Remove an unfair Tripadvisor review

Tripadvisor’s guidelines, applied to Singapore venues

Visitors plan Singapore meals, tours and stays on Tripadvisor, so one fabricated review can sit on the first screen of a restaurant near Marina Bay or a boutique hotel in Chinatown for years. Moderators keep a review unless it breaks a guideline. The ones we use most:

• First-hand experience only. The author must have experienced the business as a guest or potential guest. Hearsay, a news story or a social media post is not enough.
• Twelve-month window. The experience must have taken place within the twelve months before the review was submitted.
• Relevance. A complaint about a neighbouring outlet, a taxi queue or the weather on Sentosa is not about your business.
• No bias. Reviews from competitors, former employees or anyone trying to move your ranking are removed when the link can be shown.
• No blackmail. Threatening a bad review to obtain a refund, an upgrade or a free meal is a serious breach.

Blackmail: report the threat before the review exists

“Refund me or I post one star everywhere” is a familiar line in F&B and hospitality. Tripadvisor runs a dedicated process for blackmail threats, and it works only for reviews not yet submitted: once the review is live, it becomes an ordinary dispute. So timing is everything. Note the date, the booking reference and the exact words, keep the email or chat, and send them to us the same day. We report the threat to Tripadvisor at once.

Why owner disputes are refused

The most common reason is evidence. “This guest never came” carries no weight on its own; a reservation search for the date, the POS log for the table size described and a menu that has never included the dish mentioned do. The second is the guideline chosen: a review written by a rival chef is a bias case, not an irrelevance case. The third is the public reply: a management response that names the guest or hints at their identity can undermine your position. We prepare the dispute with all three in mind.

How we handle your Tripadvisor review

1. Free assessment. Send the review link through the contact form. We tell you which guideline it breaks, if any, and which records would prove it.
2. Evidence. Reservation systems, POS receipts, staff rosters, emails with the guest, CCTV logs if you hold them (we never need the footage itself).
3. Direct report. With your signed authorisation we report the review to Tripadvisor ourselves within 48 hours of your order. We never ask for your Tripadvisor password or a role on your listing, and you do not submit anything.
4. Follow-up. Tripadvisor’s moderators decide, sometimes after asking for more information, which we supply. You receive the outcome.

When the review is genuine

If the reviewer did visit and describes their own experience, Tripadvisor keeps it, even if you disagree. Then the right tool is a calm management response that corrects facts without naming the guest. We never post reviews to balance your score: on 30 September 2026 the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore acted against 45 businesses whose fake reviews included Tripadvisor ones, ordering them to display apologies for six months.

Other travel platforms

Hotels often meet the same guest on several sites. Agoda and Booking.com reviews come only from guests with a booking, so the grounds differ. Restaurants should check their Google reviews too. All platforms: fake review removal.

Price and next step

S$29 per review, S$78 for three, S$214 for ten. Fixed price, no extra fees, secure card payment via Stripe, after the free assessment. Send the review link for a free assessment; see the pricing page.