Slashdot Mirror
UK Hotel Adds Hefty Charge For Bad Reviews Online
Bizzeh writes: A British couple has been "fined" £100 by a Blackpool hotel for leaving critical comments on Trip Advisor. The UK's Trading Standards organization is investigating the incident, saying it may breach regulations. The Broadway Hotel's booking policy reads (in small print), "Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not. "For every bad review left on any website, the group organizer will be charged a maximum £100 per review."
BROADWAY HOTEL SUCKS
Come and take your 100 pounds for this.
Streisand Effect anyone?
Last review from tripadvisor:
"I spent two nights for my son's 18th birthday at this hotel, but had I read the reviews 1st I wouldn't of stayed at this hotel. The breakfast was disgusting, the tables and cutlery were filthy and the dining room looked as it hadn't seen a hoover in months. In our bedroom the shower head was useless cause you had to hold it yourself as the holder on the wall was broken also I don't think they clean the showers regular cause it was filthy, we couldn't turn the TV on, the floor was dirty. In my son's room he couldn't turn the heating off so had to be too hot all night "
The couple have sought a refund via their credit card company.
FTA
The chargeback processing fee is charged regardless. I use to be on the receiving end of chargebacks and my credit card processor would charge this no matter what. The hotel can challenge it, but the money remains frozen until resolved.
What the hotel is trying to do here is create a 100 pound fee that can get around the UK Chargeback rule, that limited the automatic right to a chargeback to items costing less than 100 pounds.
However the automatic right within law isn't why you get a chargeback, its the credit card company discretion that gives you it. The law was an extra protection added, but chargebacks were prior to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargeback
So ask, the credit card company will refund, this is clearly an unsustainable charge, and they should also raise it with the major hotel booking companies, because their review system is being attacked here, and their conditions of inclusion for the hotel are being broken.
Get the hotel kicked from Booking.com Apodo and the rest and it will be gone from memory quick enough.
Despite what the Republicans are trying to tell you regulating businesses is not the same as communism.
I was told there was nothing I could do.
It looks like you need to use a better card payment service. Although the chargeback system is certainly horribly biased against honest merchants and vulnerable to abuse, you can still dispute any chargeback, and any serious card payment service will surely provide for this.
Also worth knowing:
1. Some payment services these days will waive the chargeback fee if you successfully defend the charge.
2. If you use 3-D Secure to authenticate the buyer, then chargeback liability shifts to the financial companies rather than you as the merchant under most circumstances.
So the situation here is at least a bit better for honest merchants than it used to be.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In many parts of the world you're not required to read contracts. Items that are not part of a standard contract are not enforceable unless separated and signed on their own.
So: It is expected that a hotel charges me for the minibar and damage to the room. It is unexpected and not even remotely standard practice that they charge me for leaving a bad review. Hence when I sign on the dotted line I agree to standard terms. This is backed by case law in several parts of the world, and I think the UK included.
In Australia it was to do with a postal worker having people sign over the deeds to the house when dropping off a package.
Maybe I just missed it in the comments, but: here is the TripAdvisor page for the hotel.