Cómo verifico las críticas
A review is worth exactly as much as your ability to trace who wrote it. That is why I put down in writing how I handle reviews before I had a single one to publish.
Below are the three labels I use, what each of them actually means, and the things I don't do to get a review. If something here doesn't add up, write to me: I'd rather take an awkward question than keep a page nobody checks.
The three labels you may see
Every published review carries one of them, and each says something different. The difference is not a matter of nuance.
Verificado contra una reserva
This is the strictest of the three, and I use it only when the text matches a real booking I can pull up: name, date, experience taken. It is a documented match, not an impression.
If there is no match, or if any doubt remains, the label doesn't appear — even when I am convinced the person really did travel with me. There is no halfway house such as 'probably verified'.
Published on Tripadvisor / Google
It means the review started life on another platform, and that you will find a link here to the original page: you can read it in context, with its own date, alongside the other reviews by the same person.
The link is part of the label: if I can't show you the source, I don't use this wording. The text is republished only with the consent of the person who wrote it, and it stays as it was: I don't shorten it and I don't make it sound better.
Received on WhatsApp
This is a message that came straight to me. It implies no verification whatsoever: it only tells you which channel the text arrived through.
I know which number sent it, but that does not prove there is a trip behind it that ran the way it is described. If I later find the matching booking I change the label; until that happens this one stays, however enthusiastic the review is.
The original and the translation stay separate
The original text stays in the language it was written in, typos included, and I don't tidy it up.
When a translation is needed I write it myself, and it is an editorial translation: my words, not the author's, and it is always marked as such. The two versions stay separate and easy to tell apart, so you can read the original and judge for yourself whether the translation is fair to it. I don't summarise, I don't drop the awkward sentences and I don't add enthusiasm that wasn't there.
Consent comes before publication
Before a review goes online I ask permission from the person who wrote it. I also ask how they want to appear: full name, first name only or initials, with or without their country.
Consent for the review does not cover photographs: those need separate permission. Without a written reply the review stays where it is, even if it is already public somewhere else.
What I don't do to get reviews
I don't ask for them in exchange for discounts, gifts, upgrades or priority on dates. A review that has been paid for, even in kind, stops being an opinion: it becomes advertising with somebody else's name on it.
And I don't choose who to ask based on how the day went. Asking only the people who enjoyed themselves, and quietly skipping the ones who came back disappointed, is a survey rigged before it starts. If criticism arrives and it is genuine, this is where it belongs.
The average rating appears only when there is something to calculate
The average is worked out from the verified reviews published on this site: I don't type it in by hand, I don't round it up and I don't put it there in advance.
Today it doesn't appear, because there are no reviews to work it out from. For the same reason the site declares no star ratings in its structured data: a score shown to search engines but impossible to check on the page would be an invented number.
How to ask for your review to be removed
If you wrote a review and no longer want it here, write to me at info@jambojohn.com or on WhatsApp from the same number you sent it from. I'll take it down without asking why and without trying to talk you out of it.
You can also ask for something smaller than full removal: dropping the surname, the country or a photo, or correcting a detail that is wrong. I'll confirm in writing once it is done.
Where this page stands today
The process above is defined, but it isn't running yet: I haven't imported a single review, so there is nothing to verify at the moment and the reviews page is empty. I would rather write the rules first and collect the texts afterwards than the other way round.
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