Brian Holden: Good ideas turn into monsters

Usually the best laid plans work out for the better, but on occasions the birth of what seemed to be a sound idea grows into a monster. Two glaring examples are the Domestic Purposes Benefit and the Student Loan Scheme.

Both were started with good intents and on the face of things, seemed like sensible ideas, offering a lifeline to the needy or a cash advance to further one's education.

But if the architects of these incredibly costly schemes had given more thought and researched overseas examples, they would have quickly found that similar schemes have morphed into monsters.

The prospect of getting increased payouts every time a baby is produced has been an incentive for many single parents to do just that - reproduce. And it's no secret that the system's teat is being constantly milked by false claims. With the student loans, hoards of graduates are heading off overseas to get work, saddled with a monster debt, with many now being chased to the corners of the Earth to recover the money.

Inland Revenue manages the loan accounts of the 621,000 NZ borrowers owing collectively more than $12 billion. Yikes, that's about a seventh of our entire population. Worse - nearly $500 million in repayments is overdue, up from $325 million in 2010, with way over half of these overdue payments being by borrowers living overseas. Even worse is knowing that millions of outstanding student loan dollars have had to be written off.

Right now we have another beast, a very angry one - TripAdvisor, thrashing its tail throughout our tourist industry, causing distress for accommodation businesses, many that are doing their best to make ends meet. Enter TripAdvisor.

Since it was founded in 2000, TripAdvisor.com has revolutionised the way people search for accommodation online by giving them access to reviews of establishments world-wide, by other ordinary consumers.

TripAdvisor took booking hotel rooms out of the Stone Age where you had to rely on pot luck, or the word of friends who had stayed there before. A great idea, but its consumer reviews proved to be far from reliable, with allegations that hotels were manipulating the system by "planting" positive reviews to counteract the damning opinions of unhappy guests.

In reality however the opposite is happening.

Like the hotel in Singapore that TripAdvisor.com named as the worst in its 2011 list of Asia's Top 10 dirtiest hotels. Hotel management discovered that only the reviews from the disgruntled customers were being published and none from the positive ones.

However on paying an "annual subscription", TripAdvisor would remove the negative reviews about them.

Thousands of infuriated hoteliers worldwide, believing they were being held to ransom, have threatened to take legal action against TripAdvisor for tarnishing their businesses with allegedly malicious and unfounded reviews.

Enough. Consumers have turned on the monster, reacting with anger having discovered they've been lied to or deceived by websites that have put themselves out there as a punter's guide, when in fact it is just a sharp business, complete with the necessary morality bypass.

Never before have consumers, especially with accommodation, had so much power to vent their dislikes, with reports of unscrupulous guests threatening bad comments if they don't receive a discount from the accommodation provider. TripAdvisor was indeed a good idea which has now grown into a monster.

Take too much notice of online reviews and you'd never go anywhere or buy anything.

Some people are easily pleased, others find fault with everything. And as you've no idea who any of these people are, ultimately, you have to take a chance and go with your instincts.