An Aussie man is warning fellow travellers to be careful after he was confronted by police following his one-star review of a resort in Vietnam.
Gordan, who is from the Gold Coast, had been living in Quy Nhon, a coastal city in Vietnam’s east, when he visited the Ky Co Beach Resort Park in 2023.
The seasoned traveller was drawn to the tourist resort after seeing pictures online of the picturesque beach and holiday activities including swimming and boating.
However, when he arrived he discovered a resort which appeared abandoned with rundown restaurants, a dangerous makeshift jetty and ‘disgusting’ wildlife park.
‘The wood platforms on the jetty were held together with zip-ties and the wildlife section was disgusting, the cruelty and the poor conditions,’ he told Yahoo.
Gordon described the resort as having some of the ‘worst possible conditions’ for animals and that the entire beach had been ‘spoiled’.
He added the resort also charged different entry fees to customers and argued the cost was overpriced for the experience offered.
After lunch and disgusted with his experience, Gordon wrote a one-star Google review and shared numerous photos showing the rundown condition of the resort.
The review received more than 400 responses in less than five hours, with many agreeing with Gordon and sharing their own personal experiences.
Others – believed to be owners, employees or associated with the resort – argued against him, claiming he did not know what he was talking about.
Gordan said he didn’t think the review would cause him any problems and at the most he might be ‘trolled’ for his comments.
However, at 9pm that day, three provincial police officers knocked on his apartment door.
‘I was in the apartment by myself, and bang, bang, bang on the door — there were three provincial police officers in uniform, three of them at my door asking to see my ID. I was shocked,’ he said.
He added after growing up in Asia as a child and then working in the military, he knew to treat the officers with utmost respect as they had a reputation of arresting people on almost no charges.
The police officers sat in the foyer for about an hour and wrote a report before eventually leaving.
Gordon claimed his social media accounts appeared to be hacked the following day.
‘It was raw intimidation,’ he said.
Google said it was working with regulators to ‘fight fake content and bad actors’ following an investigation into the slew of fake reviews in the tourism industry.
In response to the investigation’s findings, which were published earlier this year, Google agreed to do more to identify and remove fake reviews.
The tech company also vowed to sanction individuals and businesses using fake reviews to manipulate their ratings and will issue ‘warning’ alerts on those profiles.
The investigation into Google was launched in 2021 by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority over concerns it had breached consumer law for failing to take action in protecting people from fraudulent reviews.