Customer service that's so bad it really is comical. Here's the most recent insanity from the "customer care" staff at hotels.com in regards to censorship of negative reviews:
I apologize for your continued frustration in regards to this issue.
Unfortunately, we do not have any control over which reviews get posted on the website. I can advise that since the process was redesigned there are several kinks still being worked out. I thank you for your patience during this process.
I apologize, but we do not have control over the review posting process. We would not be able to advise on why the review was not selected to be posted.
Once again I'm left scratching my head.
At the moment, hotels.com is running TV commercials that focus on the existence of user reviews on their site. The ads imply that hotels.com customers get great treatment from hotels because the hotels want to make sure you write a good review. The ads also imply that one of the most important benefits of using hotels.com is that you get to see other traveler's honest reviews.
It comes as no shock, but this seems to be a serious distortion of reality. Customer care says that that hotels.com itself does not have any control over the reviews on the hotels.com site?
So, I am left with questions: Who does control what reviews get posted? What percentage of reviews that are posted don't make it? How many rejected reviews are positive and how many are negative?
This experience has taught me a few lessons, the latest is this: the times have changed and the internet has grown and evolved. When I first used hotels.com, not many hotels had their own websites. It was an easy way to find smaller and less expensive places to stay. Now, with all the travel review sites, blogs and other information that is out there -- combined with the fact that most small hotels and hostels now have their own web presence -- services like hotels.com become less and less needed and useful.
Once you take out the validity of/ability to trust the overall rating of hotels; once it becomes clear that they don't have a staff that checks, or cares about, the accuracy of data (like how many blocks to a certain location), hotels.com no longer has any value to offer the public. It's all just a waste of 0s and 1s (i wonder what the carbon footprint of all their servers adds up to).
Wow!
That is impressively circular. What if you just try reposting it now? Seems like they switched up their system and since they "do not have any control over which reviews get posted on the website" it ought to show up, right?
Alternatively, you could contact the BBB in Bellevue (where their parent company is based: http://press.expedia.com/) or Dallas (where whois suggests they are hosted) and object to the fact that Hotels.com advertises "un-biased customer reviews from people just like you who have stayed at the property" but then refuses to post reviews that are negative, which amounts to posting only reviews with a positive bias.
If you're really feeling hostile, you could start contacting places like Ripoff Report or Consumerist that are sure to draw more attention to the issue.
good links, thanks
If I can trust anything that the hotels.com customer care folks have said, the new system was in place before my second and third attempts to post my review. I just don't believe that their system would not have some method to allow managers to audit how the staff is moderating of customer reviews. I find it hard to believe that they have no control over content on their own site.
I might post something on ripoff report or comsumerist, thanks for the links. I might also try to follow up with the BBB if I have some time to kill.
sadly, I don't think there is anything illegal about the level of fraud in the hotels.com commercials. there is no team of experts double checking hotels, there is no unbiased and fair gathering of ratings from past hotel guests, hotel staff (from what I read on the net) tends to give people that reserve via hotels.com (and sites similar to it) crappier rooms and worse treatment. It's all just smoke and mirrors, probably aimed just as much at the stock holders of the company as it is at the buying public.
Good!!
Nice post...Thanks for sharing with us, we would be aware of such things hereafter...
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