A hotel in Blackpool is being investigated by Trading Standards after it allegedly fined guests £100 for posting a negative review on TripAdvisor.
Tony and Jan Jenkinson, from Whitehaven in Cumbria, described the Broadway Hotel in Blackpool as a "rotten stinking hovel" on the travel review website after paying £36 for one night's stay in August.
The couple later found that £100 had been charged to their credit card – a fine that was apparently outlined in the terms and conditions they signed.
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"Despite the fact that repeat customers and couples love our hotel, your friends and family may not. For every bad review left on any website, the group organiser will be charged a maximum £100 per review," the hotel stated on its booking form.
Out of 108 traveller ratings on TripAdvisor, nearly two thirds of guests graded the hotel as "terrible".
Tony Jenkinson, a 63-year-old retired van driver, wrote that he "couldn't believe the state of the room", which had no hot water, no phone (despite instructions on how to use it) and a broken chest of drawers.
"The wallpaper was peeling off the walls, the carpet was thin, dirty and stained. The bed was something else, it must have come out of the ark, the base was all scuffed and dirty and the springs in the mattress attacked you in the night," he wrote.
He described breakfast as "a joke" and warned other travellers to stay away.
The manager of the hotel, on Burlington Road West, is yet to comment, while John Greenbank, north trading standards area manager, told the BBC: "I have worked for trading standards for many years and have never seen anything like this."
The hotel describes its "cosy bedrooms" as "traditionally decorated", all with a private bathroom, telephone, television and radio.
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