
Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online - mcenedella
http://pagesix.com/2014/08/04/hotel-charges-500-for-every-bad-review-posted-online/
======
dm2
What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them.

[http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-
hudson?sort...](http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-
hudson?sort_by=rating_asc) 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so
far), ouch...

[http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie...](http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Reviews-
Union_Street_Guest_House-Hudson_New_York.html#REVIEWS)

Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the
page,
[http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/](http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/)
obviously this was someone's first website.

It's probably not legal, if it is then it is unenforceable in court, even if
it was in their terms contract.

Here is the page with their $500 review fee policy:
[http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/events_weddings.shtml](http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/events_weddings.shtml)

I don't condone leaving negative reviews if you haven't stayed there, but if
you do be sure to note that you have not stayed at the hotel and are just
commenting on their policies to warn people, unless that is against the review
sites policy, then don't do that.

~~~
yread
Nice:

 _If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in
the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there
will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative
review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and /or
attending your wedding or event If you stay here to attend a wedding anywhere
in the area and leave us a negative review on any internet site you agree to a
$500. fine for each negative review. (Please NOTE we will not charge this fee
&/or will refund this fee once the review is taken down). Also, please note
that we only request this of wedding parties and for the reasons explained
above._

~~~
dspillett
_> for the reasons explained above_

Being lazy and not reading it myself: do they attempt to adequately explain
the policy other than "we'd like to be able to be dickish without getting bad
reviews" in "the reasons explained above"?

(edit for those only reading this far: it appears that they do, see the
replies to this post for detail)

~~~
zorrb
"Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our
Inn, your friends and families may not. This is due to the fact that your
guests may not understand what we offer - therefore we expect you to explain
that to them. USGH & Hudson are historic. The buildings here are old (but
restored). Our bathrooms and kitchens are designed to look old in an artistic
"vintage" way. Our furniture is mostly hip, period furniture that you would
see in many design magazines. (although comfortable and functional - obviously
all beds are brand new) If your guests are looking for a Marriott type hotel
they may not like it here."

~~~
eli
I actually kinda see where they're coming from. I'm sure they do get
complaints from people who never stay anywhere besides upscale chain hotels.
But obviously this is not the way to address the issue. It's mean and
ultimately self-defeating.

~~~
dm2
A piece of paper asking guests to keep this in mind when giving reviews would
suffice.

A company that threatens to fine me for giving them a negative review is much
more likely to actually receive a negative review from me.

~~~
Silhouette
_A company that threatens to fine me for giving them a negative review is much
more likely to actually receive a negative review from me._

And a company that actually fines me would be much more likely to receive a
chargeback, formal complaints to any relevant regulators, or even for that
kind of money a small claims suit.

I'm not really sure how they expect to win with this policy, particularly
since they're presumably about to get more negative publicity than every bad
review they ever avoided and searching for them on-line will probably lead to
dozens of critical comments forever now.

------
ctdonath
Maybe it's the "star rating" system that's broken.

When reviewing rated product/service offerings, I go straight to the 1-star
reviews. Skimming those, I differentiate the "valid complaints" from flukes (a
small failure rate is understandable), unrealistic expectations (it's a
vintage hotel, not a new Hilton), tangential problems (Amazon didn't smash the
box, the shipper did), hysteria (political opposition isn't a reason), humor
(Family Circus isn't peer-reviewed), etc.

We need a way to express these, especially a "for what it is, it's good
(whether it met my needs/interests or not)".

~~~
peroo
As bad as the star system is, I'm not sure there's anything better. I think
Amazon has the right idea with the "Was this review helpful to you?" buttons,
though that may not work quite as well for Yelp if you consider the
possibility of review-burying by owners.

~~~
aestra
>I think Amazon has the right idea with the "Was this review helpful to you?"
buttons

Doubtful. "Was this review helpful to you?" is actually the "I disagree with
this review" button in practice.

