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Imagine looking online for a good restaurant to eat at, deciding on the one with the best rating, and then arriving to find that there is no sign of the place. This is exactly what must have happened to hundreds of Canadians when they tried to visit Le Nouveau Duluth. This restaurant, that until recently was ranked the best restaurant in Montreal, according to TripAdvisor, It turns out that it didn’t really exist. It was a fake restaurant, according to the CBC, which has shown how easy it can be to publish something fake on the web. Canadian television uncovered the story after an investigation uncovered how this restaurant came to be the highest rated restaurant in the city.
The supposed restaurant was in first place with 85 reviews, all of them 5-star, some of them written with derision: “I can’t believe this place really exists”. When the CBC began researching the place, it realised that it did not exist. In fact, they went to the address listed on the website. And none of the surrounding businesses knew of its existence. The owner of the flower shop that was right next to where Le Nouveau Duluth was supposed to be, commented that he had never seen it there. And he has been running the shop for 22 years.
In addition, the link on the profile did not lead to any active page and most of the reviews were written by users who had left only one comment on the entire portal (and that was on the fake venue only). In addition, the CBC checked the business register and the restaurant was not listed. The final piece of information that led them to the source of the story was that the profile’s phone number was linked to that of a Canadian comedian who also appeared in one of the four photos posted on the TripAdvisor page.
A comedian behind the fake restaurant
After the CBC asked TripAdvisor to remove the fake restaurant’s listing, the website argued that there had been an error in the moderation of the restaurant’s page.
Finally, Canadian television discovered that behind the fake TripAdvisor restaurant was comedian Charles Deschamps, who had carried out the ‘prank’ because he is not a supporter of such websites and considers that sometimes they do not work properly.
He also confessed that he used to receive one call a month asking for a reservation. But he always replied that they were “full for the next two months”. When asked about the menu he offered, Deschamps would tell them that he served tapas.
Have you ever found a fake restaurant? Here we prefer real restaurants, that’s why we suggest the new restaurants in Madrid that have just opened and that you should visit.