Is anyone in touch with the Perry Vale team? They’ve posted this tweet re the cat killings and I’m watching a PR disaster unfold before me. It’s as though someone who looks after their Twitter has posted from the wrong account…or perhaps it’s just a genuine off-the-mark tweet. But if anyone knows anyone from there, could they give them a heads up?
That is just sick.
They’ve seen it, and are looking into it.
It really is. I can’t believe someone in their right mind would post that, let alone a business. That’s why I feel they may have been hacked or something.
OK good. Will they delete it & apologise while they investigate it?
Oh it has been. Great
I expect the usual ‘terribly sorry, we were hacked’ excuse common in such instances. Usually the actual truth is someone either forgot to change to their personal/sockpuppet account or posted when hammered or the place mistreated/fired someone who managed or had access to their social media account and they’re getting revenge.
Whatever the true reason, hack or disgruntled employee, it’s not the official view of the business, is it? Before social media existed, we judged businesses on just that: their business.
It just so happens I have a booking at the Perryvale on Saturday night. I’ve asked my cat if I should still go and she says everyone should calm down and not try to destroy people’s livelihoods on the basis of a stupid, crass and cruel tweet that is nonetheless ephemeral and meaningless. At least I think that’s what she said. Hard to tell as she was washing her butt at the time.
Regardless of whose views these actually are, before the internet people used to often avoid businesses on the views of their owners/staff regardless of whether the views were officially those of the business. A place I lived long before FH there was a local newsagents whose proprietor was often in the pub frequently espousing rather anti-Semitic views, should people have ignored that and carried on shopping there just because he didn’t display a ‘no Jews allowed’ message on the front door of his newsagents?
I’m reposting what I put on their Facebook page:
I am astonished that anyone would regard this as anything other than a hack by an evil little toe-rag. Even if, like me, you don’t know the owners and have only been in the place once or twice, it’s so utterly obvious that a respectable, thriving business that lives or dies by its reputation, wouldn’t ever think of doing something as sick as this. Give The Perryvale a chance, folks. And don’t be so quick to blame one of their ex-employees, either. That’s not fair on them. This has all the hallmarks of a hack.
Normally account hacks usually post more than one thing or advertise/pimp something, usually dodgy. This looks far more targeted and specific to the business (responding to a local area post, referencing cooking etc). Perhaps someone has hacked PV specifically for some reason?
Edit to add I certainly won’t be avoiding PV because of this, but it’d be good to know from them how it happened if/when they find out.
Maybe. But I am appalled at the comments on their Facebook page which are in the mould of “Well, if you didn’t do it then you’d better act fast and apologise…” A pretty grudging acknowledgement that someone other than the owners might be responsible for this disgusting act.
Wow, hadn’t seen FB, yeah, that’s taking it way too far too soon! Unfortunately for PV there have been myriad ‘boy who cried wolf’ claims of hacking from various people to explain poor taste tweets that have later been shown to have not been hacks after all so some people are cynical. If anyone out there runs or manages a Twitter, Facebook or other social media account on behalf of their business please take this as an example of why you should take account security seriously. Turn on two-phase authentication and review who else has access. If it’s a third-party PR firm or similar review your contract with them to see what come-uppances there are if their side is compromised and you end up taking the reputation hit.
Twitter accounts do seem to get hacked often, but totally agree.
Tweet was made at 10:45pm. I suspect alcohol was involved - probably an ex-employee.
The facebook reaction is amazing…99 1 star reviews today… (none before).
I totally agree with @AndyS; there is no way this could be Perry Vale’s management. Someone must be trying to do them harm. Their Twitter feed only contains things about special deals, what they have for brunch, etc. Never any comments about the news etc.
i have only eaten there once but always mean to go back, and I will make a point of it now. They must be in despair.
Which tells you everything you need to know about the quality of the place. Would hate to see this have a lasting impact on the PV as it is a great local restaurant. Highlights the dangers of social media though - trial by twitter!
Just donated SNARL a tenner, hopefully some good news can come from this: http://snarl.org.uk/donate/
Does my good deed give me sufficient leeway to post the Peking Moon song? 
I used to go there a lot but much less frequently when they stopped weekday lunches (except Fridays). I, too, shall be frequenting more often now. Appalling though the tweet is, they should not be punished for something of which they are not guilty.
There are people tweeting up a storm about this, urging boycotts, asking for retweets, suggesting bad reviews on TripAdvisor and Yelp. It makes me so angry.
Same here. It’s a lynch mob. I don’t get why so many people are trashing the place rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt. Utter self-obsessed morons.
