Travel website under investigation over claim of ‘reviews you can trust’

The move came after a formal complaint was lodged with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the company’s claim that it publishes “reviews you can trust”. An ASA spokesman said the allegation was that some reviews were not “real or genuine”. The complaint was lodged by KwikChex, a brand reputation management company.

TripAdvisor said its website attracted 45 million unique visitors every month and contained more than 50 million reviews. Many are posted by site users and help to advise customers about hotels and restaurants.

Chris Emmins, of KwikChex, estimated that between 5 million and 10 million reviews could be fake. “What we really wanted is to see an impartial authority examine TripAdvisor’s claims of trustworthiness. We don’t want them to reveal company secrets, we just want to know how they verify their reviews.

“Instead of saying, ‘these are reviews you can trust’, they need to put a disclaimer up saying they cannot say whether the reviews are verified or not.”

Adam Raphael, editor of the Good Hotel Guide, said that the site was open to “collusive and malicious reviews”. Mr Raphael said he and others had set up bogus accounts to test the website’s verification systems.

“We used very over-the-top language and obviously we hadn’t been to the hotel but the reviews were published. One person I know wrote 127 fake reviews just to prove that the systems don’t work. It’s such an influential site – bad reviews can be extremely damaging.

Angus Struthers, senior director of global communications at TripAdvisor, said the company could not comment on potential investigations. He added: “We take the authenticity of our reviews very seriously and have numerous methods to ensure the legitimacy of the content on Trip- Advisor, including automated site tools, a team of review integrity experts, and our large and passionate community of millions of travellers that help us identify suspicious content. We devote thousands of hours each year to battling fraud.”

A recent study by PhoCusWright, commissioned by the website, indicated that 98 per cent of respondents found TripAdvisor hotel reviews to be accurate, with 69 per cent stating the reviews were “highly or extremely accurate”.

Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said a number of people were using TripAdvisor as a blackmailing tool. “I am hearing of more and more cases where customers have threatened staff that they will write a bad review on TripAdvisor unless they get a change of room or their rates changed.

“A bad review could cost someone their job or affect the reputation of the business so this is a real worry. The reviews can be written by competitors who have never stayed there and in some cases discuss parts of a hotel which don’t exist. Sometimes these reviews actually name management and staff on the site, which is totally unfair.”

He added: “TripAdvisor have got to put systems in place whereby they can verify people stayed in the accommodation. People can only review places for lastminue.com and laterooms if they have booked through them.”

Professor Paul Freathy, of Stirling University’s Institute of Retail Studies, said: “On one hand sites like TripAdvisor do give customers a voice. . . but when reviews are put on the internet it is open to abuse.

“It does provide power without responsibility. Ultimately, TripAdvisor have to effectively police their internet and show it is equitable, otherwise it loses credibility.”