to see how they review other properties--are they giving rave reviews to a Days Inn type of property or do they only review 4 and five star ones.
Click to expand...
Yup. I also go into destination forums and look at postings. There are plenty of way to get around the BS ratings in TA. But it is a sham if you only look on the surface! I suppose their business model is supported by the crappy management approach. I laugh when a hamburger joint gets better ratings than fine dining establishment. No judgement as to quality and service...
 
Hmm, I never looked at it that way. When the burger joint goes to the top of the list, I just figure it's because [assuming an equal level of fidelity across all reviews] the burgers must be stupendous, whereas the foo-food and accompanying service is, considering its much higher price, just so-so.

kcowan said:
I laugh when a hamburger joint gets better ratings than fine dining establishment. No judgement as to quality and service...
Click to expand...
 
Amethyst said:
Hmm, I never looked at it that way. When the burger joint goes to the top of the list, I just figure it's because [assuming an equal level of fidelity across all reviews] the burgers must be stupendous, whereas the foo-food and accompanying service is, considering its much higher price, just so-so.
Click to expand...
+1

I don't care if it's a $2.00 meal or $200.

Two of the worst meals ever. 1. A McTartare burger. Absolutely raw in the middle. 2. A fine meal at The Phoenix in downtown KCMO. They sent me to the gastrointestinal unit for several days. Salmonella is no joke.
 
Plus it is based on the "number of reviews."

A Hilton Garden Inn is likely going to get more reviews than a Conrad just because of the price point even though the Conrad should be much better than the Hilton Garden Inn. Therefore the HGI will likely be higher rated.

Unfortunately I base my hotels a lot on Trip Adviser. It's dumb because I'm sure there are nice hotels lower on the list but I probably won't stay unless they are in the top 20%--# 20/100 or 200/1000--I plug in my price point and it narrows it down a lot.

Another VENT--I will plug in my price and then go to the official site and it's often 50% more than TA states. TA will use the lowest possible price, such as a single bed in Europe which I don't think many people want or no refunds.
 
Amethyst said:
Hmm, I never looked at it that way. When the burger joint goes to the top of the list, I just figure it's because [assuming an equal level of fidelity across all reviews] the burgers must be stupendous, whereas the foo-food and accompanying service is, considering its much higher price, just so-so.
Click to expand...
Me too. I at least kind of rate it based on expectations. A burger place is going to have to be really really good to get 5* from me, but it certainly can. If the food or service at a high end place isn't good, I'm certainly going to knock it down because I expected really good based on the price.
 
RunningBum said:
Me too. I at least kind of rate it based on expectations. A burger place is going to have to be really really good to get 5* from me, but it certainly can. If the food or service at a high end place isn't good, I'm certainly going to knock it down because I expected really good based on the price.
Click to expand...

Agree. If I'm writing a review of a brewpub, I'll rate it in terms of all the other brewpubs I've been to lately. Certainly not in terms of how it stands against other types of restaurant. Seems to me that if people don't read the reviews with that in mind, they just don't understand how it's supposed to work.
 
I use tripadvisor and the hotel chains own reviews. Haven't been steered yet, we stay in 5 to 15 different hotels a year in our annual travels.
 
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