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Property Gets Around Bad TripAdvisor Reviews By Creating a Second Listing, and TripAdvisor Shrugs

By Jason Cochran

  Published: Dec 03, 2013

  Updated: Aug 23, 2018

Frommer's reader Dave Wyner ran into a troubling problem on the website TripAdvisor.com: A place he stayed had posted two listings to double its exposure.

Wyner told us: "Several months ago, in anticipation of a trip to Spain, I began looking for vacation rentals - using TripAdvisor. I found an ad for an apartment in Madrid—it had a couple of "very good" reviews.  We rented the place. It was turned out to be other than represented and shown. It was a disaster. The owner used carefully crafted photos and descriptions which were, at best, less than accurate — at worst  misleading.  After returning back to the US, I wrote a review which accurately and honestly warned other travelers to stay away from this rental. This was published by TripAdvisor.