There is the potential that hostels can abuse the integrity of the hostel-websites rating systems. This experience happened to me and many others who stayed at the Bahaus Guesthouse in Istanbul, Turkey. This hostel also pressures guests into giving them inflated ratings.

Furthermore, any honest feedback posted on these rating services is immediately deleted by the Guesthouse Manager. Not only were our comments deleted, but we have received very offensive and belligerent emails from the owner/manager. I hope this webpage will honor our feedback written to inform and warn other travelers.

In an effort to alert other travelers we will provide a brief synopsis of our experience. From the beginning our 2 week stay, the manager/owner of Bahaus pressured us to write him excellent reviews and ratings. He would continually make disparaging comments about past guests who did not give him a positive review or rating. Most of these interactions were extremely uncomfortable. In fact, many of the guests would try to avoid him.

The guesthouse ran many events that cost an excessive amount of money for the frugal traveler (i.e. a 50 euro party in the only common room). If we chose not to attend an event, he try to make us feel guilty. Some of the guests felt so stressed that they moved to the Sultan Hostel, the Orient Hostel and Yuclet Interyouth Hostel where they said that the atmosphere was much better. We were unable to move because we had prepaid on arrival.

Sadly, he had some decent staff who were obviously afraid of him. They even resorted to begging us for excellent ratings and comments because they were afraid of “what he would do”. On our last night, the manager was even more relentless and said that we should write our review right then and there (while he watched) because he said he needed us to boost his rating after a previous guest gave his hostel a low security rating. Though this hostel had plenty of other issues (i.e. days with no water, cold showers, miscommunication on prices/ costs of services, payment receipts not issued leading to awkward situations, resistance to the advertised free use of kitchen, cold rooms, etc.) most of us agree that these issues could have occurred at any hostel.

The good news is that Istanbul is a BLAST no matter where you stay! We highly recommend the Archaeological Museum, Aya Sofya and the Underground Cistern. For fun, check out the inexpensive ferry services, Taxsim’s main street and a walk through the Grand Bazaar. If you stay in Sultanamet, Restaurant Doy-Doy is inexpensive and delicious and Taksim has the fantastic Marco Pasha Restaurant.

Enjoy and be safe!

It was nice of you to take the time to register here and tell us of this problem. I'm curious how you came to know about Fodor's website? Have you ever gained information here or posted under a different name perhaps?

Patrick, why are you so cynical about saalbano's motives. Fodor's website is not a secret. Many people register, read but never write. Maybe he/she had a family member who is familiar with it. What Saalbano said was informative and didn't seem to have any other reason to do it.

I don't even know what hostel rating system the post is referring to but if the manager is deleting the posts, it sounds like the hostel's own web site or they couldn't do that. The whole thing sounds kind of odd as if it is their own web site, they could just make some up themselves.

I think a good lesson is to not prepay entire stays in places when you check in. Why would you do such a thing! Obviously, it wasn't required if other guests didn't.

I'm inclined to agree w/ Patrick. It seems HIGHLY unlikely that saalbano's first and only post would be this passionate diatribe about a hostel in Istanbul.

My feeling is he/she had some sort of run in w/ the hostel manager and is now doing hit and runs, posting to slam him on any travel site he can find.

Not a lot of credibility - there are two sides of most stories, and some stories are out of whole cloth. . . . . . .

Janis, you mean like Thorntree and Frommer's, where she has made the same posting? And registered specifically to do it.

Yep - just like that. I didn't even look for other posts - just guessed because of the anger in his post.

Saalbano, I think Christina is right that the reviews you speak of would have to be on his own web page and not an unbiased one. Could you provide us the web site where your reviews went?

Perhaps it is an attempt at a hostel takeover.

Wow, I'll admit I sometimes accuse people of coming here to advertise, but there was nothing cynical about my post above! I AM curious if he gained information about this place from Fodor's or why he came here specifically to post it, especially since this is not generally a "hostel" type website. It seems there must be a reason saalbano chose this particular website to vent his displeasure. If it was because he first read about it here or has seen a recommendation for it here, then it would make sense. Otherwise I AM curious why he chose to tell US about it.

But yes, I will admit that there could be more to this than it first appears. A person who doesn't normally post on a particular website who registers for the sole purpose of registering a detailed complaint about something, strikes of being curiously odd.

Damama, let me ask you, if you happened to go to a restaurant and you really hated it, what would cause you to seek out websites you've never been to before to give detailed advisories telling people to avoid it?