Look at this charming chap who is posting the tweet in reply to good reviews…
https://www.facebook.com/kevvy.webby?fref=ufi
The mob mentality is scary…
Croydon Advertiser obviously fanning the flames with a badly-written article. It explains the outpouring of demands that money be given to that charity, which looks like it’s ultimately going to profit from this tweet hack.
http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/forest-hill-restaurant-slammed-for-mocking-croydon-cat-killer-victims/story-30294717-detail/story.html
Not sure that Trip Advisor wold publish review about this - from memory, guidelines state to keep to food issues only.
Mmm I wonder who hacked their twitter page. Who would actually do that
Do you know?!
The Reviews section of their Facebook page is getting trashed. Totally outrageous behaviour by people who are ‘hard of thinking’.
It is possible to publish a false bad review of a meal instead of discussing this tweet.
I hate watching this depressing scene. In my professional life my job is to teach people to think critically and that is clearly not happening here.
I haven’t been there for a while, but today I gave them a 5* review.
If you like the place and support them you can post your own star-rating on https://www.facebook.com/pg/theperryvale/reviews/
A few more positive reviews will outnumber the negatives.
There is also the take that any publicity is good publicity (if handled correctly)
Given the positive comments the PV is now receiving, some would dare to call it a PR stunt.
Obviously this is not the case, and I am not suggesting it, but a lot of good could come from this malicious act yet. Nice to see so many patrons getting behind a local business.
Just looking at the profiles of some of the FB reviewers, Jesus wept! Which a bunch of cnuts.
I felt sorry for the owners this morning. From what they’ve said, they trusted a very few people with access to the account (the owner, her husband and the manager). I can’t see any reason why any of those people would want to send something like this, and from what they’ve said, the tweet didn’t come from their phones. This looks like a malicious attempt to damage the business.
I hope they recover, and I feel sure they wouldn’t have invited this episode themselves. We’re going to book in for lunch at the weekend to show support.
Less physical than the damage done to Le Petite Bouchee but just as harming if not more so given the spread over the internet.
I’ve just given them a 5 star rating. Shocked by some of the comments on their page.
16 new (well deserved) 5 star reviews in the last hour, and a similar number of negative reviews removed.
Good work SE23 
So the negatives can be removed? Well that’s lucky then.
I think the posters themselves are removing them (I’ve seen a few posts saying as such). Pretty sure the business owner cannot remove them
I’ll add one or two 5* ratings later when I close & I’ll pop in when I pass to say hello 
Makes sense for sure. Especially for those knee-jerk people.
Business owners can’t remove the reviews, it has to be the poster that removes it.
Must be a nightmare for them. I’ll be popping in for a burger tomorrow.
I think Facebook can remove them too - I reported some as inappropriate when I saw them this morning - but seems unlikely they will have done so this quickly. And they may not agree, either.
Staggering to see how many people jump to conclusions without pausing and questioning first, I guess we have all been a little guilty of it at some point.
They say there is no such thing as bad publicity tho so hopefully that ends up being the case here. I for one haven’t been there before so will now make sure I give it a crack.
And when you pull them up on it they go on the defensive. I really really hate people who are prepared to destroy a business on an Internet whim.
How about the local “newspapers” such as the Croydon Advertisor and the Newsshopper who couldn’t be bothered to contact the Perry Vale before publishing stories damning them.
We will go there again asap. Feel so bad for the owners.
So pleased Perry Vale practically full tonight. Lovely atmosphere. Wonderful roast trout and tremendous service Whoever wanted to damage the PV’'s reputation has, in fact, done them a great service.
But I wouldn’t recommend today’s events as a Marketing 101 case study.
Still - all’s well that ends well.
If anything the reaction from PV in not immediately deleting the original tweet makes me more confident it was a hack. If it was a drunken after-hours misguided joke then someone would’ve deleted straight away, but with a hack people who aren’t twitter-savvy may not want to ‘destroy’ evidence before getting Twitter/police involved.
If this is off topic please delete.
However, I feel very strongly about irresponsible reporting by local newspapers.
When my elder son died in 2013 as a rule of a collision with a bus in Croydon, there were endless tweets (later proved untrue) regarding his cutting in front of bus etc . These were based on an article in one of the local papers. When I telephoned the paper to express my distress, I was advised that the paper had to print what they were told by witnesses.
At the inquest, one year later, the Coroner ( who had been to the scene herself and seen the CCTV- ruled that my son had been meticulous in his riding, and, in fact, had he ridden through a red light, would still be with us.
However, the damage had already been done and it hurts me to this day to think of the damage this article did, not only to my son’‘s reputation, but to that of all cyclists.
These local newspapers should somehow be forced to verify the accuracy of what they print - which brings me back to Starman’'s comment in his post.
So sorry @topofthehill. You are quite right. The role of the papers and people jumping on this story has been disgraceful and what a shame you had to suffer from this in such a terrible manner.
It was heart wrenching to read your story, @topofthehill - that you had to endure this hardship on top of what must have been an already unthinkable situation.
