ALASKA TOURISM NEWS
How A London Slacker Tricked
Trip Advisor Into Making Him #1
One of the recurring comments you hear from local businesses on Alaska's highways concerns Trip Advisor. The popular, yet anonymous, international commenting-and-ranking system really gets to people. You can be praised a hundred times, and then along comes that truly mean guy who's out to kill your cozy little Alaska restaurant by sticking a thumb in your eye and twisting it until your beloved place on the road system is crushed to a pulp. It hurts. A lot.
Every horrible review -- even the most blatantly stupid -- hurts.
It's a stab to the heart.
For years, British businesses have complained about Trip Advisor. A number of businesses in UK have claimed that their hotels and restaurants have been completely destroyed by false negative reviews, and that Trip Advisor bears responsibility. (Perhaps in response to stiff resistance and libel threats from British businesses, in 2011 Trip Advisor dropped its "Reviews You Can Trust" slogan in the British Isles and replaced it with a much milder claim -- "Reviews From Our Community.")
Meanwhile, here's a story out of England that turns Trip Advisor on its head...
PHONY TRIP ADVISOR REVIEW WRITER
PUTS HIS CRAFT TO THE TEST
Last spring, a London journalist who made part of his living by writing phony Trip Advisor restaurant reviews (at $14 a whack) thought he'd try an experiment. Even though he never ate at the restaurants he reviewed, he was proud of the fact that the restaurants he "liked" became highly popular.
One day, while sitting around in the little shed he lived in, in a small London garden, he was struck with a thought. He decided to make a totally fake restaurant, and see if it could get it to rise to the top of the heap on Trip Advisor.
In April, 2017, he bought himself a cheap burner cell phone, bought a domain, built a website, and declared "The Shed at Dulwich" open, as an "appointment-only restaurant." He carefully did not give it a physical address.
Then he made up a menu of the restaurant's supposed "food." He named his fake dishes after "Moods" -- "Lust," "Love," "Happy," and so on, and described "Yorkshire blue macaroni and cheese" served in an "Egyptian cotton bowl" as well as other New Age sounding dishes.
Then, outrageous as it seems, he took photos of the pretend meals -- which he clumsily fashioned out of ordinary bathroom products, such as Gillette shaving cream, toilet bowl bleach disks, and even the edge of his bare foot, propping up a fried egg -- with his pink, naked ankle playing the role of a piece of bacon on a plate.
Every horrible review -- even the most blatantly stupid -- hurts.
It's a stab to the heart.
For years, British businesses have complained about Trip Advisor. A number of businesses in UK have claimed that their hotels and restaurants have been completely destroyed by false negative reviews, and that Trip Advisor bears responsibility. (Perhaps in response to stiff resistance and libel threats from British businesses, in 2011 Trip Advisor dropped its "Reviews You Can Trust" slogan in the British Isles and replaced it with a much milder claim -- "Reviews From Our Community.")
Meanwhile, here's a story out of England that turns Trip Advisor on its head...
PHONY TRIP ADVISOR REVIEW WRITER
PUTS HIS CRAFT TO THE TEST
Last spring, a London journalist who made part of his living by writing phony Trip Advisor restaurant reviews (at $14 a whack) thought he'd try an experiment. Even though he never ate at the restaurants he reviewed, he was proud of the fact that the restaurants he "liked" became highly popular.
One day, while sitting around in the little shed he lived in, in a small London garden, he was struck with a thought. He decided to make a totally fake restaurant, and see if it could get it to rise to the top of the heap on Trip Advisor.
In April, 2017, he bought himself a cheap burner cell phone, bought a domain, built a website, and declared "The Shed at Dulwich" open, as an "appointment-only restaurant." He carefully did not give it a physical address.
Then he made up a menu of the restaurant's supposed "food." He named his fake dishes after "Moods" -- "Lust," "Love," "Happy," and so on, and described "Yorkshire blue macaroni and cheese" served in an "Egyptian cotton bowl" as well as other New Age sounding dishes.
Then, outrageous as it seems, he took photos of the pretend meals -- which he clumsily fashioned out of ordinary bathroom products, such as Gillette shaving cream, toilet bowl bleach disks, and even the edge of his bare foot, propping up a fried egg -- with his pink, naked ankle playing the role of a piece of bacon on a plate.
IN THE BEGINNING, THE SHED WAS RANKED #18,149
With the help of friends writing fake reviews, The Shed began to climb the Trip Advisor ranks. It got to the #10,000 ranking almost immediately. Soon, people began calling the burner phone for bookings. They were told they needed to wait six weeks to four months because the "restaurant" was so crowded. Emails began pouring in, and the pretend restaurant climbed to #1,456 in all of London.
Not a single meal had been cooked or served.
It seemed, said the owner, that "the appointments, lack of address and general exclusivity of this place is so alluring that people can't see sense. They're looking at photos of the sole of my foot, drooling."
"OUT OF CONTROL" … AND NOW #156
When August came, the imaginary Shed had climbed on Trip Advisor to the #156 restaurant in London. Google Maps "located" the restaurant. People emailed offers to come work at the Shed.
By the time winter arrived -- without ever having a single customer or making a single meal, or seeing a single diner in person -- The Shed at Dulwich had 83 reviews. It started getting even more calls and emails from people in England and other countries, clamoring for a chance to eat at their tables. They were always turned down, due to the enormous popularity of the place.
AN EMAIL FROM TRIP ADVISOR
Then, Trip Advisor wrote to the Shed. The prankster thought, Well, the jig is up. They're onto me. But, they weren't. Trip Advisor was just letting him know that 89,000 people searched for "The Shed at Dulwich" in a single day. Wasn't that great?
HITTING #1 IN LONDON
Six months after first listing The Shed at Dulwich it was November, 2017. And the phony restaurant, with its 96 reviews, its five stars, and its ridiculous menu was officially named #1 in London by Trip Advisor.
That was when the "owner" bought some Cup-a-Soup, mowed the lawn, gathered up the live chickens that roamed his yard, and opened up the place -- for the very first time -- for a single, glorious, phony night of "business."
------------------------
For more -- "I Made My Shed The Top Rated Restaurant On Trip Advisor," by Oobah Butler, December 6, 2017, VICE.
Photos: Shaving cream dessert and toilet bowl cleaner entree -- from the "Shed at Dulwich" website. Trip Advisor emblem.
With the help of friends writing fake reviews, The Shed began to climb the Trip Advisor ranks. It got to the #10,000 ranking almost immediately. Soon, people began calling the burner phone for bookings. They were told they needed to wait six weeks to four months because the "restaurant" was so crowded. Emails began pouring in, and the pretend restaurant climbed to #1,456 in all of London.
Not a single meal had been cooked or served.
It seemed, said the owner, that "the appointments, lack of address and general exclusivity of this place is so alluring that people can't see sense. They're looking at photos of the sole of my foot, drooling."
"OUT OF CONTROL" … AND NOW #156
When August came, the imaginary Shed had climbed on Trip Advisor to the #156 restaurant in London. Google Maps "located" the restaurant. People emailed offers to come work at the Shed.
By the time winter arrived -- without ever having a single customer or making a single meal, or seeing a single diner in person -- The Shed at Dulwich had 83 reviews. It started getting even more calls and emails from people in England and other countries, clamoring for a chance to eat at their tables. They were always turned down, due to the enormous popularity of the place.
AN EMAIL FROM TRIP ADVISOR
Then, Trip Advisor wrote to the Shed. The prankster thought, Well, the jig is up. They're onto me. But, they weren't. Trip Advisor was just letting him know that 89,000 people searched for "The Shed at Dulwich" in a single day. Wasn't that great?
HITTING #1 IN LONDON
Six months after first listing The Shed at Dulwich it was November, 2017. And the phony restaurant, with its 96 reviews, its five stars, and its ridiculous menu was officially named #1 in London by Trip Advisor.
That was when the "owner" bought some Cup-a-Soup, mowed the lawn, gathered up the live chickens that roamed his yard, and opened up the place -- for the very first time -- for a single, glorious, phony night of "business."
------------------------
For more -- "I Made My Shed The Top Rated Restaurant On Trip Advisor," by Oobah Butler, December 6, 2017, VICE.
Photos: Shaving cream dessert and toilet bowl cleaner entree -- from the "Shed at Dulwich" website. Trip Advisor emblem.
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