Amazon reviews are so crappy. There is tons of reviews that say JUST "I
haven't used this product/read this book yet." plus any number of stars.

~~~
DanBC
> Amazon reviews are so crappy. There is tons of reviews that say JUST "I
> haven't used this product/read this book yet." plus any number of stars.

While it's extra work I love those reviews.

"I haven't read this book but $THING IS WRONG, thus one _" mean I can ignore
some of the low ratings.

While reviews and ratings are weird and probably need some tweaking at some
point[1] they are not nearly as bad as the weirdly broken search. I've got to
the point where _I would pay money to have better Amazon (also ebay)
search*.[2]

[1]along the lines suggested in this thread - I might dislike a movie but love
the genre; I might love a movie but generally dislike that genre; etc. So some
method of saying why you like something so much would perhaps be handy.

[2] I go to Amazon.co.uk and I search for [microwave oven]. I chose a
department - kitchen & home. I then sort by price, low to high. I am flooded
with totally irrelevant items. (Egg cup; aluminum foil; salt&pepper shakers;
children's cutlery sets; etc). You're not supposed to use search to find
microwave ovens, you're supposed to drill down the tree of department, items,
specific items.

~~~
aestra
Found a review of such a nature

[http://www.amazon.com/review/R35GSCGMDIAI9G/ref=cm_cr_pr_per...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R35GSCGMDIAI9G/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0743264363)

>Have not read

>At this time I am caught up with so many pressing activites that is not one
of my priorities. Will get to it probably this summer

One star review.

I agree completely about the searches. I'm starting to avoid Amazon cause I
can't find what I want on there.

>"I haven't read this book but $THING IS WRONG, thus one " mean I can ignore
some of the low ratings.

There are equal number of higher ratings and mid ratings of this nature.

------
Spooky23
Makes sense. Asking for a functional ice machine in the middle of the summer
at a wedding is a pretty unreasonable expectation.

We're talking about Hudson, NY here. It's practically a wilderness... having
an appliance repairman come would be impossible!

~~~
personZ
[http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g47931-d490934-r13...](http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g47931-d490934-r139248459-Union_Street_Guest_House-
Hudson_New_York.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT)

Ice is of obvious importance, but it sounds like they did get ice, and the
complaint was about the attitude concerning it.

------
chasing
Yes. And because of this you should definitely go to Yelp and give them a one-
star review. And destroy their Facebook page. And maybe go take a shit on
their doorstep. That's definitely the answer when a small business makes an
error like this. They're frustrated by something they don't feel is fair and
made a ham-fisted attempt to fix the problem. Ruin them.

(The ice machine thing, though -- that actually seems like it's much more
indicative that it might be worth staying somewhere else...)

~~~
rwallace
In fairness, I'm guessing a lot of the people virtually stomping on this hotel
are doing so in an attempt to nip a potential Overton window shift in the bud.
If this hotel were to get away with such a policy, other hotels and perhaps
other types of businesses would likely follow suit; that's how changes in
what's considered normal behavior come about. Punishing the first defector can
be an effective way to forestall that.

~~~
jonathansizz
I think you're being way too generous. They're trashing them because they can
and it makes them feel powerful. A virtual vigilante mob without any risk.

------
ryoshu
Another business introduced to the
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

------
smackfu
This seems like it would violate Yelp's rules. If you fine people for bad
reviews, is that any different than paying people for good reviews?

~~~
kmfrk
It's illegal to sue people for bad reviews (SLAPP); I think it's just against
Yelp TOU to pay people for good ones.

~~~
DannyBee
They way you write it is not quite right. SLAPP certainly would make it
illegal to sue people for defamation for online reviews (depending on the
state, it may only be for politics related stuff)

That is not quite what is happening here.

Having a contractual penalty, freely entered into and mutually agreed upon,
for something harmful to their business, probably does _not_ interact with
SLAPP in most states.

------
joeblau
Wow the Internet has already taken them down to 2 stars. I can't image this is
going to end well once this news spreads to other internet communities.

------
wubbfindel
Imagine if this ridiculous policy on their website is actually the result of a
malicious hacking.

Then the hacker sends pagesix.com an anonymous tip about the policy.

Then the hacker posts the pagesix.com article on HN.

Now, that would actually make a good story...

[EDIT: Typo & Grammar]

~~~
Someone1234
This policy is in the same tone as other policies found on their web-site
(e.g. cancellation policy). So I suspect it was written by the same individual
and potentially at the same time.

