Regarding the chap who had his reviews deleted, I had something very similar happen to me. I booked and prepaid for a room in a decent hotel. Upon arrival they asked for a £150 deposit. I offered them my Visa debit card, but they said they only accepted Mastercard for deposits. This really set my alarm bells ringing, but it was late and I had tired kids with me so I had go look for an ATM to get cash to pay the deposit.<p>The rest of the stay was Okay, just this weird deposit thing that really jarred me. So I mentioned that in my TripAdvisor review - the review dissapeared and TripAdvisor wouldn't tell me why. Looking at other review sites, plenty of other people had the same experience. It would appear that it was easier for the hotel to get these negative reviews taken off TripAdvisor than from other sites.<p>But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me.
A less sinister explanation is that the reviewers were actually at another pub with the same, or similar, name. And they reviewed the wrong one.<p>This happens all the time on TripAdvisor. I bet there are dozens of “Bridge Inn”s in the UK.
I went to "according to tripadvisor" the best activity in Tenerife, a zoo called Loro Parque. I described the poor situation of the animals with photos and my comment got censored by tripadvisior, probably due to the great amount of money that they get from the park.
From that day I stopped using Tripadvisor after making 100s of reviews.
This immediately reminded me of the article on vice in which the author made his gazebo the best restaurant on Tripadvisor.
Both the article and the video are very entertaining.<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor" rel="nofollow">https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the...</a>
I stopped using TripAdvisor because I found that it has a very strong tourist bias. It seems most of the people who post reviews are tourists, and this ends up being beneficial to places that aren't necessarily the best in their categories, but offer the most tourist-friendly experiences. When I'm looking for a restaurant abroad I'm not looking for the places that have English-speaking service, translated menus, and memorable decoration. I'm looking for the places that have the most genuine and best tasting food, places that locals would like to visit. It's hard to find those places on TripAdvisor.
There are also fake reviews purchased by competition to lower the score of their competitors. I can't trust anything in form of a comment that I see on the internet anymore (oh the irony).
Here are the Tripadvisor reviews: <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g776617-d4090866-r228644366-Bridge_inn-Middleton_in_Teesdale_County_Durham_England.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g776617-d4090866-...</a>