TripAdvisor Troll sent down for 9 months for fake reviews

[Tommy Tainant]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

 

[candycorn]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

I had stayed in a hotel in Key West one time and recognized the lobby in a photograph posted on TA. The problem was that the photograph was on the review of a different hotel on the Key. Hacker? Who knows? But it speaks to the incredible lack of verification of information.

As for the reviews… I never give 5 stars; I never give 1 star. The experience could have always been better; always been worse. I need to see repeated photographs to “believe” what I’m being told. We’re going to the Bahamas next May on a cruise and one of the hotels near the dock is going to be ground zero during our stay there. Several photos show the cruise ship terminal in the near-distance off the private beach of the hotel so I am confident that the proximity is being represented accurately.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

I had stayed in a hotel in Key West one time and recognized the lobby in a photograph posted on TA. The problem was that the photograph was on the review of a different hotel on the Key. Hacker? Who knows? But it speaks to the incredible lack of verification of information.

As for the reviews… I never give 5 stars; I never give 1 star. The experience could have always been better; always been worse. I need to see repeated photographs to “believe” what I’m being told. We’re going to the Bahamas next May on a cruise and one of the hotels near the dock is going to be ground zero during our stay there. Several photos show the cruise ship terminal in the near-distance off the private beach of the hotel so I am confident that the proximity is being represented accurately.

We got married on the beach at the Banana Bay Hotel in 1995. That was before tripadvisor. We loved Key West. The Bahamas is very nice as well

 

[candycorn]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

I had stayed in a hotel in Key West one time and recognized the lobby in a photograph posted on TA. The problem was that the photograph was on the review of a different hotel on the Key. Hacker? Who knows? But it speaks to the incredible lack of verification of information.

As for the reviews… I never give 5 stars; I never give 1 star. The experience could have always been better; always been worse. I need to see repeated photographs to “believe” what I’m being told. We’re going to the Bahamas next May on a cruise and one of the hotels near the dock is going to be ground zero during our stay there. Several photos show the cruise ship terminal in the near-distance off the private beach of the hotel so I am confident that the proximity is being represented accurately.

We got married on the beach at the Banana Bay Hotel in 1995. That was before tripadvisor. We loved Key West. The Bahamas is very nice as well

What I love about Key West is that no matter who you are…you fit in there.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

We went to a club one night and the bartender gave us a handful of "johnnys" with our drinks. We told him that we wanted a family and he looked at us like we were strange. There was a sky diving Elvis team when we were there, they were amazing.

 

[SweetSue92]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

 

[Natural Citizen]

From the original report....

An Italian court handed down a nine-month prison sentence to a person who wrote fake hotel reviews on TripAdvisor in exchange for money from hotels aiming to boost their profile on the giant reviews platform.


From the piece offered in the op, an American source, founded by a couple of guys in San Francisco....

Wilkinson said there are a number of ways to separate the real from the fakes. For one, be wary of a profile with no photo, name or little review history, she said, adding that fake reviews are often written by accounts that haven’t reviewed many businesses.

In June, one restaurant received an overwhelmingly polarizing flood of one and five-star reviews on Yelp after press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave by its owner. The page soon became a political battleground among supporters and critics, forcing Yelp to deploy an “Active Cleanup Alert”...

“Anyone can become a reviewer,” Wilkinson said. “There is little to no verification. Like Facebook and Twitter, or any online dating site

 

[SweetSue92]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

Thats a lazy generalisation Sue. People posting fake reviews could put someone out of business. This character did 100s. People look at this stuff and say "its only the internet" but its actually real life and affects real lives.

 

[SweetSue92]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

Thats a lazy generalisation Sue. People posting fake reviews could put someone out of business. This character did 100s. People look at this stuff and say "its only the internet" but its actually real life and affects real lives.

Again. That is a financial hit and should be penalized financially. I find it horridly odd that Europeans are all about rehabilitating the most hardened mass murderers but want internet review scammers to suffer in prison.

Honest to Pete. I hope Jesus comes back today--this world is so messed up. Blessedly, I think our days our numbered.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

Thats a lazy generalisation Sue. People posting fake reviews could put someone out of business. This character did 100s. People look at this stuff and say "its only the internet" but its actually real life and affects real lives.

Again. That is a financial hit and should be penalized financially. I find it horridly odd that Europeans are all about rehabilitating the most hardened mass murderers but want internet review scammers to suffer in prison.