Interesting theory though. Reminds me of the Amy's Baking Company "hacking" of
their Facebook page.

~~~
wubbfindel
Yeah I saw the cancellation policy too. Crazy.

Interesting, I hadn't heard of the Amy's bakery thing...

------
k-mcgrady
Is there any proof this is happening other than this post? I hope so otherwise
internet vigilante justice is destroying a business and people's livelihoods.

Edit:

I took a look at their site and apparently they only enforce this policy for
weddings:

"Also, please note that we only request this of wedding parties and for the
reasons explained above."

The reasons seem to be that as guests are not booking the hotel themselves
(presumably the bride/groom has done that for them) it may not be to their
tastes and they feel it's unfair to leave a negative review of something you
never would have booked in the first place because it's not to your taste.

I can kind of understand this reasoning, although it's not great.

~~~
baddox
I don't see any evidence that they've actually enforced the rule, but the rule
is posted on their website:
[http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/events_weddings.shtml](http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/events_weddings.shtml).

~~~
cheshire137
Looks like the part about negative reviews is gone now.

------
reshambabble
Wow. Pretty bold of them to think they could fight social media and the
consumer powered era with such an outrageous policy. While I am amazed at
their lack of embarrassment, (especially since the policy is still up on their
website), it's great to see how people can win > businesses today. Power to
the people!

------
keehun
Feels like a place Reddit or 4chan would tar and feather and then let it hang
out and dry until it's dead.

~~~
viraptor
Not needed. Already there are more 1* reviews than other ones. Mostly about
the policy. The internet is a harsh place.

------
Kiro
I'm enjoying watching their Facebook page going down the drain:
[https://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Street-Guest-
House/1175...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Street-Guest-
House/117548518271464)

------
jpbutler
They appear to be backpedaling. From their Facebook page:

"The policy regarding wedding fines was put on our site as a tongue-in-cheek
response to a wedding many years ago. It was meant to be taken down long ago
and certainly was never enforced."

[https://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Street-Guest-
House/1175...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Street-Guest-
House/117548518271464)

~~~
seandhi
They may be trying to claim that, but they tried to use the policy to bully a
guest into removing his review as recently as 11/21/2013:
[http://bit.ly/1nkV80v](http://bit.ly/1nkV80v)

------
imgabe
I'm not sure I understand how this is supposed to work. They say they'll take
it out of your deposit. But a review would happen after the wedding has taken
place, yes?

So by then wouldn't you have paid in full and settled everything? In that
case, they shouldn't have any money you would be expecting to get back from
them. So what are they taking it out of? Are they just going to send you a
bill for $500 per bad review? Is there anyone who will not just laugh and
throw it away?

~~~
Igglyboo
I have no idea either, they say if you take the review down you get your money
back. I'd just take it down and wait to receive my deposit then post the bad
review afterwards. If they still charge me somehow(holding my cc), then
they're probably in way bigger trouble as that seems like credit card fraud or
something along those lines.

------
robinsta
They posted this to their facebook:

 _The policy regarding wedding fines was put on our site as a tongue-in-cheek
response to a wedding many years ago. It was meant to be taken down long ago
and certainly was never enforced._

The commenters on the post do not believe this not surprisingly.

------
owksley
Basil Fawlty would be proud!

------
TallGuyShort
So I agree with what appears to be the overwhelming majority that this policy
is probably legally unenforceable and was destined to backfire as soon as it
was posted on the interwebs, but...

