TripAdvisor: Blackpool restaurateur turns detective to unmask 'troll'

A restaurateur who turned detective to find a TripAdvisor "troll" has said the legal action he took should make others "think twice" about posting lies.

Blackpool's Steve Hoddy pieced together details from fake reviews on the travel site to unmask Martin Stewart Potts.

He then used his law degree to bring a civil case against Mr Potts, as he said the fake posts can "ruin businesses".

Manchester County Court ordered Mr Potts to pay £6,000 in compensation for spreading malicious falsehoods.

The businessman's detective work began in 2018, when he saw a review on the site which claimed the owner of Bispham Kitchen "glares at you weirdly whilst you are eating your food - not a nice experience".

He said he dealt with it by posting a sarcastic response, which led to the reviewer deleting the post, but a further eight reviews appeared, including one which claimed his food had made a family ill.

"He proceeded to troll us... using eight different usernames, but it was clearly one and the same person because he'd made all the same spelling mistakes," he said.

"With the other reviews he had done of other establishments using the same usernames, I was able to piece together a picture of who he was."

Mr Hoddy, who studied law at the University of Cambridge and has run his restaurant for 44 years, was able to identify the reviewer as a man from Belmont in Lancashire who was 6ft 8ins (2.03m) tall.

At a pub in the village, he was told Mr Potts fitted that description and lived nearby.

"I went and confronted him... [but he] didn't think he'd done anything wrong," he said.

"So I issued county court proceedings against him."

A ruling against Mr Potts, which was made by Manchester County Court in July, was challenged by the defendant, but was upheld at the same court in October.

Mr Hoddy said he hoped his victory would mean people "think twice" before posting fake reviews, as they can "ruin businesses".

He said his business was "robust enough to withstand this", but bad TripAdvisor reviews could put others "out of business very easily".

People should realise that "if they can't fully justify what they're putting, they may come across the wrong person who is prepared to take it all the way, like I was," he said.

He said he wanted to see the law change to make it easier for victims to be able to find out the identity of malicious reviewers and called for the "complex legal process" used to bring a malicious falsehood action to be "simplified".

TripAdvisor said it "takes the issue of fraud extremely seriously and we use the best in technology and human moderation practices to fight it".

A spokeswoman added that anyone who spotted a suspicious review should report it to the firm.

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