Popular Leighton Buzzard pizza restaurant hits back after being accused of fraud by Tripadvisor

A pizza restaurant in Leighton Buzzard has hit back at Tripadvisor after being accused of fraudulently offering customers incentives to leave positive reviews on its website.

Amore Pizzeria, in Hockliffe Street, opened in May 2019 offering customers unlimited pizza for a fixed price. The restaurant was forced to close its doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic – but reopened in September 2022 with the relaunch of its popular £10 bottomless pizza offer.

Owner Paulo Benfeito said: “Prior to the pandemic, Amore Pizzeria was rated as the number one restaurant on TripAdvisor in the whole of Bedfordshire. However, due to our shift towards deliveries during the pandemic, we have fallen to 25th spot.

"As part of our reopening, we have been working hard to regain our position as the number one restaurant in Bedfordshire. To achieve this, we asked our valued customers to leave reviews on TripAdvisor, and are grateful for the overwhelming support we have received, with 27 five-star reviews in the last month alone.”

However, since then Paulo said the business has received emails from TripAdvisor accusing it of fraud.

Added Paulo: “We have recently received three emails from TripAdvisor accusing us of ‘paying’ customers and friends to leave reviews, which we strongly refute.

“I admit that we held an online raffle on February 27 offering a discount but was warned by Tripadvisor it was against the rules so that offer was promptly removed. Then someone from Tripadvisor called me to advise me on marketing so our campaign since the beginning of March has generated reviews which are 100% genuine.

“But annoyingly TripAdvisor is linking current customer reviews to our earlier campaign and has blocked 75% of them which is frustrating and unjust.

"We have reached out to TripAdvisor to address this issue, but they have not responded to our complaints.”

Paulo has since lodged a formal complaint against Tripadvisor over its continued accusations of offering raffle prizes in exchange for reviews, and in a letter states: “It is important to note that all reviews received from March 1 2023, are entirely genuine and that no such raffles are currently in operation. Instead, I have been using the QR code downloaded from Tripadvisor's website to request that customers leave reviews.”

A spokesman for Tripadvisor said: “The owner was running a competition on social media asking customers to leave a review on Tripadvisor for the chance of winning a discount.

“Tripadvisor does not allow any kind of incentive in exchange for reviews – this includes freebies, discounts, upgrades or special treatment on current or future stays, meals or experiences.

“We believe there is no place on our site for this type of behaviour, as it tends to result in low-quality, unreliable content that doesn’t serve the best interests of our global travel community.

“Tripadvisor is built on transparency, and with over 11 million businesses listed worldwide, the integrity of our content is of the utmost importance.”