I think they have a legitimate problem and I'm wandering what alternate
solutions we can come up with. The person planning the wedding (may or may not
be the people actually getting married) thinks this is a good place for the
wedding, but many of the guests do not enjoy it. The reviews exist to help
that person make that decision. Whether or not guests usually hate it, is part
of that decision, but I agree with the venue that what the people getting
married want is the bigger part of that decision. How can the company manage
expectations better?

~~~
potatolicious
It does seem a bit unfair, but at the same time the reviews aren't just a
measure of how much the bride and groom will enjoy the place, it's also a
measure of how much everyone else does as well.

Perhaps "many of your guests will hate this place" is a valuable signal to
couples picking venues.

Honestly, if you've been a legitimate guest of a particular venue IMO it's
perfectly fine to leave a review about it. The people that foot the bill
aren't the only ones who get to chime in.

~~~
Vik1ng
But then it's just as valid to write a bad review about a McDonalds restaurant
your group of friends decided to go to, because the wine selection sucked.

~~~
aestra
Valid? Yes. Reasonable? No.

As I mentioned before - there are unreasonable customers with a chip on their
shoulder.

------
baddox
If the hotel is clear about these terms, then I don't see much of a problem
with this. It makes it really easy to know to pick a different hotel.

~~~
rrrx3
I should be stating the obvious here, but the fact that I even have to post
this means that obviously, I am not.

Just because something is written into the terms of an agreement doesn't make
it legal.

~~~
jebus989
Yeah, you are not. Say someone writes a contract saying that they can slap me
in the face and each time they do I must pay $100, if I carefully read and
then sign that contract, and they then slap me three times — have I been
assaulted or do I owe $300, or both?

~~~
JackC
This is actually a tricky question. Your assault & battery law probably says
something like "unconsented _or_ violent touching," so the fact that you
consented doesn't matter, so you've been assaulted. And you can't enter a
contract to perform an illegal act, so you don't owe $300 -- it's not a good
contract.[1]

But it depends why you're being slapped! Obviously we can't go prosecuting
everyone who intentionally whacks into someone else according to the rules of
whatever sport they're playing, so we make an exception for that. This gets
tricky with sports like boxing where the rules require you to do something
that looks pretty much like a brutal assault, so the exceptions in that case
get pretty finicky -- we might insist that you make your mutual-battery deals
in public, in licensed boxing rings, instead of by giving Brad Pitt a nice
manly handshake in the basement of a bar and refusing to talk about it later.

And then there's the whole gray area of less socially-accepted sports, like
Quidditch or BDSM. We (even prosecutors) often approach things from the
perspective of, "if this activity seems normal to me, it must be legal; if it
seems wrong it must be illegal." When moral judgments and fear of the unknown
creep into that analysis, it can lead to some twisted logic to justify the
outcome we know must be right.

[1] Now consider whether you can be prosecuted for A&B as an accomplice.

------
valarauca1
What I wonder is how this is traced.

If I leave a review ~6months after would my sisters bridal party be charged or
the party that is currently renting the hall?

I assume the later since they assume reviews are placed within a short span of
time. Which then if there are several books one-day-after-the-next how do you
migrate reviews? Or do you split the difference between all parties?

Even if the policy is clear, and the market is free. There is no way this
policy can be enforced fairly.

~~~
Nursie
I would presume you'd be safe to leave the review much later as the $500 is
withheld from returned deposits.

Wait for deposit return, make bad review. All is well :)

~~~
VLM
Send the bride an invoice, then send it to collections if they don't cough up
$500.

------
moioci
Looks like a really malicious way to punish Bridezilla: "When I stayed here
for the Smith-Jones wedding on July 26..."

------
easytiger
Viral business suicide surely.

~~~
Narretz
What about "no such thing as bad publicity"?

