Widespread and highly sophisticated. Review fraud is a huge business and no you cannot spot fake reviews.
Travel Reviews: A Platform for Critics and Crooks
How do you separate honest reviews from dishonest ones? A long-time passion of mine, travel review scam is something I’ve written about for a long time, and dare I say I’m even known for. There are recent changes in the travel review community. Competition and economic uncertainty continue to give rise to a desire to change the outcome of all-important […]
Does “The Deal” Fuel Your Hawaii Trip?
A survey this week from Expedia says that us travelers are hell-bent on attaining travel deals. So much so that their study of nearly 1,000 U.S. travelers indicated that 60% of trips are based simply on finding a good enough deal. Survey methodology Funny thing though. When I tried to read the actual survey results on my own (I’m […]
Bed Bugs Make News, Money, and Influence Hotel Decisions
Thirteen Honolulu hotels were mentioned on the Bed Bug Registry site as having problems with the dreaded creature. Is the problem real or just a way to damage a hotel’s reputation? As we pointed out in our last report, references to “bed bugs” have grown tremendously on U.S. TripAdvisor reviews. If bed bugs are mentioned in a hotel review, […]
Bed Bugs And Rats Make Compelling Travel Reviews
Unscrupulous authors of fraudulent travel reviews are obviously well aware of our human nature. Unmoved by a genteel approach to why we should or shouldn’t stay at a given hotel, they now appear to be baiting us with the cursed words potential visitors fear most. Bed bugs and rodents. When I read hotel reviews, I need only hear these […]
Class Action Lawsuit and Government Scrutiny Of Travel Reviews
Two new issues are adding fuel to the fire surrounding rampant travel review fraud, and may help bring the matter to a head, sooner than later. 1. Yelp Class Action lawsuit. Yelp became the subject of a class action lawsuit this week in a filing that asserts that the company used extortion by demanding monthly payments (in the form […]
Sophisticated Review Fraud Hits TripAdvisor
Consumer beware. Hospitality marketing firms are promoting their ability to concoct systematic fake reviews to improve a hotel’s rating and lambaste the competitors. Consumers, however, are poised to be hurt the worst. Can you spot these fake reviews? I assert, definitely not. The wide-spread belief that real reviews can be sorted from the bogus is rapidly changing through more […]
Google Places For One-Stop Reviews
There’s a huge shift afoot in travel reviews; one you won’t want to miss. Today’s post covers what it means to the travel consumer. If you’d like to see my analysis of what it means for your business, I invite you to read more about it on my other site, TechSpokes. “Places” on Google Maps now incorporates extremely useful […]
What Happened At Oyster Reviews?
Can Oyster Reviews keep its pearl intact in spite of the reduction in staff? After only four months of operation, media reports have announced that between one-third to three-quarters of their employees were given the pink slip this week. The news that this professional hotel review site is in dire straits is bad news for travelers looking for reviews […]
TripAdvisor Review Filter Dead
When I wrote recently about Filterstream, it was to tell you about how it allowed hotels to show you only those TripAdvisor reviews that made them look good. The problem is, that entirely subverted TripAdvisor’s integrity. At the time, I checked with our contact at TripAdvisor, who said: “We have no comment for now on the Filter Stream widget.” On […]
