Policing The Web - Fake Reviews Crackdown NY



Instead of fining companies, how about people just stop paying attention to review sites?

Problem solved.
 
Faking reviews often begins with faked reviews of the company faking the reviews. In October 2010, a review appeared on Yahoo that said the writer was “thrilled” by the services provided by Main Street Host. He added that he just didn’t understand “why this company gets all the negative reviews.” He also said, “for the record, I am not a Mainstreethost.com employee, don’t know anyone who is, and have no knowledge of anyone else’s experience but my own.”

The review was, of course, by a Main Street Host employee. The company agreed to a $43,000 fine.

$43k fine for one review? Seems a little over the top to me.
 
"“We get bashed online,” Mr. Telmany wrote, accurately, to his employees on Nov. 20, 2011. “We are loosing [sic] money from this.”

bahahahaha

Seriously though, fuck the NY Times for outing.
 
Good. They should have made it a 100k fine.

Its not hard to get honest reviews out of your client/customer base. You throw up a sign in the waiting room or lobby saying "Check-in to FB/Yelp/Foursquare or leave a review after you're done to get a free X", clients do it, BLAM, a few honest reviews added naturally every week. If you are a good business, reviews will come naturally.

I wonder how they are actually determining these are "fake" reviews? I guess they are subpoenaing the companies and getting all the account info and verifying them?
 
Good. They should have made it a 100k fine.

Its not hard to get honest reviews out of your client/customer base. You throw up a sign in the waiting room or lobby saying "Check-in to FB/Yelp/Foursquare or leave a review after you're done to get a free X", clients do it, BLAM, a few honest reviews added naturally every week. If you are a good business, reviews will come naturally.

I wonder how they are actually determining these are "fake" reviews? I guess they are subpoenaing the companies and getting all the account info and verifying them?

You aren't allowed to attach the reward to the review only to the check in, hell you aren't supposed to ask for reviews at all. And what about businesses that go to the customer? You can put the Yelp icon on your invoice and business card with a QR code but nobody is reviewing their plumber unless they are pissed. (or they get a free XXX under the table)
 
I deal with something similar now with a bank where any backlink is considered a review/advertisement and has to reported as part of the advertising campaign. This is not a good thing for us SEO's, marketing yea maybe.
 
You aren't allowed to attach the reward to the review only to the check in, hell you aren't supposed to ask for reviews at all. And what about businesses that go to the customer? You can put the Yelp icon on your invoice and business card with a QR code but nobody is reviewing their plumber unless they are pissed. (or they get a free XXX under the table)

From my experience local people whom you meet with (ex. lawyers, contractors, dealerships) it's very common for them to send you a letter/email after asking for a review on Yelp/Angies list. This went from one lawyer doing it and I'm like "hey that's really cool" to non-stop everyone doing it.

edit: not saying that as if you didn't know (i know you do local), but just statin'
 
From my experience local people whom you meet with (ex. lawyers, contractors, dealerships) it's very common for them to send you a letter/email after asking for a review on Yelp/Angies list. This went from one lawyer doing it and I'm like "hey that's really cool" to non-stop everyone doing it.

edit: not saying that as if you didn't know (i know you do local), but just statin'

Of course it's common practice but still something Yelp frowns upon : Yelp Official Blog: Don't Ask for Reviews.

So still something that could get you in trouble especially if you are not careful with the wording and ESPECIALLY if a Yelp Elite nazi sees a letter like that. I get my clients to do a two step follow up. First call the client to see how it went, if it's a happy client then they get an email thanking them for their feedback, letting them know about other services/promotions they might be interested in and inviting them to "Check us out on Yelp" with a direct link to the company's yelp profile page.

Have I mentioned I fucking hate yelp?
 
Good. They should have made it a 100k fine.

Its not hard to get honest reviews out of your client/customer base. You throw up a sign in the waiting room or lobby saying "Check-in to FB/Yelp/Foursquare or leave a review after you're done to get a free X", clients do it, BLAM, a few honest reviews added naturally every week. If you are a good business, reviews will come naturally.