~~~
cookiecaper
That may not hold as true as it used to in a market where many purchasing
decisions are informed by the consensus instantly accessible and distilled
into a single number from aggregators like Yelp. In such cases, it's crucial
that you receive positive indicators from those sources. In the past, angry
articles or reports faded had less staying power; they would raise the profile
of the business or person by directing discontent for a while, but the
discontent would fade and the subject would retain some elevated portion of
prominence. These days discontent doesn't fade as easily, since Yelp et al
provide it a permanent home.

~~~
XorNot
Also "will bill you $500 for a bad review" has a particular sting about it
unlike any other I suspect.

------
Thriptic
In a sense this strategy could be somewhat ingenious on their part, as after
some exploration some people might assume that all negative reviews (even ones
from customers who legitimately received poor service) are spurious ones
associated with the fact that the internet doesn't like their review policy.
With that being said, most people won't even bother to explore a hotel with a
terrible review, so they're probably screwed.

------
lifeisstillgood
Wow - just for some perspective on yelp yesterday these guys had a four star
rating.

At lunchtime (UK) today they had 39 reviews, and had dropped to 1.5 stars. At
end of day UK they have over 500 reviews, as far as I can tell everyone a 1
star and they have 1 star rating.

One day and years of work undone.

For those who want to sell SEO services to real businesses (yelpEO?) this is a
major marketing event. For some poor fucker in NY this is likely to be
bankruptcy and layoffs.

------
smegmalife
I really do feel for businesses negatively affected by Yelp. Yelp is far from
perfect, and I know plenty of small business owners who got a couple bad
reviews when they were first figuring things out, and weren't ever able to
recover from it.

But, I'm not sure if this is even legal. As imperfect as Yelp is, at least
it's democratic. Fining somebody for their guests' opinion of their place is
not okay.

------
internet2pac
Well this is how we goona do this

Fuck Union Street Guest House, Fuck Policies, Fuck Reviews

And if you want to be down with Internet review policies, then fuck you too

All of y'all businesses, fuck you, die slow motherfuckers

My Enter Key makes sure all y'all businesses don't grow

You motherfuckers can't be us or see us

We motherfuckin Internet Thug life-riders

anonyimized till we die

------
reshambabble
The irony of getting one huge bad news article that does more than enough to
account for every bad review they evaded.

Pretty bold of them to think they could fight social media and the consumer-
powered era with such an outrageous policy. Power to the people!

------
egoebelbecker
On Yelp's review page:

"Your trust is our top concern, so businesses can't pay to alter or remove
their reviews."

And yet see we stories like this about Yelp all the time. Yelp reviews aren't
worth the paper they are not printed on.

------
lifeisstillgood
Is it possible to do meta analysis on review sites - effectively "people with
your tastes liked this hotel / restaurant" ?

I would think that getting e-receipts working will destroy yelp as well.

------
circa
I used to work in Hudson. A lot of places like this down there. I'm sure this
will be featured on Hotel Hell in no time.

------
chris_wot
Great idea, right up till the point they announced it and later tried to
enforce it.

------
sekasi
Can someone living in the US tell me how this could be legal? Surely it's not?

~~~
tghw
Relevant XKCD: [http://xkcd.com/1357/](http://xkcd.com/1357/)

~~~
nsxwolf
That's fine, I just wish people would stop pretending free speech is some
great American value then. What they really value is the right to silence
people by any means possible, stopping just short of imprisonment.

~~~
hnal943
I wish people would stop defining "free speech" for themselves and getting
disappointed that it doesn't mean what they want it to mean.

~~~
nsxwolf
Well if all it is is a protection from imprisonment, and not some higher
ideal, it's hardly worth talking about.

There's the First Amendment and then there's free speech.

------
IgorPartola
Before mob justice drives this place out of business, perhaps those posting 1
star reviews should promise to take them down if the policy changes. Not that
I agree with the policy, but a mistake like this might not be worth ruining
some's life.

