
Couple 'fined' £100 for leaving a bad review - davepm
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30100973
======
netcan
I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but
elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps
hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star
damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a
hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or
policy so long that it's impractical to read it, is a clear sign this
institution is broken.

We need new laws. Not the vague hodgepodge we have now. Policies designed to
not be read need to be considered completely invalid. This credit card charge
should be treated like any merchant taking a card and then charging £100 more
than expected. Fraud, theft, some mild form of racketeering, whatever that
falls under.

I think the most common abuse of this sort is "out of contract" telecom
charges where using 2X the contract number of minutes or data could result in
over 10X (often over 100x) the cost of the original contract.

I'm not sure how exactly the laws need to work, but there is obvious
stretching of the systems well past the point of ridiculous. An iphone privacy
policy or a hotel "sign this" agreement is not free actors contracting freely.

Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better. If
hotels need some sort of escrow, then it should be an escrow.

~~~
madaxe_again
On the note of bullshit contracts...

We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone
(completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship
with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are
pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed
acceptance.

This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering starting a
business which simply sends spam, with T's and C's in each email which state
that by receiving the email you have agreed to become a paying customer, and
to pay any fees we demand for "the service", which is receiving the email,
which allows you to know that your email is working. The intent of course not
being to be another scammer, but to get the law changed.

~~~
JonnieCache
Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more
details?

~~~
madaxe_again
No, we're fighting via our lawyer, but if it does end up in court, we will
likely lose as contract law is pretty strong in the UK - and apparently this
is a significant part of this recruiter's business model, so they're well
practised at it and have test cases in which they've been victorious.

~~~
mortov
sender domain please ? I need to update my block list on my mailservers to
protect my customers (and myself).

There must be public links/references if this is their business model - care
to share those ?

Also, what test cases ? Those are public record in the UK - they are no
liablity issues in pointing to matters of public record/factual court records.

------
DanBC
The trip advisor page.
[http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d554701-Re...](http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d554701-Reviews-
Broadway_Hotel-Blackpool_Lancashire_England.html)

There were 147 bad reviews before the story broke and these bad reviews are
the majority.

I'm curious about the dupe detector not spotting duplicates.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629113)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629117](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629117)

Edit: this link is to the mobile site; one links to .com and the third links
to .co.uk

~~~
barking
Clearly the experience has belatedly led to their discovery of trip advisor.

Blackpool is a classic example of a seaside resort that's been badly hit by
cheap package holidays to the sun.

As such you can expect it to be full of hotels hanging on by their
fingernails.

Also it's known to have lots of social welfare bed and breakfast
establishments.

You'd need to be living under a rock in England not to know that.

If you're just going from A to B and want a stopover you're better off going
with one of the chains. I actually like premier Inns.

One of the travelodges I stayed in though was as depressing a dump as I've
experienced.

~~~
mistakoala
> Blackpool is a classic example of a seaside resort that's been badly hit by
> cheap package holidays to the sun.

Partly. Other resorts have managed to reinvent themselves, but the perception
I have is that our local tourism trade took things for granted, didn't
innovate and assumed there'd still be millions of overnight visitors to cash
in on.

It's a very parochial place and despite all our problems and examples like
this popping up periodically, as a town we still seem to maintain a collective
belief that it's a great place to live/visit and "everywhere has its
problems", with Blackpool just being hard done to.

------
tonylemesmer
How did the proprietors ever think this was going to end well? The "victims"
have been given airtime on the national breakfast TV show. Even if it is legal
it wont take long for internet justice to ensue.

edit: actually, no need for internet justice, already there are 147 x 1 star
reviews - the most recent stating "don't go there" and "lacking basic
cleanliness"

~~~
spacemanmatt
Please, won't you tell your friends and loved ones about the Streisand Effect,
before it's too late?

------
mychaelangelo
This happened with a New York hotel. They were trying to charge $500 for bad
reviews [http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/travel/bad-hotel-review-
fi...](http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/travel/bad-hotel-review-fine-
backlash/)

Thank you internet (Yelp, Tripadvisor) for putting them to shame!

~~~
adrow
It actually seems to me that they may have copied the idea from that other
hotel, the wording is very similar:

From the CNN article:

"Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our
Inn, your friends and families may not,"

Guardian article: [http://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2014/nov/19/tripadvisor-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2014/nov/19/tripadvisor-couple-bad-hotel-review-charged-blackpool-
broadway)

“Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your
friends and family may not.”

~~~
insipid
I'm glad someone found this; I was really confused because I recognised the
phrasing, and thought "I've read this story... but it was about wedding
guests...?"

------
prof_hobart
>John Greenbank, north trading standards area manager, said it was a "novel"
way to prevent bad reviews.

Or a novel way to get a bad review splashed all over national media. Did the
hotel really think this was going to end well?

------
alexbecker
This practice is not new, at least not in the US, although it is probably
illegal. Ken White at Popehat has written about a number of such cases, for
example [http://www.popehat.com/2014/11/11/roca-labs-lacking-a-
hornet...](http://www.popehat.com/2014/11/11/roca-labs-lacking-a-hornet-nest-
into-which-it-could-stick-its-dick-has-sued-marc-randazza/)

------
pearjuice
Can a moderator edit the article? The "reveiw" typo is really tickling my OCD
when browsing the front page.

