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Tripadvisor Madness: Couple Fined £100 By Blackpool Hotel For Posting Bad Review

Errm, isn't the whole point of a review that you get to state your real opinion?

UPDATE: News has since emerged that the couple are to be given a refund.

Blackpool Council has come forward to explain that the hotel is to refund the charge and scrap the "no bad reviews" policy altogether!

Let's hope other hotels thinking of introducing similar clauses will heed the warning.

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A couple who posted some negative words on popular travel review site Tripadvisor later discovered that they had been fined for the privilege.

Jan and Tony Jenkinson, from Cumbria, stayed at the Broadway Hotel in Blackpool in August 2014.

Blackpool is a popular city, but one hotel didn't get a good review. [REX]
Blackpool is a popular city, but one hotel didn't get a good review. [REX]

The couple, who were travelling to Oxford, decided to stay for one night at the hotel on their way through the city.

Broadway Hotel describes itself on booking sites as having "cosy bedrooms" and a "bright and airy dining room" and offers doubles and family rooms from between £60 and £100 during August.*

Jane and Tony Jenkinson, however, found their one night stay to be rather less than satisfactory.

The review posted by Tony, complained:

"The hot tap didn't work, when we reported it we were told they knew about it and it would be fixed in the morning (we were only there for one night.) The drawer fronts fell off when we opened the chest of drawers. Again, they knew about this and it was supposed to be dealt with in the morning. The kettle wouldn't work, were told you had to switch on the socket it was plugged into, also switch on another socket to make it work. This was because the whole place was rewired wrongly according to the member of staff who dealt with us, and they couldn't afford to have it put right."

He also write that: "The wallpaper was peeling off the walls. The carpet was thin, dirty and stained."

Blackpool Tower is a popular attraction, if you can find somewhere nice to stay. [REX]
Blackpool Tower is a popular attraction, if you can find somewhere nice to stay. [REX]

Tony captioned the review "Filthy, dirty, rotten stinking hovel run by muppets" and concluded that: "If you are offered this place to stay for a fortnight for 10p you are being robbed!! STAY AWAY!!!"

Later, the couple discovered that an extra £100 had been charged to their credit card.

The BBC, upon investigation, revealed that this was down to a hotel policy that charges customers for bad reviews.

The hotel policy is reported to contain a document that states: 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 organiser will be charged £100 per review."

Getting an honest account is the whole point of the site. [Tripadvisor]
Getting an honest account is the whole point of the site. [Tripadvisor]

 

Mr Jenkinson asserted that the details of the policy were in the booking documents, but his wife may not have been able to read the fine print thoroughly as she did not have her glasses on.

Fine print or not, enough doubt has been cast on the validity of placing such a claim within a hotel policy, that the hotel is now under investigation for breaching trading standards.

Councillor John McCreesh, responsible for trading standards, has since stated: "Hotel owners should focus on getting their service right, rather than shutting down aggreived customers with threats and fines."

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What do you think of the hotel's response to Tony's review? Is it acceptable to charge for bad press, or is this a way to prevent freedom of speech? Let us know in the comments!

* All prices and descriptions currently referenced from the Broadway Hotel, Blackpool entry on Booking.com - Tony and Jan are reported to have found a room for £36.