~~~
ankitml
seriously? They are in hospitality business and such level of rudeness, lack
of empathy for their customers and such superiority feeling about themselves
should ideally take them out of business.

~~~
IgorPartola
I agree. But mob justice rarely has only the intended consequences. I am all
for teaching them a lesson, but I believe that's where it should end. You are
talking about ruining people's lives over this incident. If every angry user
of your product reacted like this, would you be a happy camper?

Once again, not defending their practice, just pointing out that the angry
mobs don't usually produce the best outcomes.

~~~
DanBC
Indeed - nothing is happening to all the other hotels that have the same
policy.

------
frade33
This is beyond stupid and this is not even untrue.

------
chatman
This is just a gimmick story to promote Yelp.

------
thisjepisje
Just write a sarcastic positive review.

------
sidcool
This is ridiculous. Someone needs to sue them.

------
taybin
Yelp is useless anyways.

------
notastartup
"If you exercise your rights to freedom of speech and post anything other than
a stellar review, we are going to penalize you, to improve our business
reputation online instead of finding out why there are negative reviews in the
first place."

------
judk
A bride is a business partner, forcing guests to stay at the hotel. How is
this different from docking an employees salary for unsatisfied customers?

~~~
imgabe
I've been to many weddings. I've never been forced to stay at any particular
hotel. There are usually several in the area that the bride and groom suggest,
and you're always free to seek out another hotel if you don't like those.

The bride is not a business partner, she's a paying customer. A business
partner would be receiving a share of the profits from the transaction, a
bride is not.

How is it different from docking an employee's pay? Well, to start with the
bride has no employment agreement with the hotel and is not receiving any pay,
so that's a pretty big difference.

------
Doctor_Fegg
I think this is a sort of wacko reverse psychology gambit.[1]

The Yelp page is now attracting comments like "This place should be relocated
to china. They have a policy about reviews that is unamerican."

So, if you're looking for a hotel that actively dissuades the sort of redneck
who likes to throw around words like "unamerican", congratulations - you've
found it!

[1] ok, ok, I don't.

------
ck2
Why don't people understand that free-speech protections only means the
government cannot throw you in jail for what you say (but they do anyway under
the "try to stop us" method [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2013/07/12/201422486](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2013/07/12/201422486) ).

It has no meaning against other individuals.

~~~
dragonwriter
They don't because it's not true. The reason civil libel/slander between
private parties is more restricted in the US than elsewhere in the common law
world is because of the First Amendment free speech and free press guarantees.
The idea that it only apples in criminal disputes or where over party is the
government is false; it's a limit on government, sure, but on governments
power to make law, which applies both to laws governing dispute between
private parties and to law governing criminal or civil cases where the
government is a party.

------
hawkharris
After reading this article, I'm surprised to see that the guest house still
has a high rating on Yelp and Google+. Our immediate response should be to
post negative reviews based on the revelation that none of the other reviews
are trustworthy.

EDIT: Yelp rating is no longer high, but there's still TripAdvisor and
Google+.

~~~
danielweber
No, posting reviews of a service you've never used because of something you
read on the Internet five minutes ago is not OK.

~~~
omni
That's true in a vacuum. However, the high rating they have is clearly
unjustified since they have been extorting people to remove negative reviews.
Some collective action against the gaming of the system is called for and, I
think, ethical in this case. Try thinking of it from the perspective of their
competitors that don't extort their customers.

~~~
danielweber
_clearly unjustified_

You don't know that.

 _they have been extorting people_

You don't know that.

 _Some collective action against the gaming of the system is called for_

Oh, geeze. If gaming the system is bad, then _stop gaming the system_.

If someone really wanted to put the screws to these people, then they would
find a patron who has actually had that $500 policy used against them,
implicitly if nothing else. It would require some kind of investigative
journalism to find an actual victim. But that's a lot more slow and boring
than getting out the Internet pitchforks and just burning their online
presence to the ground _right now_. (If we wait too long our anger might
dissipate!)

