Judgement day has arrived and Meriton Property Services will need to cough up $3 million for trying to stop customers from leaving negative reviews on TripAdvisor about them.
The Federal Court ruled that Meriton engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct” between November 2014 and October 2015 while breaching 13 Australian Consumer Laws across 13 of its properties in New South Wales and Queensland.
Meriton had been directing management staff to engage in ‘masking’ to stop potentially negative reviews from appearing on TripAdvisor.
They did this by inserting additional letters in front of certain (i.e. complaining and angry) guests’ email addresses.
This in turn meant TripAdvisor would instead receive those incorrect email addresses, so its emails to those customers, asking them to leave reviews of the hotel, would never be delivered.
Sneaky.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) commissioner Sarah Court told the ABC that these tactics gave the impression Meriton accommodation was of a higher standard than otherwise may have been the case.
“People often make purchasing decisions for accommodation based on the rankings and reviews they read on third party sites like TripAdvisor.”
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) commissioner Sarah Court
“Manipulating these reviews is misleading to potential customers, who deserve the full picture when making a booking decision,” she said.
The Federal Court ruled that Meriton must be restrained from “filtering, selecting or limiting” the guest email addresses that it provides to TripAdvisor for the next three years.
The hotel group was also ordered to establish a compliance and education program for staff to adhere to Australian Consumer Law.
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