Why I Asked About F U Flowers

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CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
8,951
8,442
113
Anaheim
www.avantegardens.com
State / Prov
CA
In case you were wondering why I polled about From You Flowers, here's a blog post to explain it:

Local Reviews: A Spammer's Revenge

The post is long and explains how one of F U's affiliate weasels used AOL Local to create a bogus, reputation damaging review of our shop. And that was just one of his lies.

Will keep you posted on how/if AOL removes the BS.
 
Well, my little nightmare has gone from bad to worse.

Turns out the spammer also ripped us on InsiderPages.com (another review site) and now Google Local has picked up the review PLUS the one that had previously been deleted by CitySearch.

So we go from virtually no reviews to two horrible ones being displayed at the top - both false, defamatory and no doubt highly damaging to Avante Gardens (and my) reputation. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...891,-117889823,919316942696924048&dtab=2&om=1

I have been cooresponding with InsiderPages and they need a week to investigate - and ask the reviewer for more information. No word yet from AOL Local.

I could use a couple good thoughts coming my way.

At this point I am contemplating hiring an attorney to aggressively go after the Netscape spammer and the companies that reward him/her with affiliate commissions.
 
Would it help if we all started writting positive reviews for you?
Tell me where to write! Although I've have not been to your store, I attended a seminar a few years ago with your husband as the speaker and I was totally blown away with his ideas and professionalism. I know for a fact that your store is worthy of 6 stars, even if we only have the option of giving you 5!
 
okay, another review :) and I also "reported" the review as offensive.

Unfortunately, the flip side of being vocal and visible frequently is that you are an easy target. Sorry - don't let it deter you! Just remember all the good stuff that comes from being so visible and vocal, and let the Sarah P's rot. I know the rating & stuff is important, so hopefully everyone will keep up the positive reviews to offset this crapola.

:hug:

tracy
 
Thanks guys. :) I'll just keep plugging away but this stuff is taking a chunk of time out of my day.

I have contacted an attorney and sent over all links to all the webpages. Ideally, AOL & Insider Pages will just remove the bogus reviews, but I am prepared to go further if this isn't resolved quickly.

No real florist should be made to suffer economic damages from false testimonials and defamation posted by a OG affiliate, or anyone else for that matter.
 
Whenever I posted negative reviews about OG's, they were removed within days of my postings. All I did was give them 1 star and wrote that they were not local or even flower shops. and low and behold, "Poof" my truth telling reviews were gone!
 
Interesting. The idea would appear to have had good intentions . . . but . . . knowing Google, I'll bet they knew exactly what the potential for damage was with this scam and really didn't care.

I hadn't noticed the review thing existed until you brought it up. I found the review that somebody had posted for us to be sort of amusing. It didn't really say anything bad about our work, which is what really counts (was pretty complimentary, in fact) and I didn't disagree with the cons.

Near as I can tell, Google is taking reviews directly from CitySearch. I haven't tried to post a review there yet, so I don't know what you have to do to be a reviewer. But it looks to me like it's a wonderful opportunity for competitors or anyone with a grudge or a defective mind to openly trash with little fear of reprisal so long as they can remain anonymous. Seems to me that if Google and others are going to allow anonymous posters to post defamatory and untrue statements about businesses, then Google and the others who both cause and allow this should be ready and willing to accept the liability and responsibility for damages.

In earlier years, I would have been surprised that they would expose themselves to this potential liability without requiring posters to accurately identify themselves. In today's business climate, I'm not at all surprised. They obviously figure that they're big enough to out-lawyer most anybody and the chances of any typical lawyer being willing or able to take them on for anything are pretty slim. So they just don't care. They've got today's typical MBA mindset. Their strategy has nothing at all to do with what's right or wrong or what's legal or illegal. It's purely about increasing the bottom line in any way that you can just get by with, regardless of how they do it or who it damages in the process.

The times . . . they are a changing. And obviously not all for the better.
 
Chezbloom said:
Whenever I posted negative reviews about OG's, they were removed within days of my postings. All I did was give them 1 star and wrote that they were not local or even flower shops. and low and behold, "Poof" my truth telling reviews were gone!
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Yeah. Big Surprise ! ! !