~~~
dang
Ouch, I don't know how we missed that. Fixed now.

------
aikah
I dont understand how this is even legal in Europe.No matter what the contract
says.How can this be a legal clause? I dont get it.

~~~
cyphax
I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to appear to play the devil's advocate here,
but bear with me and let's say it's not illegal for an agreement to contain
such a clause. If it breaks no laws, then why is it illegal? Assuming you have
signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this
agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing
it). So what you would have to do is refuse to sign that. Maybe you'll have to
find another hotel but you can leave a negative review pointing out this
outrageous demand from this hotel. They can't charge anybody a hundred pounds
and they get really bad reviews for it.

So basically I don't know what got into their heads when they thought this is
a good idea, either. At the same time, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this
is not an illegal clause per se. If they charge a hundred pounds for
structural damage to their hotel, or theft of towels or so, it would make more
sense, and if they consider a bad review to be damaging, it isn't even that
far fetched. I think they should know better than to do something stupid like
this at the end of the day, however.

~~~
mpweiher
Dunno about the UK, but in Germany "surprising" clauses in everyday contracts
such as this with consumers are generally illegal. End of story. If this got
as far as a court, case would be over in seconds. Read opening statements,
have laugh, verdict, good day.

Also don't know which way the EU swings on this, my guess would be towards the
German position.

~~~
ajuc
Yup. The alternative is - expect all the clients to read small print on
everyday contracts and interpret it correctly. That would be dumb and would
slow economy considerably. Imagine hotel making the contract 200 pages long.

Staying for a night at hotel shouldn't require you to hire a lawyer.

~~~
Shivetya
What if you declare it up front, in big print. Really. I wonder how many
people would still stay. Just put it right above the dotted line on the front
page.

By signing this receipt and accepting the key to your room you agree you not
place a negative review of this facility on any public accessible site.

~~~
toyg
The fact that most people would only look at the bottom line (i.e. price)
doesn't mean that this wouldn't be a gross infringement of freedom of speech,
and unfair trading to boot. Trading involves the possibility of goods not
being up to par, and hence the customer complaining to a third party. As long
as complaints are not libellous, there is no reason why they could be
forcefully restricted.

------
tokenadult
On the whole, freedom of contract (a characteristic feature of Anglo-American
law since that body of law was located only in England) is a feature rather
than a bug. Most of what we do each day in Britain, in the United States, and
these days around much of the developed world is regulated by private
agreements--that is, contracts--rather than by legislation or administrative
regulations. That's a good thing. Parties to contracts can dicker until they
reach a mutually agreeable deal, or each party can avoid making the deal at
all by doing business with someone else.

Contracts have effect in influencing human behavior partly because once in a
while a court will enforce a contract against a party trying to weasel out of
the contract. But when courts get involved, general constitutional, statutory,
and administrative law is brought to bear on the terms of the contract. A
court may be very reluctant to enforce a term of a contract that doesn't allow
a customer to complain about a company's service. That could be regarded as
"against public policy," and public policy can be a judicial ground for NOT
enforcing a contract. Moreover, a contract binds its parties, but doesn't bind
outsiders who didn't enter into a contract, so a news organization like the
BBC can report, "Slimy company attempts to sue its customer for letting
consumers know that the company gives bad service," and the contract will not
stop that. Parties to form contracts often ask the moon, but the party that
drafted the contract language will usually have the terms construed in favor
of the OTHER party if the contract is litigated. So I don't worry about this.
I look over form contracts as I sign them (as, for example, when I buy an
airline ticket or check into a hotel or rent a car) but I also stay aware of
actual business practice as experienced by consumers as I buy products and
services as a consumer. My most powerful recourse, always, is not to give a
slimy company any repeat business, and to tell all my friends through every
channel I have that I did (or did not) like a particular company's product or
service. Anyone can do the same.

AFTER EDIT: By the way, this is an international news story that I heard on
the radio while I was just on a morning drive here in Minnesota, and the
latest update is that the hotel has agreed to refund the "fine." I'm trying to
find a news story on the Web that verifies that.

[http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2014-11-19/hotel-
fines-...](http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2014-11-19/hotel-fines-guests-
to-be-refunded-for-bad-review/)

~~~
gadders
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-30111525) verifies it.

------
gerry_mander
=\ charging for a bad review is not going to increase your good reviews. It's
like companies don't think before they pull this type of shit.

~~~
mistakoala
Many of these small hotel and B&B owners run their businesses as a hobby or
retirement plan, which often doesn't quite pan out as the passive income
scheme they were anticipating. They don't cope with the responsibilities that
entail and can't compete with professional hoteliers who understand visitors
slightly better, so they end up chasing the bottom end of the market (it's not
unusual to see rooms offered for £10/pppn. The lowest I've seen is £7/pppn).

