This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has accused Meriton Serviced Apartments of deliberately preventing unhappy guests from posting negative reviews on TripAdvisor.
The ACCC has launched legal action in the Federal Court against Meriton, alleging that Meriton engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct in connection with the posting of reviews of its properties on the TripAdvisor website.
TripAdvisor offers a service called ‘Review Express’ where participating businesses provide TripAdvisor with email addresses of recent customers who have consented to passing on their details. TripAdvisor then emails the customers, prompting them to submit a review of their recent experience with that business.
The ACCC alleges that between the period of November 2014 to October 2015, across at least 13 properties in New South Wales and Queensland, Meriton deliberately prevented guests it suspected would give a negative review from receiving TripAdvisor’s ‘Review Express’ email, to potentially avoid receiving negative reviews.
The ACCC alleges that Meriton did this by inserting additional letters into guests’ email addresses provided to TripAdvisor so that the email addresses were ineffective, and not sending other guest email addresses to TripAdvisor.
ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said on several occasions Meriton engaged in this conduct in respect of the majority of guests that stayed at one of its hotels during periods where infrastructure or services failed, such as no hot water or a lift not working, in an attempt to ensure that guests would not receive TripAdvisor’s ‘Review Express’ prompt email in case they left an unfavourable review.
“We allege that Meriton’s conduct was a deliberate practice, undertaken at the direction of Meriton’s senior management, aimed at minimising the number of negative reviews. This practice was likely to create a more positive or favourable impression of the standard, quality or suitability of accommodation services provided by Meriton.
“Consumers rely on independent review platforms like Trip Advisor when making purchasing decisions. If reviews are manipulated to falsely create a more favourable impression about a provider, consumers may choose that provider on the basis of that falsehood over another accommodation provider who has not engaged in misleading conduct,” Court said.
The ACCC is seeking pecuniary penalties, declarations, injunctions, corrective publication orders, orders for the implementation of a consumer law compliance program and costs.
Australian Property Journal
