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Hotel Charges Guests $500 For Bad Online Reviews

njnnja (2833511) writes In an incredibly misguided attempt to reduce the quantity of bad reviews (such as these), the Union Street Guest House, a hotel about 2 hours outside of New York City, had instituted a policy to charge groups such as wedding parties $500 for each bad review posted online. The policy has been removed from their webpage but the wayback machine has archived the policy. "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 negative review on any internet site you agree to a $500. fine for each negative review."

3 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Libertarians, discuss! by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It looks like "the market" is going to take care of these jokers. You should probably find a better example to make your point.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  2. Re:Sensational headline is sensational... by AnOnyxMouseCoward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except, if you actually read all the TripAdvisor reviews (I had a lot of time to waste yesterday), you do notice a few things:

    1. The owners seem incredibly snarky.
    2. There's multiple cases of people getting charged even though they tried cancelling half a year in advance
    3. They seem to suffer from low staff and debatable accounting practices
    4. There's a of positive reviews from people with 1 review, and he accuses negative reviewers of being liars when they have a few reviews on their account

    Whether or not they actually charge $500 for bad online reviews is debatable, but they sure seem like dicks and charge for everything else, and have bad business practices.

  3. Re:So... in addition to the bad reviews... by magarity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't the sticking point here not that the person contracting for service agrees to a non-disparagement clause but that person agrees on behalf of everyone in their entire group? Is that realistic?