~~~
pjc50
Basil Fawlty was based on a real hotelier.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Not only was Basil Fawlty based on a real hotelier, but the hotel is now
advertising itself as 'The inspiration for Fawlty Towers.'

I discovered this last week when I drove past it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleneagles_Hotel,_Torquay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleneagles_Hotel,_Torquay)

------
lordnacho
I concur that something needs to be done about these consumer Terms-of-Service
type contracts.

There's a contract system in place, and it may work fine for people who have
the incentive and the resources to look over them (mergers and acquisition
deals, house purchases), but a lot of the time the document is very long and
written in legalese.

How many people are really going to hire a lawyer to read their Apple Store or
World of Warcraft terms? Writing a hugely lengthy contract is simply a way to
discourage you from reading it, and then pretending that you've agreed to
whatever the terms are. I guess there's some help from the legal system -
ridiculous clauses are thrown out - but that doesn't address the fact that you
are discouraged from reading about relevant information.

I think someone must have written a post about how long it would take to just
read the everyday ToS type docs that we're presented with. And South Park did
an excellent episode about this (The Human CentiPad).

------
lmorris84
I imagine they could dispute the charge with their credit card provider and
put the onus on them to sort it out.

Being in a contract doesn't make something legally binding - what if they put
"if you leave a bad review we reserve the right to shoot you?"

------
jvc26
As an FYI, the fine was scrapped ([http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-30111525](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525)) following an
intervention by Trading Standards.

------
solaris152000
I think this is the place I stayed when I went to see Bob Dylan play in
Blackpool 2013. It wasn't too bad, Blackpool is a sh*tehole anyway what do you
expect. Dylan was great though, best night of my life.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
It's sad that they did not get that mega Casino - I stayed there a coupel of
years ago and 15+ years ago Blockpools decline is shocking.

No wonder the political parities no longer hold their conferences
(conventions) at the winter gardens.

------
ivanche
How the hotel even knew who left bad review on some site? What stops someone
from leaving bad reviews using fake names?

------
jwm1
The BBC is reporting that the hotel has now reversed its policy.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-30111525)

------
treerock
> The couple have sought a refund via their credit card company.

I'm curious how that will play out. It's surprising how well the credit card
system seems to work, when it relies so heavily on trust.

------
shaurz
This just confirms what a terrible, anti-customer attitude they have.

------
instakill
Some companies go out of their way to beg for negative publicity.

------
seanhandley
Don't think HN is the place for this.

~~~
coldtea
For the last time, it's a community bookmark site!

Whatever the HN community votes up, HN is "the place for it".

~~~
mimog
You are thinking of reddit. HN has submission guidelines.

~~~
coldtea
Which amount to "whatever piques one's intellectual curiocity" and "whatever
good hackers like". Apparently this piqued HN users intellectual curiosity and
they like it.

Besides an intelligent person can have an intelligent discussion about any
topic, even Kim Kardassian. And the post is in final analysis about policy,
freedom of speech, adapting to the digital age, etc.

~~~
dang
While I wish your argument were correct, it's not. The flaw is in the
inference _voted for → was intellectually interested_.

A model that appears to fit the data [1] is that multiple kinds of interest
drive voting, and intellectual interest is not the most powerful one. This is
the weakness of the story-voting mechanism. It is why, on a site that values
intellectual interest, the vote signal must pass through other filters, like
flagging and moderation.

1\. Maybe we can test this someday.

------
tortos123
just absurd... the government should take action on this and the consumer
rights. Just close down the hotel and get the managers to the court for scam.

------
jbb555
By reading this comment, you agree to pay me £100 if you downvote it. :P
(worth a try)

------
mimog
Why is this on hackernews?

~~~
paublyrne
Trip Advisor is a tech startup. The situation couldn't have occurred without a
service like them. The ways businesses try to deal with the ramifications of
online reviewing is probably interesting to anyone thinking about innovating
in that space.

~~~
mimog
_> > Trip Advisor is a tech startup_

So a nearly 15 year old company with a billion dollar revenue still qualifies
as a startup?

 _> > The situation couldn't have occurred without a service like them_

Freedom of speech infractions have occurred for way longer than online
services have existed.

So if someone tweets something stupid/political it should be posted on
hackernews as well, simply because tweeting wasn't possible prior to twitter?
Or what if someone reacts badly to something on tumblr, is that relevant for
hn'ers as well in case they are trying to innovate in the micro-blogging
space?

~~~
askinakhan
Unless i'm understanding you wrong... Trip Advisor has democratised hotels and
yeh people had freedom of speech but not widely accessible freedom of speech.
Without Trip Advisor it would be much harder to find someone's opinion on a
specific hotel.

Maybe consumers should be democratised too? Shall we assess the quality of a
consumer? Do they piss up the hotel walls or do they tidy up before they
leave?

