I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read it, is a clear sign this institution is broken.<p>We need new laws. Not the vague hodgepodge we have now. Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid. This credit card charge should be treated like any merchant taking a card and then charging £100 more than expected. Fraud, theft, some mild form of racketeering, whatever that falls under.<p>I think the most common abuse of this sort is "out of contract" telecom charges where using 2X the contract number of minutes or data could result in over 10X (often over 100x) the cost of the original contract.<p>I'm not sure how exactly the laws need to work, but there is obvious stretching of the systems well past the point of ridiculous. An iphone privacy policy or a hotel "sign this" agreement is not free actors contracting freely.<p>Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better. If hotels need some sort of escrow, then it should be an escrow.
The trip advisor page. <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d554701-Reviews-Broadway_Hotel-Blackpool_Lancashire_England.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g186332-d554701-Re...</a><p>There were 147 bad reviews before the story broke and these bad reviews are the majority.<p>I'm curious about the dupe detector not spotting duplicates.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629113" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629113</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629117" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8629117</a><p>Edit: this link is to the mobile site; one links to .com and the third links to .co.uk
How did the proprietors ever think this was going to end well? The "victims" have been given airtime on the national breakfast TV show. Even if it is legal it wont take long for internet justice to ensue.<p>edit: actually, no need for internet justice, already there are 147 x 1 star reviews - the most recent stating "don't go there" and "lacking basic cleanliness"
This happened with a New York hotel. They were trying to charge $500 for bad reviews <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/travel/bad-hotel-review-fine-backlash/" rel="nofollow">http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/travel/bad-hotel-review-fi...</a><p>Thank you internet (Yelp, Tripadvisor) for putting them to shame!
>John Greenbank, north trading standards area manager, said it was a "novel" way to prevent bad reviews.<p>Or a novel way to get a bad review splashed all over national media. Did the hotel really think this was going to end well?
This practice is not new, at least not in the US, although it is probably illegal. Ken White at Popehat has written about a number of such cases, for example <a href="http://www.popehat.com/2014/11/11/roca-labs-lacking-a-hornet-nest-into-which-it-could-stick-its-dick-has-sued-marc-randazza/" rel="nofollow">http://www.popehat.com/2014/11/11/roca-labs-lacking-a-hornet...</a>
On the whole, freedom of contract (a characteristic feature of Anglo-American law since that body of law was located only in England) is a feature rather than a bug. Most of what we do each day in Britain, in the United States, and these days around much of the developed world is regulated by private agreements--that is, contracts--rather than by legislation or administrative regulations. That's a good thing. Parties to contracts can dicker until they reach a mutually agreeable deal, or each party can avoid making the deal at all by doing business with someone else.<p>Contracts have effect in influencing human behavior partly because once in a while a court will enforce a contract against a party trying to weasel out of the contract. But when courts get involved, general constitutional, statutory, and administrative law is brought to bear on the terms of the contract. A court may be very reluctant to enforce a term of a contract that doesn't allow a customer to complain about a company's service. That could be regarded as "against public policy," and public policy can be a judicial ground for NOT enforcing a contract. Moreover, a contract binds its parties, but doesn't bind outsiders who didn't enter into a contract, so a news organization like the BBC can report, "Slimy company attempts to sue its customer for letting consumers know that the company gives bad service," and the contract will not stop that. Parties to form contracts often ask the moon, but the party that drafted the contract language will usually have the terms construed in favor of the OTHER party if the contract is litigated. So I don't worry about this. I look over form contracts as I sign them (as, for example, when I buy an airline ticket or check into a hotel or rent a car) but I also stay aware of actual business practice as experienced by consumers as I buy products and services as a consumer. My most powerful recourse, always, is not to give a slimy company any repeat business, and to tell all my friends through every channel I have that I did (or did not) like a particular company's product or service. Anyone can do the same.<p>AFTER EDIT: By the way, this is an international news story that I heard on the radio while I was just on a morning drive here in Minnesota, and the latest update is that the hotel has agreed to refund the "fine." I'm trying to find a news story on the Web that verifies that.<p><a href="http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2014-11-19/hotel-fines-guests-to-be-refunded-for-bad-review/" rel="nofollow">http://www.itv.com/news/border/story/2014-11-19/hotel-fines-...</a>
I concur that something needs to be done about these consumer Terms-of-Service type contracts.<p>There's a contract system in place, and it may work fine for people who have the incentive and the resources to look over them (mergers and acquisition deals, house purchases), but a lot of the time the document is very long and written in legalese.<p>How many people are really going to hire a lawyer to read their Apple Store or World of Warcraft terms? Writing a hugely lengthy contract is simply a way to discourage you from reading it, and then pretending that you've agreed to whatever the terms are. I guess there's some help from the legal system - ridiculous clauses are thrown out - but that doesn't address the fact that you are discouraged from reading about relevant information.<p>I think someone must have written a post about how long it would take to just read the everyday ToS type docs that we're presented with. And South Park did an excellent episode about this (The Human CentiPad).
I imagine they could dispute the charge with their credit card provider and put the onus on them to sort it out.<p>Being in a contract doesn't make something legally binding - what if they put "if you leave a bad review we reserve the right to shoot you?"
As an FYI, the fine was scrapped (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525</a>) following an intervention by Trading Standards.
I think this is the place I stayed when I went to see Bob Dylan play in Blackpool 2013. It wasn't too bad, Blackpool is a sh*tehole anyway what do you expect. Dylan was great though, best night of my life.
The BBC is reporting that the hotel has now reversed its policy. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30111525</a>
> The couple have sought a refund via their credit card company.<p>I'm curious how that will play out. It's surprising how well the credit card system seems to work, when it relies so heavily on trust.
just absurd... the government should take action on this and the consumer rights. Just close down the hotel and get the managers to the court for scam.