TripAdvisor removes negative reviews of Tenerife hotel where British families were struck down with bug after guests pooed in the pool
The company says the messages were in breach of its guidelines, but families fear unsuspecting holidaymakers will be duped into booking
BRITISH families struck down by a crippling diarrhoea bug caused by guests pooing in the pool at a Tenerife resort have slammed TripAdvisor for removing negative reviews.
Dozens of holidaymakers were struck down with suspected cryptosporidium allegedly caused by poor hygiene at swimming pools at four star Holiday village Be live in the resort of Costa Los Gigantes.
The Sun Online revealed that the pools have been regularly closed over the last month after guests complained people had been defecating in them.
But holidaymakers desperately trying to cancel their booking claim bosses have asked them to fork out for an entirely new holiday to do so.
And according to the , TripAdvisor are removing negative reviews of the hotel - potentially luring in unsuspecting guests.
The hotel has 1,371 'Excellent' reviews on the site, compared to 72 'Terrible' ones.
Kevin and Angelique Skitmore, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, are due to arrive at the resort on December 2 but they are frantically trying to cancel the booking in the wake of the tummy bug outbreak.
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Kevin said: "I was desperately trying to change my hotel but Thomson seemed to deny there were any problems.
"More worrying still, there are a lot of 5 star reviews on Tripadvisor saying how great the hotel is but I have evidence suggesting negative reviews are being removed.
"After learning of the problems, we noticed that three reviews on the website were removed within just hours of being posted.
"And when we tried ourselves, the same thing happened. It's not on."
Thomson has since issued an apology but says it does not believe the Skitmore's holiday will be affected.
TripAdvisor confirmed the reviews had been removed because those published were in breach of company guidelines.
A spokesman added: "Hotels have no influence over the decisions taken by our moderation team and we never remove negative reviews simply because a business requests it.
"Our team only ever remove reviews if they breach our guidelines, which are designed to ensure reviews remain genuine, relevant and useful and to other holidaygoers.
"We are totally against any attempts to manipulate the reviews on our site, and we have sophisticated fraud detection tools to catch those trying to do so.”
A TripAdvisor spokesman claimed the comments were removed for breaching guidelines and were "related" to the complainant.
They added: “The three reviews in question – which were posted under the account names Angelique S, FussyLady78 and KenDidit - breached a number of our guidelines.
"Our policy clearly states that reviews must be based on a genuine, first-hand customer experience and must avoid hearsay. These reviews clearly did not meet that standard; they did not reference a first-hand experience at all. As a result, they were removed.
"In fact, we have strong evidence to suspect that the accounts from which these three reviews were posted were in fact closely linked to Mr Skitmore himself, who has freely admitted in quotes to press that he did not stay at this establishment.”
A Thomson spokesman said: “We are sorry to hear that Mr & Mrs Skitmore weren’t entirely happy to go ahead with their planned cruise and stay holiday including a week at the Be Live Costa Los Gigantes.
"While there was a small number of reported cases of sickness earlier this month and pools were temporarily closed, the pools have all since reopened and precautionary water test results were returned clear.
"We therefore do not anticipate any impact on their holiday. We would also like to reassure everyone that we closely audit all resorts to which we operate to ensure that health, hygiene and comfort levels are maintained in line with industry standards."
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