There's a Guy Charging $100 for Credentials Enabling You to Profit from Threatening to Submit Fake or Biased Revews to TripAdvisor and Yelp

I am so amused by this next report that I can't refrain from "blogging" about it, even though I'll be accused of having a self-interested bias against the so-called "user-generated" websites.  The topic was brought to my attention by David Lazarus, a consumer affairs writer for The Los Angeles Times, who has come upon one of the most ingenious dubious schemes in commerce today.

Lazarus discovered a man who has now created a website advertising the sale, for $100, of a snazzy-looking, black, plastic, imitation credit-card identifying the holder as a "reviewer" of hotels and restaurants.  You buy the card, and the next time you check in at a hotel, you display it to the assistant manager or general manager and advise them that you will be writing a review of their hotel and submitting it to one of the well-known user-generated sites.  You broadly hint that they will get a favorable review if you are given either a discount off the room price or an upgraded room.

Or else you show the card to the maitre d' of a restaurant, advising that lady or gentleman that you will send in a favorable review to TripAdvisor or Yelp if you are given a free meal or one that's heavily discounted, or one replete with free wine or a free dessert.  And lo and behold, according to the creators of this scheme, it works!  You're treated like a important guest when you flash your impressive-looking, black, reviewer's card.

I am not making this up.  The website can easily be found on the internet, and the author of the scheme was actually named by David Lazarus in his write-up for The Los Angeles Times (which probably brought an avalanche of $100 orders for the card).  And amazingly enough, according to Lazarus, the promoter had no qualms about what he was doing and stoutly denied it was unethical.

By simply advising the hotel or restaurant that "I write reviews" and flashing the card, you are advising them, according to this mastermind, that you want spiffy service--or maybe an expression of gratitude (in the form of a discount or free lodgings or free meals).

Using the card, the promoter was once able to obtain a 400-Euro room at a European hotel for only 200 Euros. Having once been made to stand at the end of a long line to a celebrated restaurant, he flashed the card and was immediately permitted to skip the line.

Isn't what he is doing akin to blackmail--blackmail of the hotel or restaurant, forcing them to "deal" for fear of obtaining a bad review sent to TripAdvisor or Yelp?  Absolutely not, replied the "card-shark"; I am simply dramatically advising them that I frequently write reviews of the hotels and restaurants I use.

So there it is.  And wasn't it to be expected that some types of this sort would proceed to "game" the system operated by the user-generated sites?  And how would you like to be in the position of a hotel or restaurant confronting a character who threatened a devastating review of your services unless you, in effect, paid him off?

You'll notice that I haven't named the website, or the person who operates it and issues these flashy, slick, jet-black, credit-card-looking announcements that they are "reviewers".  And, given the system operated by user-generated sites, and their total inability to distinguish fake reviews from honest ones, wasn't this bound to happen?