Hotel Fines Guests $500 for Negative Reviews!

An attempt by a New York hotel owner to get only positive reviews backfired in a big viral way!

Introducing the Union Street Guest House, an estate built by the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers in Hudson, NY.  The current owner had a policy posted on their website which warned wedding parties of a $500 fee for every negative review posted online. Here's an excerpt as shared by the NY Post:

Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our inn, your friends and families may not. If you have booked the inn for a wedding or other type of event . . . and given us a deposit of any kind . . . there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review . . . placed on any internet site by anyone in your party.

Surprise! Social media caught wind of this and BOOM! The reaction wasn't pretty on websites such as Yelp.

On Twitter there are claims that Yelp is removing a flood of negative comments about the hotel.

Twitter / hairysteve20: You should read reviews of ...

The owner of the Union Street Guest House has since come forward today with an apology posted to the hotel's Facebook page saying:

Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed. This indeed was a policy of the Union Street Guest House. It was originally intended as a joke and never something I told employees to enforce. However, since it was listed on our website it did represent an official policy. I now realize this joke was made in poor taste and not at all funny. This is no longer a policy of Union Street Guest House and we have taken it off of our website.

The owner said it was a joke, but people were charged the fee. The owner says it was a misunderstanding for his employees to submit the charge and apologized. But, feedback comments have asked, will those charged get a refund?

One guy took to Twitter to say, here's your $500 in Monopoly money!

Twitter / eboysterous: Union Street Guest House should ...