Hi Alex

I symapthise with you whole-heartedly. I do wonder sometimes how TA users get through this minefield. As a riad owner we have suffered false negative reviews too. Forunately they have mostly contained some factual inaccuracy which cannot be explained away as a 'highly subjective opinion'. The TA staff have been very supportive in routing these out.

We do think that it is time TA looked at the anonymity procedure and at least try to verify that the reviewer has stayed at the establishment as a guest.

We work hard to give our guests a good experience not only of our riad, but also of Marrakech. It can be galling then to get highly presonal attacks from someone who we know has never stayed with us.

Fortunately, as you say, most seasoned TA users are good at spotting the fake positve and negative reviews, and have reported this so to us when they arrive here.

Michael

Good on you Alex for bringing this to my attention, i being perhaps slghtly naive will take your comments on board.Planing to travel there 28th Feb & really excited

Martine

Hello Martine,

Glad if I helped. This being said, I didn't want to start a wave of mistrust towards all the Riads. The majority of reviews are still genuine. Trust your gut feeling and go with places recommended on different sites / guidebooks. Just be aware that the Moroccan reviews here is more biased that what you might have experienced elsewhere.

Alex

I spend a lot of time on the Istanbul forum - and fake reviews are a real problem there too! So much so that we have started a thread on the Istanbul forum for hotel reviews from 'known posters' and ask people who are regular vistors to the forum to post their reviews there as well as on the review page. It isn't failsafe, but it does mean that there are a source of reviews from people who are likely to be genuine.

I think it is time TA looked at this issue seriously. I used to use TA to choose hotels, but now there are SO many fakes that I use it as nothing more than a rough guide, and use other sources to actually make my decision.The only TA reviews I pay any attention to are reviews from people who have been TA members for a while and have posted reviews on other hotels in other countries - so I know they are genuine travellers.

Caro

At last !!! some one has spoken out against all the fake and dubious reviews. Some are so obvious, where several reviews raving about a riad will all have the same mispellings in each review , this is not difficult to see that it is the same person writing each review !!. Also, can some one please explain to me how when many riads ( in the top ten ) get bad reviews , or just a little critical , they get them removed ??/ Some are genuine , as you can see the reviewer may have done many others all over the World m but , hey presto , a few days later and its gone ??. amazing . There were also several write ups about Marrakech in general , which were very interesting , to say the least , they also disappeared . Very dodgy .

How many of us count on Tripadvisor only to find that the riad or hotel is far from what is claimed.

Here we go again with what appears to be multitudes of false all brilliantly fantastic reviews.

All 5, 5, 5’s, When will it STOP! Once again some raid owners appear to blatantly abuse tripadvisor by using this platform for their own free marketing and not having any regard for those who count on it for advice and information. As one example, please help me to understand how a 6 bedroom riad can get up to 25 smashingly great reviews in a three week period from who, and this is the best part, join tripadvisor for what appears the sole reason of writing this one review and never use it again, I would be very interested and most grateful to know how riad owners like clockwork always seem to get a multitude of fantastic reviews right after receiving a negative one. Those riad owners who abuse this service should stop making a mockery of it and if they can’t stop on their own, then Tripadvisor should assist them. In the meantime, my only hope is that those raid owners who abuse this service will eventually run out of friends.

You're absolutely right: there are some riads which seem to rival in favourable reviews.I'm sure some of these are fake.I also suspect that some riad owners ask their friends outside of Morocco to write positive reviews. It's hard to tell the real from the fake. And I'm not sure how tripadvisor can stop this. I'm all the time amused when I read ' a little piece of 'heaven' or 'paradise' or the'gate to bliss' When a review reads everything is excellent travellers should be wary

It is a shame that the desert/camel guides have no way of promoting themselves and have to resort to their highly amusing fake reviews.I particularly like 'the hallucinating desert' and 'assou and his 'coocker'.Without them we would not have so much fun,but of course that is not the point.It is against TA rules.TA do query reviews on the riads if they suspect they are fake,but its not foolproof.Good on you spartac for being so vigilant.

Hi guys i was wondring if i can let some singals over here .i guss peopl know the point from this descusion but let's say it's ok and evrybody will have to deal with fake spots/thread ; i can't see why you try to change your threads from 'not fake enough to super fake' .I am sur you think that this is a list of a real travllers but ! no guys i mean i saw what's going on here befor joinding TA . your efforts and your help is well apreciated .

DARJANI i don't know what you mean by saying ' ASSOU' and coocker ??.

do you know that campany? i went with them and it was great trip .

Ben

Alex,

Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to Morocco tomorrow and thankfully I didn't use just TA to find Riads and hotels. I just tried clicking on the profile of some reviews I thought were fishy and sure enough. The signed up, reviewed a place, and then never used TA again. Hmmm it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

I'll be sure to give some real reviews of the places I stay.

Jeff