Archives 2016

We often get asked if it is possible to delete complaints on Ripoff Report completely.  The answer is yes, but is not easy and often it is not cheap. In this post we will explain a few ways you can get rid of Ripoff Report, some of these methods would not remove the report but may help you in making your reputation better.

• