Scary way hotels are silencing bad feedback

SOME hotels will do anything to avoid bad publicity — and they’re specifically punishing guests who don’t follow the rules.

FOUR years ago, a strange policy at a little-known hotel in New York made headlines around the world.

“If you have booked the inn for a wedding or other type of event,” read the policy at the Union Street Guest House in Hudson, “there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review ... placed on any internet site by anyone in your party.”

What the hotel appeared to be doing was gagging guests who may have wanted to complain about the establishment in online reviews — by threatening them with payback.

After the revelation of the policy ironically triggered an avalanche of negative online reviews about the hotel, the Union Street Guest House claimed it was only joking.

But that was not an isolated incident — this is actually happening.

Some hotels really are charging fees to guests who go online to publicly complain about their stay rather than privately hash it out with the hotel itself.

The practice made headlines again in December, when a woman who stayed with her husband at a hotel in the US state of Indiana was fined $430 by the hotel after posting a negative review online.

Katrina Arthur said she was disappointed to discover dirty sheets, broken air conditioning, weak water pressure and the strong smell of sewerage in her room at the Abbey Inn and Suites.

She also couldn’t find any staff to address the issues at the isolated inn, so she posted an honest review of her “nightmare” experience on a bed and breakfast review website.

But the hotel had a nifty clause in its fine print, which read: “Guests agree that if guests find any problems with our accommodations, and fail to provide us the opportunity to address those problems while the guest is with us, and/or refuses our exclusive remedy, but then disparages us in any public manner, we will be entitled to charge their credit card.”

The hotel threatened Ms Arthur with legal action, the Washington Post reported. She deleted the review but the hotel charged $430 to her credit card anyway.

The Indiana Attorney-General’s office has since filed a lawsuit against the hotel company.

The practice of punishing guests for bad reviews has become such an issue in the United States there have been moves by government to protect guests, the Economist reported.

California banned these “non-disparagement clauses” in 2014 and the Obama administration followed suit with a federal ban in 2016 (but it didn’t come into effect in enough time to protect Ms Arthur, the Economist noted.)

But the practice isn’t unique to the US. In the UK, a couple who took to TripAdvisor to describe a Blackpool hotel as a “filthy, stinking hovel” in 2014 was hit with a $174 fine from the hotel’s owners.

When they challenged the fine, Tony and Jan Jenkinson were told they had violated the “no bad review” policy in the hotel’s terms and conditions.

After the local council stepped in, the couple was reimbursed and the hotel’s sneaky policy was scrapped.

(Restaurants have sought similar payback from patrons who left negative feedback on TripAdvisor — one restaurant in Kent, UK sued a woman who left a one-star review on the website in May last year.)

Negative feedback can be damaging to a business and of course, online reviews aren’t always honest.

But “no bad review” policies aren’t the only way hotels have been trying to avoid unflattering feedback, including in Australia.

In November, the Federal Court found Meriton Serviced Apartments had been dabbling in a practice known as “masking”, which prevented bad reviews being left on TripAdvisor.

The court heard that staff added the letters “MSA” to email addresses of guests who had a bad experience, which made their email address invalid — and which meant they wouldn’t get an auto-invite from TripAdvisor to post a review about their stay.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took Meriton to the federal court after revelations from a whistleblowing former employee triggered an investigation.

A federal court judge found masking had reduced the number of negative reviews about Meriton on TripAdvisor, and Meriton had engaged misleading or deceptive conduct. A penalty is yet to be determined.

“It will send a strong message to the industry more broadly,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said after the court’s ruling.

“If Meriton can get caught I do think that is going to make people sit up and think about what they are doing ... no doubt it does happen in other places.”