{ FeedBlack } » Case Studies

Judged by TripAdvisor

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:43:44 +0000

Brook Barn Country House in Oxfordshire has earned itself the highest reputation – one of the top places to stay in Oxfordshire on Trivago,

AA 5 stars – and a 97% ‘popularity ranking’ on TripAdvisor.

They have just asked KwikChex to help with a defamation issue on TripAdvisor.

5 days ago, a post appeared on their TripAdvisor profile. It wasn’t from a customer, but rather from someone that just dropped by and wanted a tour. They considered the manner of the owner a little on the brusque side – so went on to TripAdvisor when they got home and branded them as racists – and recommended that any ‘ ethnics’ stayed away.

Horrified, the owners contacted both the police and TripAdvisor. The police responded quickly and with great concern.

After considering the circumstances, TripAdvisor responded with an email that stated ‘We have looked at the review in question and determined that it does meet TripAdvisor’s listing criteria. Therefore, it will not be removed.’

Even a cursory glance at the post would determine that it is libellous as an accusation and has been made with no substance whatsoever.

By making an accusation of racism, the poster is inciting racial hatred, almost certainly contravening UK criminal laws.

TripAdvisor also stated in their email; ‘While we are unable to remove the review in question, we do respect and support your right to explain your perspective through our management response feature. This feature provides you with the opportunity to respond to the language of the review and tell your side of the story. Your management response will be attached to the respective review so that our members can read both perspectives.’

Whilst far from satisfied, the owners viewed it as essential that some type of response was made, so they used the suggested management response feature.

TripAdvisor have not published their response.

This case epitomises the issues at stake for business owners. There are thousands of such serious allegations on the site. All are unverified. TripAdvisor enable these to be published to a worldwide audience. They unilaterally, without verification, reject the submissions of the maligned business – even when offered evidence – or even as in this case, when it has been serious enough to report to the police.

This is not an isolated incident as the outline details / statistics of our submissions to TripAdvisor demonstrate. When dealing with the reputation of a business or individual, it is not acceptable to say that the majority of the reviews are OK. That is like saying that it is excusable to call someone a thief, a racist or an abuser as long as 300 others have said they are honest. If such accusations were made against a police officer or a judge, you would expect legal action to follow. Why should it be acceptable to permit it and protect the perpetrators because they are a restaurant, hotel or other business that counts on goodwill and reputation to earn a living?

In addition to the legal aspects, there is a burning question of ethics to be answered here. It is cases like this that are at the heart of what KwikChex are doing on behalf of our members and in our broader quest to see fundamental changes take place that protect decent citizens and which do not mislead the public.

(This case study was included in the article ‘KwikChex Update 21st Sep 2010 – Defamation Actions‘- to read the full article – click here)

Update to Brook Barn Case study 27/09/2010
Whilst Tripadvisor originally refused to remove the post in question, following extensive press coverage it has now been deleted.

Google Removes Fake Review In Response To Latest Report From KwikChex

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:33:12 +0000

One of the worst examples yet of a fake and malicious review on Google Maps has been rapidly removed after KwikChex verified the facts.

Storm Photography of Colchester in the UK had a malicious review posted on Google maps a month ago (16th Feb) and had not managed to have it deleted.

At first glance the review appeared to have come from another photography business in Crewe, Cheshire.

In fact, this company, Cream Wedding Photography was an even bigger victim of malicious Google Review posting.

KwikChex had verified that both businesses are reputable. A third party mounted a campaign which makes it appear that Cream were posting insults and spam on photographers websites across the UK. Cream have published the facts on their website www.creamphoto.co.uk in a bid to protect their own reputation.

KwikChex sent an independent verification report to Google and the offending review in this case was removed 10 minutes later.

We would like to thank Google on this occasion for their rapid response and urge them to continue responding to our authenticated notifications in this way.

Update on Google Map Review issues

Google state that they take these issues seriously and we are seeing evidence that this is the case. KwikChex will continue to provide independently authenticated reports to Google – and to offer to provide solutions.

We are also aware that they appear to have some more complex problems when it comes to removing reviews pulled in to Google Maps from third party sites. it seems that even when successfully removed from the original site, Google’s search system has difficulties in purging the result, and the offending reviews are therefore staying live on Google. This explanation is not much comfort to reputable businesses that are having their businesses damaged, but we understand that Google are aware of it and working on the problem.

We would urge people to continue to notify us us of fake and malicious reviews.

Join our facebook campaign ‘Web of Lies’ to rid the web of fake and malicious online reviews – Click here

California Permanent Make Up Artist Cathy Waechter

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:56:16 +0000

Cathy Waechter’s business, Absolutely Beautiful Permanent Makeup (www.abpmubycathy.com) is based in Riverside, California.

She was attacked in an online review in January in a local Yahoo review. The reviewer claimed that she was suing her for physical injury and urged people not to give her business.

Cathy was successful in having the review removed from Yahoo – but as is often the case it still appeared prominently on Google Map reviews – much more damaging because they become attached to the business/website and are very prominent in search results.

We evaluated this review and found that the reviewer had failed to provide any evidence whatsoever. We therefore immediately posted the following response on Cathy’s Google Map Reviews:

If immediate remedial action is not taken by Google further pressure will be brought to bear on Google to resolve this (further updates will be posted on Feedblack.com and KwikChex.com). Cathy Waechter has a reputable business that has been threatened by unverified reviews that malign her reputation. KwikChex is pleased to be able to assist Cathy – and all other reputable businesses that have had similar problems.

Get the solutions on KwikChex.com

See the news on Feedblack.com

Join our facebook campaign ‘Web of Lies’ to rid the web of fake and malicious online reviews – Click here

Reputable Property Company Attacked Online By Convicted Fraudster

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:57:09 +0000

Parkcrest Construction is a well established property developer in the New Forest Area. They have always had an excellent reputation.

They discovered that a website titled ‘Parkcrest Construction Information’ had been created with the sole intention of besmirching the reputation of Parkcrest and the owner, Richard Kingham.

Investigations revealed that the so called ‘victim’ described on the website is one Paul Robertson – a former GP who was struck off by the General Medical Council and jailed for swindling a disabled pensioner out of his life savings in the New Forest. You can see the BBC report by clicking here

The full story can be found on Richard Kingham’s personal website.

And on his personal blog

Thankfully, it doesn’t take much analysis to figure out who the villain is here, but nevertheless, in this world of instant online information, this type of feedblack can be damaging. Parkcrest are now joining KwikChex, which establishes them as a trusted and reputable company. In addition, they are using the KwikChex bespoke services to respond, including the creation of blogs to reinforce the truth of the matter, reviews that highlight that they have been verified as a KwikChex member, reviews posted against the perpetrators, including Google sidewiki on their site and Web of Trust (mywot.com), social networking releases and Feedblack news.

Join our facebook campaign ‘Web of Lies’ to rid the web of fake and malicious online reviews – Click here