H2O Media Admits Offering Fake TripAdvisor Reviews for $200
Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 5:42 pm
The owner of H2O Media, Steven Vaile, has admitted that the copy of the email message floating around the last few days offering fake positive reviews on Trip Advisor is in fact genuine.
He is also an investor in Mad Monkey Hostels.
The email copy floating around offered businesses 10 positive reviews on Trip Advisor for $200 via PayPal, and was signed by Steven Vaile.
This obviously got many guesthouses and other businesses that compete with Mad Monkey very upset.
The email was posted around on social media, but many people were sceptical about it authenticity.
Here is the email that had been sent around:
Steven Vaile has responded to the allegations on Facebook, saying that yes, they came from his company, yes it was a real offer, and yes he was aware of it but it was no longer a service H2O Media offered.
Judge for yourself:
Posts by other people in that conversation that show the relationship between Steven Vaile and H2O Media and Mad Monkey Hostels, which he doesn't dispute:
A big thanks to Notorious Ned for finding all this! !
He is also an investor in Mad Monkey Hostels.
The email copy floating around offered businesses 10 positive reviews on Trip Advisor for $200 via PayPal, and was signed by Steven Vaile.
This obviously got many guesthouses and other businesses that compete with Mad Monkey very upset.
The email was posted around on social media, but many people were sceptical about it authenticity.
Here is the email that had been sent around:
Hi XXXX,
Hello everyone, we hope you are having a great weekend. As anyone in the hotel industry knows great reviews on Trip Adviser really help boost your business, but not all guests will leave a review of your hotel.
Getting reviews written for Trip Adviser to bulk up your views is a normal practice in the industry and whilst completely against the Trip Adviser Terms of Service it may well be how your competitors are getting many more reviews that you are.
Another reason for getting paid reviews will be to bury reviews that are unfair or fake negative reviews. It is just a standard fact in the business that competitors will often buy negative reviews for your business, or you will have a customer that gives you a terrible and unfair review for the smallest of slip ups.
So if you need more reviews or if you need more reviews to bury a negative review on page 2 of the review results then please send us an email.
We offer 10 well written, positive reviews or your hotel to increase your review rating and bury those negative reviews that are impacting your business.
Our price for 10 reviews is $200.00 - the reviews are posted over a 14 day period, all of the reviews are from real people, with active and in good standing trip adviser accounts.
If you do not need this service then please save this email - you will certainly need it at some point in the future. Also these reviews will actually be from people that have visited your hotel, some who will stay with you.
Buying reviews is completely against Trip Adviser Terms of service - but if it is an untoward agency that is doing it for you then you can claim innocence and simply ask for the spurious reviews to be removed.
10 Postive Reviews from real people $200.00 - Keep it in your inbox
Payment by PAYPAL only.
Regards
Kind Regards
Steven Vaile
Chairman of H2O Media Corporation
H2O Media Corporation, 26,, Street 302, Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh 12302, CAMBODIA
Steven Vaile has responded to the allegations on Facebook, saying that yes, they came from his company, yes it was a real offer, and yes he was aware of it but it was no longer a service H2O Media offered.
Judge for yourself:
Dear XXXXXX, H2O is a company that I own in Dubai, this email list is configured in awebber to send automated emails out to subscribers on a hospitality marketing email list automatically every so many days after signing up.
I was unaware that this email was still configured in the system, it was configured four or five years ago. The net net is that H2O Media no longer offer this service - mainly because it no longer works due to the social graphing on Facebook that tripadvisor use for review authentication. In fact we never delivered this service to any customers as I am aware. However tripadvisor is still full of false reviews - proof can be found in this recent article about the fine it has received in Italy. I have spoken to the team in Dubai and they have confirmed they have deleted the mailing list and no longer offer this service and in fact never delivered this service.
In terms of review boosting - I would not suggest anyone do this, it is
more than likely your tripadvisor ranking will simply be reset to zero.
That is not to say that I still do not think that Tripadvisor is not subject to fake reviews it absolutely is.
In terms of has Mad Monkey ever entered into review boosting or posting fake reviews either via H2O or anyone else - the answer is no, there are such a large volume of customers that leave real reviews, we have however had many fake and malicious reviews posted that are clearly fake that trip advisor has never removed even after speaking to the content integrity team at Trip Advisor.
I hope that clarifies everything. In retrospect the service offering from H2O was a bad idea - but never implemented, that is not to say that there are not fake reviews all over tripadvisor of course - there absolutely are as these links will show you. Kind Regards
Steve Vaile
http://tripadvisorwarning.com/
http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2014- ... se-reviews
Well XXXXXX - feedback from our hotel customers in Dubai at the time was that they were suffering from a lot of fake and malicious reviews about their business - the sales team at H2O saw it as a way of delivering more services and expanding our services to hotels. However soon after Trip Advisor started using the social graph to authenticate many of their reviews so it became less of a problem - so it was dropped and never followed up with although this was obviously still configured in the Awebber system. Now it has been removed. I am more than happy to meet you in person to address any issue or concern you may have if you would like. Cheers
Dear XXXXXX - Eric no longer works for H2O, the email is an automated system. H2O is effectively a wrapped up company that survives from its maintenance base in Dubai. We have deleted the auto-responder. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
If you do 100% know of businesses that are falsely writing their own reviews then I suggest you report them to tripadvisor.com - however I would not suggest posting it to Facebook as accusing a company in Cambodia of these types of business practices without proof could potentially land you in court and facing a hefty fine for slander.
What I can tell you unequivocally is that Mad Monkey do not buy reviews - we do not need to. We get enough good, bad, average and fake negative ones without needing to buy them. I am more than happy to meet you face to face should you wish to discuss this further or should you have any further concerns . Many Thanks
PS - more in depth and detailed information about just how fallible TripAdvisor is can be found here http://tripadvisor-warning.com/
I did not accuse you of anything XXXXXX - Please re-read the post. If you want to throw around statements in the same way you do on here I would honestly prefer to speak to you in person and not on Facebook. You are right we had very few subscribers to this list, less than 40. I have more than one business, I am happy to meet you to discuss further. Please PM me and we can arrange a meeting. Thanks
Posts by other people in that conversation that show the relationship between Steven Vaile and H2O Media and Mad Monkey Hostels, which he doesn't dispute:
Seems like H2O Media Corporation has been contracted to undertake work for MAD MONKEY HOSTELS. Anyone have a contact in Mad Monkey to verify any of this information? And for a company that "build rock solid websites" on the Joomla platform to lack the ability to change a favicon is a joke!
Apparently Steve Vaile is an Investor Mad Monkey Hostels June 2011 – Present (3 years 7 months) Asia
I am responsible for providing leadership coaching, mentoring, marketing & communications, business development and strategy consultancy for a growing hospitality business with a young team that are focused on the youth tourism sector in Asia. The company operates the largest youth travel business by number of beds in Cambodia and a number of F&B venues in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Mad Monkey Hostels is a truly socially responsible business that generates a sustainable income not only for the staff and management team but for the community it serves in Cambodia.
A big thanks to Notorious Ned for finding all this! !