I wonder how they are actually determining these are "fake" reviews? I guess they are subpoenaing the companies and getting all the account info and verifying them?

It's actually harder then you think....A HUGE percentage of the legitimate reviews that people leave are eaten by nonsense algorithms at Google/Yelp/Others.
 
Does it really matter?

I'm all for fake reviews, real reviews, a mix of whatever.. I think business owners should post REAL* reviews on the customer's behalf, there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing. Posting fake ones? (That's just scamming people, the intention is fraud-like).

Let's be real. Our local business deals with negative reviews from time to time, and people LOVE to complain over the smallest things. I mean outside of our company, I see people on Amazon screaming over how a freaking 8x10 $100 rug shed a little bit of fur. Keep in mind a comparable rug is like $600+, $4K if you want an amazing one. You get what you pay for, and you got a hell of a deal, but you still aren't happy?

......

You can't please everyone. I offer world class support, and will do EVERYTHING to make a customer happy, but some people just suck. I hate to say that, I love being helpful, running a business with value, but people are so damn negative.

On the other end of the spectrum here... There's a freaking ton of businesses that suck, and don't care about customers, just profit. Macy's is a STRONG example of this.

......

Also a GOOD percent of the time, it's the customer's fault. Again I hate to say that, but most people don't read the fine print, they don't research before buying, or they don't even know why their buying something in the first place. Then again, most businesses do genuinely mess up, it's a 50-50 split of people being mistreated and people not making an educated purchase.

.....

Perhaps the biggest point I want to say:

People don't give a shit about family business, local stores, etc. or a personal neighborly experience, anymore. They don't care how long you've been around, how many community events you've sponsored, etc.

They only care about the low price, mega-walmart stores, selection, and getting whatever they want as fast as possible. (Look at blackfriday, look at Mcdonalds).. People are still buying from mega companies that outsource support overseas, vs. the local family shop that still picks up the phone everytime on the first ring.

(There's a good video on this out there somewhere).

.....

Put yourself in a business owners shoes, you know one who's been around for years.. He severed your parents, grandparents, your aunt and uncle before you were born. He was at your school's baseball team, and sponsored it so you could play ball. Did everything he could, always had your (example) shoes repaired before you headed out for prom night, or a job interview... But then, the customer says fuck all of that, I can save $2 over at Walmart and it will be done in 5 min less.

All of the sudden he has to deal with shoppers like this?

The customers that LOVED his store went away, and the new ones that came into his store HATED it because they didn't understand the stores history. The relationship wasn't built yet.

And they leave horrible reviews that force him to close his store...

It's not right at all.
 
It's actually harder then you think....A HUGE percentage of the legitimate reviews that people leave are eaten by nonsense algorithms at Google/Yelp/Others.

This too.

Even if I ask customers to go home and leave reviews. Or if they just do it on their own.

Google, etc. Will delete them in the next 6 months.

I've seen other stores lose 200-500+ reviews overnight, all real, all manually sent in, etc. With zero explanation from Google, everyone's guessing or assuming it was this or that.

The whole system is broken, there's no communication either... So what can business owners do about it? Not much other than hire a company to start posting these reviews for us.
 
Put yourself in a business owners shoes, you know one who's been around for years.. He severed your parents, grandparents, your aunt and uncle before you were born.

If a business owner severed my family, we'd have a fucking issue, ya heard me! :conehead:
giphy.gif
 
It's a bad system. Any review site with an option to vote a review as "funny" obviously doesn't care that people's livelihoods are on the line. It gets to be a big joke. I spend a lot of time on Yelp, some of the stuff I read there is extremely stupid and unfair.

Just one small example from this morning, browsing: A woman posted a review of a local restaurant said the service was great the food was good everything perfect bt guess why they got a one star review? Because there was nothing on their dessert menu that she could eat since she has a dairy allergy. Are you fucking serious? She acted like it was racism or something. gtfo
 
You guys are thinking about this wrong. Why should the government be dealing with fake reviews online. Dont they have more wars to fight?