Think it might have something to do with the zillions in Pay Per Click and other advertising costs the majors with deep pockets and no ethics spend with these guys?

If not, I've got some bridges and swamps for sale. Call me.
 
hcflorist said:
Seems to me that if Google and others are going to allow anonymous posters to post defamatory and untrue statements about businesses, then Google and the others who both cause and allow this should be ready and willing to accept the liability and responsibility for damages.
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They are not liable unless they knowingly publish defamation under their own name. Otherwise, they are considered a publisher and are basically immune to liability. The responsible part is the person who wrote the liability in the first place.

Some publishers will delete junk and others will leave it based on 'freedom of speech' issues.

Right now, a lawsuit has been filed by a couple of Yale Law students who have been defamed by an anonymous poster on a law message board. These days, most employers (and many consumers) go to the web and perform Google queries about potential hires or potential vendors. The women assert they can't get jobs and believe it is in part due to vicious anonymous lies that have been posted about them.

They have been granted subpoenas to compel the message board (who refused to delete the junk) to divulge the IPs of the posters. The next step will be to compel the ISPs to divulge the names and addresses of the customers using the IPs. Then the anonymous rats may be working for the rest of their lives to pay off their legal debts and civil judgements.

A Florida jury recently awarded a plaintiff $11.3 Million over an internet defamation suit. You cannot spread lies about a person or company without impunity - but the punishment will depend on whether the defamed party wants to spend years going through the courts.
 
Similar experience

Cathy, I have a similar problem, the "good" people at citysearch think that defamatory reviews are better than no reviews so my suggestion is set up a email account in another name, use it to get a login to these "review" sites and give yourself some good reviews! As long as your reviews are on top the search engines will grab the first one. You can also respond to some of them, do so in your eloquent style!

Keith
 
Keith -

It's pretty obvious to me when I'm reading a self-review written by someone in the company and I'm guessing others probably recognize them too.

In my case, CitySearch did delete a nasty review but the person had never purchased flowers from us.

I claimed my business listing on Insides Pages this morning (and urge other florists to do it too - it's free). Once you've claimed your listing, you can correspond directly with reviewers so I sent 'Sarah P' the following message:
Dear Sarah,

I am so sorry you were disappointed with the quality of our flowers and service. Please let me know when you made your purchase and where the flowers were delivered and we would like to offer you a total refund as well as a complimentary arrangement.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Catherine Hillen-Rulloda
Avante Gardens
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I sent a copy of the correspondence plus the IP of the 'reviewer' (found with some good digging and sleuthing) to the InsiderPages team. InsiderPages should easily be able to check if the IP matches their logs. The 'reviewer' is located thousands of miles from California.
 
The nasty review from InsiderPages.com is now gone.

I located the perp, *eyes narrowed* logged into a message board he frequented, and sent the following private message this morning:

Dear XXXXXX, flowersfromtheheart, orchidjoe, flowermania, majusitrukk and sarah p,

Consider this PM notification that you have been identified as the individual that made slanderous and defamatory reviews of Avante Gardens Florist on both AOL Local http://search.cityguide.aol.com/oran...ype=local-soam and InsidePages.com using the name Sarah P http://www.insiderpages.com/b/3711199116 .

Your Florida IP address is in our possession and with it we will be filing a Federal defamation lawsuit against you for making false statements about Avante Gardens with intent to harm its business.

You have 24 hours to delete the false and defamatory reviews about Avante Gardens. If the reviews are not deleted entirely, we will proceed to:

- file a lawsuit in US federal Court, subpoena your ISP for your legal name and address, and sue for $500,000 for defamation. You will additionally be sued for all court costs and attorney fees.

- write letters informing AZoogle and any other affiliate advertising publishers and companies with which you are affiliated to notify them of your violations of their terms of service by making false testimonials and publishing false statements to gain affiliate commissions.

Should any other individuals under any names place additional false testimonials or reviews on any Internet review site or websites about Avante Gardens, we will pursue such defamation to the fullest extent of the law.

If the false reviews are removed immediately, we will take no further action.
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He may not care about a lawsuit but he'd probably hate to lose commission checks. :fdevil:

Not sure if the review came down from InsiderPages finally acting on my request or from the webmaster. At any rate, the worst one is officially gone. Now to get it removed from my Google Local profile.
 
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