TripAdvisor users threaten to leave bad reviews to 'blackmail' owners into giving refunds over unfair complaints
TripAdvisor users threaten to leave bad reviews to
'blackmail' owners into giving refunds over unfair complaints
By Telegraph Reporters 13 DECEMBER 2016 • 12:24PM
Pub customers frequently threaten to leave bad
TripAdvisor reviews over unfair complaints, a landlord has disclosed, as he
accused a diner of trying to blackmail him unless he gave them a refund.
Piers Baker, 41, spoke of his anger after the diner
claimed to have suffered food poisoning after eating at The Sun Inn, in Dedham,
on the Essex-Suffolk border.
Mr Baker said he was called three days after a meal by a
member of a party who ate lamb at the historic 15th century former coaching
inn.
The pub owner said they told him they had fallen very ill
and demanded their money back after the visit in November.
Mr Baker said he sympathised with the customer, but
insisted he would only give a refund if food poisoning could be confirmed by a
doctor or an investigation by environmental health officials or the Food
Standards Agency.
He said the diner warned they would post a bad review on
travellers' website TripAdvisor if they did not get their money back. They
followed through with their threat three days later.
Mr Baker, who also runs a pub in Colchester, Essex, said:
"It's extremely frustrating. If people don't like the decor or something
that's up to them. I have no problem with opinions, I do with a distortion of
the facts.
"We get it frequently, people who sit in and say 'if
you don't take this off my bill, we will put it on TripAdvisor'.
"We will take it off if there's something wrong with
it. The threat is irrelevant. If they behave like that we don't want them back
anyway."
The businessman added: "I have replied to the
comment, which I don't like doing because I don't agree with it and don't want
to be involved.
"I said when they called 'you are blackmailing us'
and they said 'no, we feel you should inform people of it'.
"We know the meat came in good order, was stored
correctly and cooked at the right temperature. We served 180 people that day,
48 had lamb – plus some staff – and we have had no other reports of food
poisoning."
Mr Baker said the victim could have easily caught a bug
or virus off another person who might not themselves display symptoms.
TripAdvisor now appears to have taken the comment down.
Mr Baker said that in his 14 years in the trade he has successfully had two
other unfair reviews removed from the review website.
A TripAdvisor spokesman said: "Our advice to
business owners if they feel they have been threatened with an unfair review is
to use our dedicated tool which allows them to report such threats to us before
any review is published.
"Our team of specialists will then investigate and
take action to prevent reviews that breach our guidelines from making it onto
the site.
"For reviews that are published and do meet our
guidelines, we give owners the opportunity to put their side of the story
across by publishing a reply to each review."
The Sun Inn was rated in the top 50 pubs in the Good Food
Guide 2016.
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