OG #1 across Major Cities in Yahoo Local

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CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
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www.avantegardens.com
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One of FSI's OGs has managed to spam their way to the top of every major US city in Yahoo Local. See the RF blog post here.

I'm fairly sure this story will be picked up by at least one well-known website that covers spam on Yahoo Local and Google Local.

A big thanks to the florists that have tried to warn consumers about the listing being fakes - I have no idea who you are and its probably best that way.

I *may* need some help protecting myself, however since these guys are masters at mutiple Yahoo personalities. Let's hope not.

If you are in one of the many cities affected by this scammer, please report it to Yahoo Local. Hearing from a bunch of us may help.
 
These are the people who called and cussed out and threatened my sister for reviews I posted on superpages(all gone now and I can't review anyone else).
 
Thanks. :) Do you recall where you saw their listing(s) in superpages? PM me a link or post it here if you have a chance.

Have you noticed any nasty reviews or ratings in your own shop's listings?

In some cases, there seems to be a connection with Yahoo Local fake florists and yellowpages.com (one of Yahoo's data partners), but I haven't found one in the case.
 
Show Time....Let's find out who we are......

I followed up on this thread from CHR and found that these same people are number 1 in Austin. Probably Dallas and Houston too, but I checked closest to home first. Sure enough, they list a false address and 24 hours a day and free delivery, and are have an area code of 303.....Austin is 512.

This is fraud, and while it may be business also, I take it personally. (please rewatch the Godfather)

I am asking every Flowerchat Member, who cares about this industry, to take a hand in organizing fellow floirsts in writing/calling/emailing their attorney's general, state senators, congresspeople, and the Good Lord, to strike down this iniquity. Specifically.... I am going to call Clay, because I know his heart is in the right place......and we are going to organize Texas......and we're going to get a rally there....who'll back that up in NY, NJ, CA, etc. We need folks from every state and plenty of them to write letters, sign petitions, and raise holy hell. I know I can count of some of ya.

Clay, "who'll follow old Ben Milam down to San Antone?" (inside Texas story.....ask and we'll tell ya).

Very seriously, are we just going to whine about this or are we going to put our claws and teeth out and attack???????

Where are you 12Bucks???? JOMO, NavyBrat, Heather, PieFace, and how bout you Bloomz.....this is fraud. All of you who have railed against the order gathers....this is our time to STRIKE!!!! And when we strike, we will strike with law suits, injunctions, and against YellowBook, Yahoo, and others who actively participate in this FRAUD. Join me brothers and sisters......let's join togehter and fight this fraud!!!!!!

I am looking for people willing to serve as state captains....and by God I want us to cover every state. Surely, we will not lay down and whine!

As a group, I propose we work up some really good letters, and get after these bums....and that includes Yahoo and the Yellow Book folks as well. This could be a class action suit...and believe it or not....I am personal and family friends with one of the attourneys who won the tobacco suits.

Who's with me?

Tell me if you can support this...and what you are willing to do. I'll do my best to match or better it!!!!! I am as serious as a heart attack.

As always....All the best....Your Friend
 
Mike - I appreciate your passion. :)

Some of had hope 'Local' sites wouldn't end up as polluted with OGs as the YPs. From experience, trying to mobilize a large group is difficult. Maybe you'll have more success. :) Perhaps TSFA will pursue this since every major Texas city is affected.

It's unbelievable to me that some of our industry leaders describe these tactics as 'aggressive marketing' and refuse to use their groups' weight to take a firm stance against specific offenders.

I am encouraged after reading posts like this one (from Bluementhal's blog).
Mike: You are providing a service to the consumer and ultimately the search engines by featuring these examples of abuse of G Maps and now Y! Local.

As a consumer I have immeasurably better service by identifying specific brick and mortar services where I live and where I generally have flowers delivered. The business becomes accountable, the vendor doesn’t lose the significant amount of affiliate cash to the advertising source and the results tend to be better. I’ve learned that over many years.

I suspect many consumers have learned that as have the florists.
Its discouraging to see how easy Yahoo has made it to create a free source for deceiving customers.

As we have seen from Google and your reporting, dropping a geo oriented onebox into organic listings is an incredibly powerful way to generate business.

Yahoo is simply making it easy to encourage practises that ultimately deceive the consumer.

It is discouraging to see that Yahoo doesn’t even get close to approximating Google in terms of establishing a way to dismantle this type of deceptive information.

As to the example of florist in the city closest to me, the same type of false advertising is in place with a non-existant address and a slew of what have to be fake reviews for the fake business.

I hope the post you’ve printed catches the eyeballs of Y personnel because currently they have established a system that encourages consumer deception.

Dave
Click to expand...

I hope more florists will leave Mike a 'thanks' post, too.
 
Just one quetion.

If NO-ONE filled for them, how would they still exist? Of couse I think its fraud and I hate it but, who is FILLING thier orders? If florists fill for 1800, FTD, TF are they often unwittingly helping these guys stay in business competing against them by getting seriously cloaked orders from head offices??? I don't think politicians are going to do anything soon, but anything will help, letters,etc..if you have the time to write them.
The main way I feel to stop them is to make it impossible for them to operate anywhere by NOT filling orders for them. :soapbox:
 
K.i.s.s.

Chezbloom said:
Just one quetion.

If NO-ONE filled for them, how would they still exist? Of couse I think its fraud and I hate it but, who is FILLING thier orders? If florists fill for 1800, FTD, TF are they often unwittingly helping these guys stay in business competing against them by getting seriously cloaked orders from head offices??? I don't think politicians are going to do anything soon, but anything will help, letters,etc..if you have the time to write them.
The main way I feel to stop them is to make it impossible for them to operate anywhere by NOT filling orders for them. :soapbox:
Click to expand...


And a great soapbox it is. The simpilist solution seems to be the hardest to figure out. Drugs kill, and drug money gets greed.

The big dogs will always want the fight to go big, because it takes a lot of time to accomplish anything good from it. This allows them to keep their bottom line looking good while a long drawn out fight is going on.

Just look how long it took to take down PFN, and there will be another Meole around the next corner. Then that will take another 5-8 years to catch them.

I call it "a dog chasing his own tail."
 
You know, I was excited about Yahoo's new local layout. Seemed simple to me map = real business location. Whoops, forgot about the phony addresses, phone numbers, ugh. Scratch my reply on the blog Cathy....I'm not impressed.
 
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