Name and Shame.

[Jim B]

I've seen numerous posts in the local chat rooms where people are calling for complainants about overcharging, bad service, price rises to "Name and Shame".
It was good to see Dominic step in on a thread on Paphos Chat were he warned people it could lead to serious consequences in court and then locked it.

[trevnhil]

And of course, Dominic is absolutely correct. I was taken to court for making what seemed an innocent and true remark about a restaurant.. The sued me for 20,000 euros for loss of business.. No one won, but I ended up having to pay over 1,000 euros for my solicitors work and accompanying me to court numerous times
Don't Name and shame in public, use the PM system if someone needs more info..

[Jim B]

Thanks Trev.
I have always taken your hard learnt lesson to heart and warn people about naming and shaming but unfortunately many people ignore this advice.
I tell them to put it down to a lesson learnt but many forget an innocuous comment can land you in a heap of trouble.

[Dominic]

It isn't just the legal aspect. I have no way of knowing whether the complaint is real or bogus. Businesses sometimes play dirty tricks on each other. Plus in Cyprus, expat Business cliques are not unheard of, where you get a group of people bigging each other up at the expense of others. When part of your job is social media marketing, you get to see a lot of it, as you have to follow trends across groups and media.

But, as Trev says, going to court is not "Project Fear". It does happen. Anybody who says it doesn't - and there were plenty on that thread doing that - doesn't know what they are talking about.

[WHL]

Not only restaurant reviews, how many times have we seen posts on forums, where people have accused local politicians/ police etc of getting brown envelop bribes, count yourselves very lucky someone hasn't grassed you up to these people

[Sadie]

Definitely some folk need to keep their own counsel we've experienced a certain someone who feels it appropriate to bad mouth & degrade things we're trying to do and slandering/libling others in the meantime...karma as they say is a dish better served cold

[J B]

Just curious as to how the likes of Tripadvisor get away with bad reviews?
Presumably they have more complex 'get out' clauses?

[Dominic]

I guess TripAdvisor accounts are more anonymous, and the company have teams of Lawyers.

[PhotoLady]

Businesses sign up to be listed on TripAdvisor so should be fully aware they are likely to receive good and bad reviews.
Sadly though, there are unscrupulous businesses on there who ask people to post in their favour whilst bad mouthing others. TripAdvisor has no way of knowing if a particular person ever visited or used the services of an establishment.
You have to read between the lines, look at dates and comments for repetition and the same comments appearing in close succession of each other from different customers/people.
Family groups or group bookings are the worst for this because if someone experienced something bad, it appears everyone else did too.
I post reviews on Tripadvisor but also on Google and for hotel accommodation, I check out reviews on independent websites where a review can only be left via the search engine booking system by invitation after the stay has been completed.
So rather than take the comments from one source, cross reference with others to get the clearest picture possible.

[WHL]

In my World, i never go on reviews, if we like the look of a place we will try it out, if we enjoy it, will will return, if we dont like it will won't go again, simple,
A few years ago a new restaurant opened up in Larnaca, so me and my wife went there, great food great service, great buzz in there, fast forward a few months we had family over from the UK, so we booked for all of us, crap food , crap service, etc all in the space of a few months, we embarrassed ourselves by bigging the place up big time to our family who couldn't believe how bad the place was, long story short, had I posted a great revue after our first visit , i would of dissapointed people who belived it and went.

[PhotoLady]

And this WHL, is exactly why you should read reviews - preferably filtered by the most Recent first....

[WHL]

And this WHL, is exactly why you should read reviews - preferably filtered by the most Recent first....

I have just explained why I don't read reviews, I had a great meal. Then on my second visit, I had a crap time, add to that restaurants getting their mates to big them up, and rival restaurants getting their mates to trash talk rival restaurants,
How did the World survive before social media?, simple we relied on word and mouth. That is how we do it,

[wantoosoon]

I find that virtually every restaurant in Cyprus has an excellent rating on Google regardless of the quality of their food or service, including some truly dire places.

[PhotoLady]

I find that virtually every restaurant in Cyprus has an excellent rating on Google regardless of the quality of their food or service, including some truly dire places.

You haven't seen mine!
If I have to give a negative review, I will always balance with any positives. Sometimes though, there aren't any to balance it.

We've had some awful meals and service, especially around the harbour at Paphos.

Over the years we lived in Cyprus we saw a big change where the staff no longer asked if everything was ok with the meal.

Always better to get out of the tourist traps and head further back from the resort.

I still look back with fond memories of a place recommended to us on my first holiday in Cyprus, back in 1985. A little place by the name of George Michael on a road back off the seafront road and not far from Enearios roundabout in Limassol.

We went many times during our 3 week stay and eventually, asked the night receptionist at our apartments what made him recommend it to us.

He answered, it was the only place where he wasn't made to wait when he wanted a pack of cigarettes. They had a cupboard on the wall where you went and helped yourself!

It was an eat in kitchen and takeaway, still not registered with CTO as it needed to have an additional bathroom so was on the 6 monthly checklist.

The food was excellent and cheaper because the tax wasn't applicable until the registration was completed. The brandies with the bill started as a glass each, moving onwards and upwards eventually to a bottle on the table.

I passed by it several years later sometime in the late 90s and it was still there.

One just came up in my account from a trip to Turkey a few years ago. The menu was reduced as it was during Covid but again, an excellent place we had found through reviews so went for breakfast.
We booked a table for the same evening and had a really good meal.
We're heading back to the same area in a couple of months and I've just looked at the reviews and photos over the last page and they're excellent. So although it's quite a way from our accommodation this time, we will make the effort to get back and this time, we will get the meze we fancied before but couldn't have....

[J B]

I guess TripAdvisor accounts are more anonymous, and the company have teams of Lawyers.

I note the small print in our latest review says ....
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on all reviews.

[trevnhil]

Re.. " Tripadvisor performs checks on all reviews." I wonder just how they do that?
They surely do not send someone to have a meal at a restaurant or stay in a Hotel.

[Dominic]

It's a very vague statement. This site checks the IP address of all users against known blacklists of spammers when accounts are created. So we can say we check all user accounts. But it doesn't actually mean much. We don't check your location, so you could pretend to be posting from Paphos when you were in fact in Balham, and we would be none the wiser.