The landlady has no problems having a poppy collection but probably gets fed-up picking it up of the floor when it’s sited in the wrong place!

Our local paper the Sevenoaks Chronicle is now getting a lot of stick from the public for having printed the story without properly researching it and felt that the remote “Irish connection” (landlady’s country of origin) would be enough to sell the story to the potentially racist minded. Seem’s to have worked! Customers who know the pub will continue to use it without question – though some (like me) won’t be buying the Sevenoaks Chronicle again!!

The process you described sounds very fulfilling. But if an aspiring wine maker doesn’t have access to fresh fruit, quality kits are available online or a wine making supply store near you. Either way, it’s a great way to get started. And, getting started is what required for getting your own wine!

Steve

In the past, I am quite sure it would have either been censored, or at the least, edited. Also, it must have been effective because business has picked up since it was published.

I was unaware that TA was owned by Expedia but I did know that TA use those reviews to advertise.

Our business was registered with several reservation systems including Expedia; of all those bookings agencies the only one we never received a booking from was Expedia. In 3 years not one reservation from them. Strange….

The credit crunch has drastically affected the travel industry and I wonder if in turn TA/Expedia will suffer the consequences…?

Then best thing to do is to keep writing about this company and show them up for who they are. They market defamation on a grand scale.

“I am a hotel manager in Sydney Australia. First off, I support, 100% liberty online and freedom of speech. I am 100% for a free internet that is protected from corporatism and any outside control. It is not only useful it is absolutely important to the free flow of news and information outside mainstream, controlled and corporatised sources.
I have had quite a few scathing and exceedingly nasty reviews on trip advisor, that have substantially damaged business over the long term. For the most part, their comments were either a) very unfair b) not realistic for what we purport to provide c) very often downright incorrect statements and d) ultimately, to me knowing what the circumstances were from the inside, simply people who took whatever little piece of information they could find, twisted that information to support their intended reviews conclusion. This is why unprofessional reviews are often not helpful. The couple of good reviews we have there, which are genuine, are so glowing, that people actually thing they are not genuine! in comparison to the very scathing ones. So ultimately it’s very unhelpful. But none of this is my issue. I have a much more serious complaint. I don’t mind bad reviews, I don’t mind a public forum for reviewers to post their stuff on. Here is what I mind and it is much more serious issue. I’ll try to outline the facts point by point and see if you can connect the dots.
1. Trip Advisor is owned by Expedia, an international global multi billion dollar firm. They have an enormous and well funded legal department going back to London.
2. Trip Advisor advertises it’s reviews. It actually uses the trading names of the business that has been reviewed, and this leads people on google to believe that this will lead them to information about the hotel in question. What it does instead, is show the review. In our case it says “hotel name” you click that and then it takes you to “don’t stay here!” or something like that. Let me make it clear. They are using another businesses trading name to advertise their service. This is quite illegal in Australia and probably many other countries as well.
3. This practice is profuse, ongoing and clearly intentional.
4. I made legal enquiries and confirmed that a) it is illegal practice. b) they do not do it to the larger hotel chains, as those hotel chains have legal departments that are capable of challenging this kind of activity. The small owner is faced with absolute insolvency as he is brought counter suits and drowned in never ending legal fees and paperwork. The justice system cannot work here for the little guy.
5. Some may say “so what”. What this means is that trip advisor is using your business name to advertise it’s service. That means your good name, or the sullying thereof, is going towards generating hits for *their* business. Hits mean statistics. Statistics mean advertising dollars. All on illegal, unethical business practice. If not for the advertisement of those reviews, those reviews could be sought out by interested potential customers of their own accord. Instead, they are pushed, right into their faces, and they may often click on it mistakenly, unintentionally thinking it was our own genuine site.
6. This is just another tool for globalist corporations to stamp out the little guy, hurt him and in some cases kill him off so that they can suck up the left overs.

In my own case I approached a law firm in Sydney a large one that had hundreds of lawyers working there. On the phone I was told by an expert who sounded very informed on this type of law a) you are in the right b) their activity is absolutely illegal c) you can put an injunction against them that is of low cost to you and little danger in terms of return suits since they are breaking the law and this is a straight forward trading suit. d) we should get assistance from the government. e) he told me he would go away and investigate the origins of this trip advisor in preparation for our meeting. I agreed to an expensive one hour meeting on the basis of that phone call. I went to their offices and attended the meeting. I was met with another person I had not spoken to. He told me “Who are you what do you want.” I relay the SAME information, and he said, and this was really as though he knew all along a) You have no case b) the law is maybe on your side but… c) these people are powerful and will drown you in legal expenses – before you know it you will lose your home, your business everything and that basically d) you have no chance to fight these people, and in his words “give up and go home is my advice to you as a friendly advice”. They took my $450 and that was it. I later found out that Expedia in London is the client of a large firm whom this firm in Sydney is partnered with as a Sydney branch under a different name.”