Lay My Hat

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...and not before time if the experiences reported by some on this forum are anything to go by.

It's madness when holiday home owners can be scared of managing problem guests by the treat of a bad TA review.

I think TA could save themselves a whole load of grief if they were a bit more ready to investigate complaints from owners about false negative reviews.

A false positive review is relatively harmless. Some operators spray them all over he net after all, and you can often smell them a mile off. They just muddy the water a bit. Not to be condoned but not life changing.

A false negative one couldruin someones livelihood.

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The whole point about TA is that you cannot make a point of staying away: if someone chooses to review you, you have no choice in the matter, whatever they say.

Margaret wrote:The whole point about TA is that you cannot make a point of staying away: if someone chooses to review you, you have no choice in the matter, whatever they say.

Which I think is exactly why they shouldn't be able to operate in the manner that they do, and people should be made aware that their claims of validation are borderline fraud. Establishments or guests who use or place any credence in TA are perpetuating TA's ability to spread malicious, false and libellous information unchecked, for their own exclusive benefit.

Do any of the sites that are attempting to bring TA to heel have a suitable logo to add to one's own website? Now that might be worth having.

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I successfully got TA to remove a 5 star review of Otter Lodge from the listing for the Park. I didn't want to be associated with the negative reviews about the park manager and the bar staff, and I would not have had ANY right of reply at all to a negative review

AFAIK individual S/c operators can only get on as part of a listing sites deal or via Flip Key at the moment.

Windy wrote: AFAIK individual S/c operators can only get on as part of a listing sites deal or via Flip Key at the moment.

That's good to know.

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Ok, well, we got listed without our knowledge or permission being given but that was some years ago. We did not pay to advertise (although we do now). Now that we have 127 reviews, all of them genuine and all but 3 of them enthusiastic, I do feel somewhat insulated from bad reviews but you never know, we could still come a cropper.

But I would like to say: TA staff have always been polite, helpful andf efficient where I am concerned. They have always taken down bogus reviews within a couple of hours. One review I thought was bogus until they explained about it - the poster had used a location at the other end of Europe. As a result, they took down my erroneous response and allowed me to post another. I have learned over the years that owner responses (which I suppose must be genuine) tell me more about a hotel or whatever than the original review ever does. I still cringe when I read my response to our first poor review. I know better now (I think!).

This is also not good news either.
http://www.tnooz.com/2011/08/29/mobile/ ... ion-units/

road rage by some hoteliers

Why are other brands linking up with TA..or is TA pushing their brand on to others?

I suspect the latter - Google places must be seen as a threat by TA so one defence would be to get it bundled in with all sorts of content deliverers.

casasantoestevo wrote:Why are other brands linking up with TA..

I think it's that because regardless of what people in the industry want or think about it, it's clearly something that many members of the public seem to want...

kendalcottages wrote:

casasantoestevo wrote:Why are other brands linking up with TA..

I think it's that because regardless of what people in the industry want or think about it, it's clearly something that many members of the public seem to want...

Exactly, KC, the public want opinions of everything they buy now and hotel/rentals are no different. I think TA do a lot of things wrong, but they I'm sure they have helped me secure bookings. I can't compete with Margaret's 127, but I have around 30 now and several guests have commented that they were a factor in booking here.