TripAdvisor gets a timely warning from the Advertising Standards Authority.
Whether it's a crook pretending to be your friend in an online forum, colluding bidders on an auction site, or a plant in a magician's audience, the world is full of shills hiding their true identities and motives. Some, like the magician's secret assistant, are to be applauded when they get away with it, but sadly, there are many out there with less than honourable motives.
When web sites contain user-generated material, like the posts on the Fool's discussion boards, it's especially important for users of the sites to be cautious of the intentions of others, and for the sites' owners themselves to be careful how they represent them.
And that's something that travel review site TripAdvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP.US) has just fallen foul of, having been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to remove claims that its reviews are honest and can be trusted. The reviews, you see, are posted by users of the site, and while TripAdvisor makes efforts to detect and remove anything dishonest posted by industry stooges, there really can't be any guarantees.
Do such tactics really happen, and do they genuinely cause damage? The answers are surely yes and yes. Watch any consumer complaints programme on the TV, and it soon becomes clear that one of the biggest sources of grief is the low-margin, ultra-competitive, holiday business.
It doesn't take many
There are millions of comfortable and honest hotels out there, but there's a smaller number of horrible ones where there's no water in the taps, no water in the pool, a lizard in the bidet, and half the rooms are double-booked and you can't sleep anyway. All it takes is for a few of them to plug themselves successfully across the internet and convince people to stay -- and there are expensive holidays ruined, honest travel agents harmed by the publicity, and shareholders hurt by subsequent price falls.
TripAdvisor is itself an honest and valuable site (I've used it myself on various occasions), and I'm quite certain they take speedy action against bogus reviews. But here at TMF we would not make similar claims about material posted by our thousands of Discussion Board users. For although the great majority of our posters are honest and upright, we do sometimes get posts from share rampers and boiler room scammers. Thankfully our users are pretty sharp-eyed, and we'll zap such nonsense when we're made aware of it.
Beware of strangers
All this does highlight something that we are always keen to stress here, and I make no apologies for repeating the same advice that I've covered before, especially as the Financial Services Authority (FSA) reckons £500m is lost each year through investment scams.
You really need to be vigilant when you're thinking of trusting any claims made by strangers, be it on web sites, by email, by telephone, or whatever, and always remember the following...
- If someone cold calls you to sell you an investment, hang up the phone. Or if you're feeling brave, get as much detail as you can and pass it on to the FSA.
- If you see anything posted on a website that looks dodgy, report it to the site owners. Here at TMF, all you need to do is hit the "Report this Post" link and give us a brief note of your suspicions.
- If someone offers to help with a past scam, and they ask for money up front, send them on their way -- this kind of "secondary scam" is all too common.
- If you see site contributors showering enthusiastic praise on a share, some other investment, or indeed any kind of purchase, be sure to pay close attention to competing viewpoints. And above all, do your own research.
And do have a read of our "Can You Trust What You Read Here?" guidelines.
More from Alan Oscroft:
