Maltese Woman Who Left Bad Apartment Review Ordered To Pay €200 In ‘Moral Damages’ By Court
A Maltese woman has been ordered to pay €200 in moral damages to a holiday company after she left a bad review following a stay in one of their flats.
Madeleine Bonnici had stayed in an apartment supplied by Euro Resort Investments Limited after finding it on booking.com. However, when it was time to leave, she discovered that the company had withheld €87 from her €120 deposit for alleged damages within the apartment.
Bonnici denied causing any damage, and told the company she’d leave a negative review online as a result of this, TVM reported. She went back on booking.com and gave the apartment 2.5/10 in each of the five categories.
She also wrote “worst host ever with bad manners” in her review, saying that she didn’t enjoy anything about her stay there.
The company took Bonnici to court, saying that because of her review, their apartment no longer appeared on the front page of booking.com, requesting compensation over these damages.
At first, the Magistrate’s Court threw out the company’s claims, finding that Bonnici had not defamed the business.
However, a subsequent appeal heard in front of Judge Lawrence Mintoff found that Bonnici had threatened the company to pay them back over her lost deposit through her negative reviews.
In light of this, Mintoff said he was not convinced the apartment deserved a terrible rating, when the only complaint that could be made was over a dripping geyser.
Saying that she needed to be more specific about her experience, Mintoff said that it wasn’t acceptable for someone unhappy with one aspect of a stay to then review the entire stay negatively, as she had.
He ordered the Magistrate’s previous decision to be struck down and said Bonnici must pay €200 in moral damages for her malicious review.
Courts ordering individuals to pay for their online reviews is becoming more and more common – just this year, a man in the UK had to pay €25,000 over a libellous review he left online.
Do you think people should be ordered to pay for damages caused by their reviews?
READ NEXT: WATCH: Masked Rapper Ġaħan Debuts First Track And It's All About The Daphne Public Inquiry