You’re right about the papers and social media. We live in an age of mass dissemination and there’s a darkness in it all if we’re not careful. Speaking as one who often needs to be more careful.
Am in direct contact with them now & they are so upset, though they are aware they have lots of support on here
@topofthehill xxxxxxxx
Hi there,
I am Jenn, the restaurant manager at the Perrvale kitchen & bar and wanted to share a message from Jen the owner:
Hi all, I’m Jen, one of the owners of The Perryvale & The Crooked Well. I will have met some of you I am sure.
I’m sorry I haven’t got here sooner, I spent all day yesterday on the phone and at my laptop fielding hundreds of abusive messages and speaking with Action Fraud (the cyber crime element of the police), Snarll the cat charity and a few journalists as this has made local, and national press now.
I can only say that none of us know who did this. We are a small independent company: me, my husband and our business partner. We have young families, and pets, and absolutely reject ownership of this tweet and obviously do not condone the Croydon Cat Killer, or indeed think it is in the least bit amusing. Our staff are mainly students, or have young families themselves and are a lovely bunch. They also wouldn’t think to do something so thoughtless and offensive, and so obviously damaging to their place of work, or us, their bosses that work the floor for hours and hours alongside them. We have a tiny team on site at the Perryvale, and on Tuesday at that time of night, 11.45pm, there was no-one there at all. A lot of people are referencing the location of the tweet being pinned at The Perryvale, you can do that from anywhere, it doesn’t have to be from where you are claiming to be. We have handed this over to Action Fraud to look into. Whether it’s a hack or an ex-employee with login details, this was absolutely nothing to do with us and our team. Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. I spent hours trying to protect and save our business we have worked so hard on for the last 6 years. Explaining and pleading and denying. The police tell me they’ll keep an eye on the premises and we are to call 999 immediately if we experience any threatening behaviour at all. We’ve received unpleasant voice messages and online wishes of Karma, death, failure and suffering. For a tweet that we don’t know anything about. Anyone that has met us must know that we would never condone something like the barbarous Croydon Cat Killer, or even think it was something to joke about.
Since I saw the sea of tweets after dropping my daughter at Nursery at 9am, which was terrifying and shocking to me, we have worked very closely with Boudicca at Snarll. She has been great in defending us and asking for us to be left alone. We fully support the charity and over the coming days will be looking at how we can support them further with their work - perhaps using this media £$*&storm for good to bring more attention to their case.
Please don’t boycott us. We have already taken a hit on facebook reviews as it is, with perfect strangers flooding our page with cat killer/boycott calls. Luckily some loyal locals have since stepped up to try to balance the damage done, but still it hurts. We are a small independent set-up in what is becoming a sea of chains/large groups and we just can’t absorb this level of negativity or loss of business. When we learn more we will let people know. After the upset caused to the owners of the poor cats killed, and what I have been through yesterday and no doubt will do off and on for a while to come I fully intend to follow this through.
Thank you in advance for your support and understanding.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to post here, What a truly horrible experience for you. I have a feeling that many folks here will be eager to support you. Here’s hoping it all blows over soon.
@Liz_Hall and I will be there on Saturday for lunch to support you. Hopefully we’ll be fighting for a table.
Thanks so much for posting here, @Jenn. Wishing you the best.
It was truly shocking to see the number of vile, putrid comments on your Facebook page. What those idiots did was no different from old-fashioned rioting and pillaging.
Fortunately, almost all of them seem to have been shamed into some semblance of common sense and have retracted their negative reviews.
Have no fear, Jen. This has been a rotten week, but the worst is very much behind you now.
Thanks for posting Jenn, FH locals are all behind you x
Thank you everyone for your kind words and support. It really means a lot.
Jenn
I think booking might be recommended this weekend as they get local support.
You can book a table online at http://www.theperryvale.com
And you can also look at the menu in advance on the site.
Really pleased to see the facebook rating has risen from 2.8 to 4.7 with about 70 supportive reviews in the last day. I think this forum was particularly helpful in the mobilisation of the supportive mob yesterday. Good work everybody!
I like the idea of a supportive mob: “Pitchforks for Good”, maybe?
We’re heading round for brunch on Saturday as well (might have done anyway, but good to show support after such a bad week for the business).
Laugh? I almost did when I read this comment on Facebook: “With regards to the bandwagon it seems people are jumping on the “be nice” one now”.
A “Be nice” bandwagon? Crikey, what’s the world coming to?!?
I went to the Perry Vale last night (Wed) to show my support. So pleased to see it was fully booked. Had wonderful meal. So, yes, suggest people book in good time.
Dear @Jenn,
Again, I am so sorry you have had to go through this and we will make sure to eat more regularly at your restaurant and support you in future. So awful for you. I hope things get better quickly.
I am glad to see the local support and am dreadfully sorry to see the negative comments and peoples defense of them when pushed. Whilst I may be in Norfolk now I will be making sure I pop in when down next. Stay strong and I hope you catch the idiot who has caused all this distress.
