Hotel charges guess $500 for negative reviews, hasn't heard of Striesand Effect

Unbelievable. If you stayed at this hotel for, say, a wedding, and left a negative review, they would withhold $500 from said wedding party's deposit. They do not accept cancellations. And based on one-star reviews on Yelp dated prior to this year, they're a pretty sucky hotel when it comes to customer service, so it's not like they don't deserve a sucky rep, they're just trying to monetize it.

Yesterday morning, there were over 200 reviews on Yelp. This morning, 54. I feel sorry for people who use Yelp and only look at the highly rated reviews, like Amazon, reading the one-star reviews can also be quite informative.

The owner made a post that says 'Me not know internet thingie or viral thingie, was joke that not funny ha-ha.' Well, not in so many words, but he claims that it was put online as a joke. I don't think so. And the Internet Wayback Machine will make sure that it's preserved for a long time.

The hotel in question is the Union Street Guest House in Hudson, NY. Caveat emptor.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/08/05/1717258/hotel-charges-guests-500-for-bad-online-reviews

http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson