Originally Posted by Cloe

Hi, I have spent the last two days trying to understand the whole issue of
slanderous remarks on the internet. In the United States slander is a crime.
One day very soon it will also be enforced for internet users.
If I make a slanderous statement about my neighbor, and others hear it, even if it is true, it is subject to verification in a court of law. I am held liable for my comments. On the internet, the reviewers are as anonymous as the reviewers want to be. Ex employees who were fired for not cleaning rooms properly have posted slanderous reviews. Customers who did not get their way, and the list goes on. The good reviews are written by the real thing. Customers who stayed with us, who were not out to hurt us but rather were interested in writing a fair and helpful review.
I recently had a customer who was going to stay for three days. She decided she would create a rate for her stay @50 off. After much conversation about what I had quoted her, and what she was willing to pay, I realized she was a con artist, and I was not going to stand for it, I called to police, and asked them to mediate. i asked her to leave since she was not willing to pay more than $40 for her room. She left, and soon after wrote a short, but very damaging review. The site on which she posted her review would not remove her review, even though her words were clear slander. None of what she said was true, she was just peeved
because she did not get her way. If any of her comments were true why did
she spend one hour telling the police why she should be allowed to stay with us? Think about it guys. Many, many slanderous reviews are written by
people who are either on a power trip, or can never be made happy.
I consider myself a kind, generous person. I have had many guests tell me
they would come back and send me business because of my hospitality.
I want people to feel at home. But I will not allow customers to blackmail me
or slander me.
Most of you travel quite a bit, think about what it would be like if hotel owners created a very public site where they reviewed guests, their cleanliness, manners, neatness, dress so on and so forth, a sort of black list.
I have a feeling you would all consider that slander.
I am a person, I have children, a mortgage, I work very hard to make an honest living. I even have a very sick child who requires multiple surgeries.
When anyone at all can in flick of a button, do such damage to my livelihood, I feel I am living an Orwellian world, and I wonder if there is any
way to let people realize the harm they are doing to folks like me.
Oh and by the way I would rather put money into my ,motel then buy myself or my children a very needed new car, or even take my family on a three day vacation. So if the general public needs to give advise to motel, and hotel owners, they should live the life first, then see if they have the same opinions.