John
Time out have shared this story on Facebook now - anyone who follows time out might like to show support in the comments.
Do you have a link?
If you go to their Facebook page, it’s there, about 4 or 5 stories down.
Go Rachael! Go Rachael!
For shame, Time Out. You’ve just lazily scrapped this story from equally lazy local press who had copy to fill and didn’t bother to find out the real story. Like the fact that SNARL have publicly backed the restaurant. And that the hacking has been reported to the police.
Bloody hell. At this rate the Financial Times will be wading in and trashing the place before the weekend is out.
Other response to Timeout - see the comments at bottom of page
Well it’s reminded me to post a good review on their Facebook page, which I should have done before, as I’ve been to the Perryvale many times and always had an excellent meal and good service.
I really appreciate having such good food a short walk from home - when I first moved to Forest Hill the choice of restaurants was rather lacking (to put it mildly) and so I feel very fortunate to have the Perryvale here.
Thanks for posting the update Jenn, what a horrible thing for you all to go through.
Thanks John but this is a whole heap worse. La Petite Bouchée is mended and enjoying her new life in Devon. We have been given an amazing welcome in Devon and are fully booked till the end of June. We’ve been spoilt with TV radio and book deals… Physical scars can be mended, although never forgotten. This is a whole different ball game. The people concerned must be going through living hell. Anyone that publicly verbally assaults someone is just heinous. Our hearts go out to them. Rise above it and those who value will stay close, the others are not worth worrying about. We learn’t this in January … Plenty of people on here that ignored us just because we chose a different venue … pathetic… Watch out… Some of those people have commented here ! Politics, never a good thing… two roads vying for attention… boring… Know which one i’d rather support ! The one these poor owners are in. Good luck to them and may remember this will be last weeks Chip paper very soon… .As for the Croydon Advertiser? They have a history of just getting it wrong… Big loves to everyone in PERRY VALE !!!
Seems a bit like the mantra “any publicity is good publicity” ! - now the Perry Vale is at the forefront of peoples minds.
I bet it wasn’t hacked though. A hacker wouldn’t write something like that. Probably just a member of staff going of the rails.
There is something I’ve been told in confidence that makes that theory extremely unlikely.
And at this point it doesn’t really matter. The damage and subsequent publicity is the same whatever the source.
The initial damage is the same. But the ongoing damage depends on whether they continue to be accused of being either the perpetrator or complicit - or whether they are given the benefit of the doubt and seen as victims.
Personally I see them as victims in either case. Even if an employee had a genuine grievance, this isn’t a sensible way to deal with it.
I suspect there is plenty we don’t know going on in the background.
my guess it was a bad joke rather than a grievance, but you’re right its all theories and it doesn’t matter anymore. luckily people have short memories …
The best thing we could do for the Perry Vale is to draw a line under the issue and close this topic. Further discussion seems to only fuel speculation.
Agreed
I went last night and the good was superb. The service was faultless. Please support them.
Hi all,
I just wanted to share this message from Jen the owner:
In view of recent events on Twitter for us and our sister site The Crooked Well we have decided to support The Cybersmile Foundation until the end of the Summer Holidays:
An offensive tweet was sent from an unknown phone with an IP address way out of London under our Perryvale twitter account without our authorisation. We have had local and national press picking at the story and the response on Twitter, Facebook & local forums was shocking and scary whilst people thought we were guilty. The feeling of being powerless as we watched our hard work be undone and our reputation trashed was awful. Along with a very real threat to our business and staff safety.
It made us think about the power of social media and how terrifying and lonely it must be to suffer this kind of abuse, and a lot worse for a lot longer, if you feel you don’t have anyone to talk to, or feel unable to cope. With a rise in depression and suicide in youngsters, with online bullying being so prevalent we figured we may as well use the attention we have received for good and support CyberSmile - a charity to raise awareness of the power of online community and offer support to victims.
We have a very popular dish to share, Roast Chicken for 2, and we will be donating a £1 from each sale across both sites until Sept when term starts again.
Thank you for the support we have been shown.
Brilliant and thank you. I hope those so called newspapers who were so quick to judge will meet your amount raised and make their own contribution!!
If only. I’ve currently got less trust in media than I do political parties.
Well we agree on some things then
I think that is an absolutely inspired idea. Exactly the right sort of charity to benefit from that ghastly episode you had to endure.
Just to help you with your investigation, you can’t rely on mapping IP addresses to specific locations, particularly mobile phones’ IP addresses, which will usually be reported as the network’s point of presence rather than the location of the user. For example, many of the geolocating services will report my current location as Maidenhead when I’m on 4G with Vodafone yet I’m sat in my kitchen here in SE23.
I am often in Germany or America!
Seems social media isn’t always good for business.
