Under recent legislation we are now obliged to explain how and when we publish reviews on this site, and how 3rd party sites we are connected to / have some influence over publish reviews too – even though we think it’s pretty self explanatory!
The following rather wordy legalese covers this:
Consumer Reviews Policy
- Definitions
- The following defined terms apply to this Consumer Reviews Policy:
| Agent | Luxury Coastal |
| Booking | a consumer’s reservation of the Property. |
| OTAs | Online Travel Agencies used by the Agent. |
| Owner (we, us) | the Property owner of The Captains Cpottage Brixham, who is deemed a trader under consumer rights legislation. |
| Property | the property provided by the Agency on behalf of the Owner for the Booking. |
| Reviewer (you, your) | the consumer leaving, or considering leaving, a review. |
| Service | the agency service provided by the Agency. |
| Third Party Review Platform | any third party platform used by the Agent (or Owner) to obtain, manage or present consumer reviews and review information. |
| Website | www.thecaptainscottagebrixham.com |
- Who can submit a review
- We welcome reviews about your experience with us and your stay at the Property, directly and via Third Party Review Platforms.
- The Agent will send all customers who have made a Booking with them an invitation to submit a review. For more information about leaving reviews, please see the How to leave a review section.
- We also welcome reviews about your experience by submitting a review via Third Party Review Platforms.
- You can leave a review about a recent experience with us on various online platforms even if you haven’t made a Booking. .
- You must be over 18 to leave a review.
- Neither we, nor our Agent, incentivise reviews or offer any incentives for reviews (whether positive or negative).
- How to leave a review
- To leave a review with our Agent about your stay at the Property, you need to complete the feedback request provided via email at the end of your stay at the Property by The Agent.
- We also use Third Party Review Platforms to collect reviews about the Service. Information about the Third Party Review Platforms we use, including links to guidance produced by the Third Party Review Platforms on submitting reviews can be found at the end of this policy.
- Links to Third Party Review Platforms used by us are accessible via the Website; and/or provided directly by the Third Party Review Platform.
- If you booked your stay via an OTA, the OTA may request your feedback directly. The OTA’s review collection process and policies will apply.
- We, the Owners, do not have visibility of which OTAs are used by The Agent, and so we have no control or influence over such reviews.
- You can also leave feedback via publicly available websites such as social media channels and Google public review function.
- Review Standards
- Your review must:
- Reflect your genuine experience (both positives and negatives).
- Not be incentivised in any way.
- Not relate to a product or service you are connected with (for example, because you (or someone in your family) has a financial interest in or works for the business that provides it).
- Not manipulate ratings (for example, you cannot submit multiple reviews for the same product or service).
- Where and how we display reviews
- Our Agent (via their selected Third Party Review Platform) publishes all reviews that comply with their Review Standards (whether positive or negative).
- Reviews for our Property made via Third Party Review Platforms or directly with OTAs may appear on the Third Party Review Platforms/OTAs website.
- Our Website links to reviews made on the Agents Third Party Review Platform.
- We and/or our Agent reserve the right to hide all reviews (whether genuine or fake) and cease taking reviews at any time.
- We may use your review in our Marketing
- We may occasionally re-publish a selection of reviews either collected by our Agent, or in the form of hand-written reviews left at the property in the Guest Book, on this Website for use as Marketing for the Property.
- We may include all (or a representative part) of your review in other marketing material in any media (for example, as part of a social media post, in a brochure or in other advertising). Your identity will not be revealed.
- Please report suspicious reviews
- All reviews must comply with clause 5: Review Standards.
- If you think any review is fake or otherwise does not comply with clause 5, please report to us via the contact details on our Website.
- If you think any review submitted to a Third Party Review Platform is fake or otherwise does not comply with clause 5, please report this to the Third Party Review Platform via the Third Party Review Platform website. Please see the end of this policy for useful links.
- How we investigate and deal with suspicious reviews
- If our own monitoring or a report from you or someone else suggests that a direct review does not comply with the Review Standards, we will promptly investigate.
- Our investigation shall commence on notification and we will use reasonable endeavours to complete the investigation within 1 month. Investigations shall be conducted by the Owner
- We may:
- immediately remove it (or not publish it, where it has been detected before publication). We will do this where we are certain it is non-compliant.
- We may:
- Investigate it further (which may involve contacting the reviewer for evidence that it is compliant) and flag it as a possibly fake review until our investigation is complete or remove the possibly fake review until our investigation is complete. If we then determine the review is non-compliant we will permanently remove it.
- If we identify one review as non-compliant we may take what steps we can to remove all reviews submitted by the same reviewer from either our own Website or any Third Party Platforms, and refuse to publish any further reviews from the same reviewer.
- If we remove a review or are investigating it, we will not include that review in any aggregated review score published on any platform we control or have influence over.
- If you disagree with our decision as to whether a review is compliant, you can contact us via the contact details on our Website.
- We will deal with the issue you raise in accordance with our customer complaints procedure.
- For information on how the Agents Third Party Review Platforms sanctions people who submit fake reviews, please see the Agents Third Party Review Platform’s website.
- If a review which has been reproduced on our website is removed from a Third Party Review Platform or otherwise does not comply with our Review Standards, and we are made aware of such removal, we will also remove it from our website.
Policy Reviewed – 18/08/2026
Schedule 1 – Third Party Review Platforms
| Platform | Use of the Platform | Link to guidance provided by the Platform |
| Third Party Review Platform | ||
| Trustpilot | Reviews of the Service | Guidelines for reviewers |
| Reviews of the Service | Google Reviews | |
| We have provided a link to AirBnB as we believe our Agent may use them. Other OTAs may also be in use. | ||
| AirBnB | Reviews of the Property where the Booking was made via OTA. | Reviews – Airbnb Help Centre |
(Phew!)