Honest to Pete. I hope Jesus comes back today--this world is so messed up. Blessedly, I think our days our numbered.

Well the Judge heard all the evidence and we havent.It wasnt just some nut getting back at the place that sacked him.It was an organised fraud. Jesus would not have approved. Which hardened mass murderers are you referring to /

 

[SweetSue92]

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

Thats a lazy generalisation Sue. People posting fake reviews could put someone out of business. This character did 100s. People look at this stuff and say "its only the internet" but its actually real life and affects real lives.

Again. That is a financial hit and should be penalized financially. I find it horridly odd that Europeans are all about rehabilitating the most hardened mass murderers but want internet review scammers to suffer in prison.

Honest to Pete. I hope Jesus comes back today--this world is so messed up. Blessedly, I think our days our numbered.

Well the Judge heard all the evidence and we havent.It wasnt just some nut getting back at the place that sacked him.It was an organised fraud. Jesus would not have approved. Which hardened mass murderers are you referring to /

In my experience, the people who are the least close to Jesus feel the absolute most comfortable saying exactly what and what He would not approve.

While projecting exactly that on Christians.

Ain't that a kick in the head???

That's for starters

 

[SweetSue92]

Seriously....JAIL TIME for fake reviews on TripAdvisor?

Europe is out of control.

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

Thats a lazy generalisation Sue. People posting fake reviews could put someone out of business. This character did 100s. People look at this stuff and say "its only the internet" but its actually real life and affects real lives.

Again. That is a financial hit and should be penalized financially. I find it horridly odd that Europeans are all about rehabilitating the most hardened mass murderers but want internet review scammers to suffer in prison.

Honest to Pete. I hope Jesus comes back today--this world is so messed up. Blessedly, I think our days our numbered.

Well the Judge heard all the evidence and we havent.It wasnt just some nut getting back at the place that sacked him.It was an organised fraud. Jesus would not have approved. Which hardened mass murderers are you referring to /

Secondly:

You know what Jesus would REALLY not approve of, and what He did not?

Me. Me. Me.

My sin.

Me.

That's what any Christian would say first. I hope. I don't have any idea about the internet dude. That's what the Bible means when it says "judge not". It doesn't mean I can't look at others and say, "that's wrong" or I don't understand right from wrong. It means I can't say exactly what Jesus would not approve because I already know my sin condemns me utterly. But thank God, it's been atoned for.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Its fraud.

Sure, and maybe there should be a nominal monetary penalty. But jail time?

Europe is screwed up. Totally lenient if you blow someone's brains out but if you put fake reviews on the internet? To the clink with you.

Thats a lazy generalisation Sue. People posting fake reviews could put someone out of business. This character did 100s. People look at this stuff and say "its only the internet" but its actually real life and affects real lives.

Again. That is a financial hit and should be penalized financially. I find it horridly odd that Europeans are all about rehabilitating the most hardened mass murderers but want internet review scammers to suffer in prison.

Honest to Pete. I hope Jesus comes back today--this world is so messed up. Blessedly, I think our days our numbered.

Well the Judge heard all the evidence and we havent.It wasnt just some nut getting back at the place that sacked him.It was an organised fraud. Jesus would not have approved. Which hardened mass murderers are you referring to /

In my experience, the people who are the least close to Jesus feel the absolute most comfortable saying exactly what and what He would not approve.

While projecting exactly that on Christians.

Ain't that a kick in the head???

That's for starters

Well I am pretty sure he would not approve of internet scamming even if you dont think so.

 

[Deno]

A scammer behind hundreds of fake reviews on TripAdvisor receives 9-month prison sentence

In addition to jail time, the owner of PromoSalento will also pay approximately 8,000 euros, or about $9,310, in costs and damages, as ordered by an Italian court. “We see this as a landmark ruling for the Internet,” Brad Young, the vice president and associate general counsel of TripAdvisor, said in a statement. “Writing fake reviews has always been fraud, but this is the first time we’ve seen someone sent to jail as a result.”

Im ok with this.If you cant be honest keep your mouth shut.
I generally take tripadvisor reviews with a large pinch of salt as a large percentage of them are written by axe grinders and arseholes. And they can ruin a good business or boost a bad one.

This must be a division of cnn or msnbctard….

They have BULL SHIT down to an art……………