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American expat avoids jail for negative review - reaches settlement with Koh Chang hotel


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5 hours ago, 4evermaat said:

The issue never should have gone this far in the first place.....from either side.    Glad to see the matter can be settled amicably though

It should not have been settled like this.

Not only one side at fault.

 

Arresting and threatening with jail is too far over the top. He should have got a high compensation (then he might apologize)

 

The issue never should have gone this far in the first place..

because of the hotel and

 

Edited by sweatalot
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I would like someone to write to Booking, hotel or TripAdvisor and ask them why they haven't closed the abilities to make reviews on hotels in Thailand. Clearly you can't make a bad review and that should come up as a reminder when booking a hotel in  Thailand. Or at least a reminder to wait until you're out of Thailand.. 

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6 hours ago, Seismic said:

You can bring in your own drink, but like establishments all over the world they charge a corkage fee. This is a common and well accepted practice.

Yes it is a common practice.

But in this case i believe I read that the amount charged was 350 Baht .

Pretty steep "corkage" for washing 2 glasses !

I believe I read that they were drinking from an open bottle of Gin that they started drinking at the beach.

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6 hours ago, Shuya said:

Damn it, I had 20 bucks on "big misunderstanding"


Damn it, I had a round of beers for the boys on "big wai to everyone" and "thank you for my <deleted>". Well, we'll have the beers anyway, which I'll pay without posting anything on anywhere ???? 

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The American boy does not care as long as he can get away over this incident. What really happened we'll never know but certainly there was a story which was ....... well, let's not get there, do we? 

The hotel is toast - for good - and I, for one, cannot hide chuckling 8-) 

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1 hour ago, GeilGeilertzen said:

This is exactly the riff raff that should never have entered Thailand it being a tourist country or not.  
Big mouth screamers always out to make thais feel like a lower class or criticizing Thai culture in many aspects. Sadly to say but very often from they are from the UK. 
Just leave, just go home is the the preferred action.

But... he's not a tourist, he's a teacher (or was).

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2 hours ago, Flying Saucage said:

People in the West and the newspapers there understand quite well how dictatorships and corrupt totalitarian banana republics work, whereas some Western expats in Thailand obviously tend to forget these things after living in Thailand too long already. 

OMG you are SO right!

 

I had completely forgotten I was living in some parochial, backward, myopic and xenophobic far eastern backwater until you just reminded me. You're a Godsend!

 

Thanks!

NL

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1 minute ago, NanLaew said:

OMG you are SO right!

 

I had completely forgotten I was living in some parochial, backward, myopic and xenophobic far eastern backwater until you just reminded me. You're a Godsend!

 

Thanks!

NL

I said some, not all, my friend ????

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1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

Wrong. He is a tourist that will be quickly forgotten. This extremely tone deaf, incompetent and arrogant administration, will have egg on their faces for a long time, over this foolishness and very poorly timed pettiness. And the hotel will lose an enormous amount of business over this lack of goodwill. As far as the local franchisees go (the cops), their reputation could not be any worse, so no real loss there.

 

Horrible judgment all the way around. 

I would wager that a whole slew of "tourists" will have run out of amnesties, packed their bags and slunk off home before this hotel experiences any sort of backlash. If the Thai bashers among us who cling firmly to the "they don't like us here" mantra are to be believed, the domestic Thai tourist (that is Thai people) will be beating a path to this hotel's lobby just because it stuck a big dry one up the arrogant ass of a gobby farang.

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5 hours ago, steven100 said:

I just don't get your thinking on a lack of common sense and practicality sometimes.  

The guy did wrong but you try to turn it around. 

Try doing what he did in Australia and see if you get off with an apology.  Try posting in any country with lies on many websites and see what happens, i'm sure you be sued in most of them and especially in the US.   LOL

As for your other question on army tweets, I don't follow twitter or army tweets so I cannot comment.

 

In Australia would you be arrested and jailed?..or in any country you mention? They can sue if they think they have a case but they’d have to put their money betting on that ,and they could lose. I’ll remind you that Thailand’s defamation laws don’t require the accusation to be untrue to be prosecuted. Are you unable to understand those two very important differences? 

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7 hours ago, Seismic said:

You can bring in your own drink, but like establishments all over the world they charge a corkage fee. This is a common and well accepted practice.

Believe me, not in the Netherlands.

....but maybe that's not part of your world.

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8 minutes ago, Steve Mepham said:

The fact that this guy decided to continue to post negative reviews over several days suggests he was being vindictive and spiteful. it would seem this was a big mistake.


In terms of final outcomes, no.
Most damage, by an order of several magnitudes, was done by the hotel to themselves by their man-child response to the situation.

 

 

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7 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

The regime has once again decided to protect the bigger guy, over the smaller guy. This will not go over well, internationally. Everyone will see right through this badly engineered PR stunt. When faced with jail, and who knows what else, many of us would prefer to "apologize". 

Internationally, it will be ignored. Although the American has agreed to make a grovelling apology to all those listed media outlets, I can't imagine that any of them will publish it. Partly because, as you say, they will see through it, partly because the apology isn't as big a story as jailing someone for writing a negative review and partly because the world has moved on. Now, it's only about saving face for the hotel.

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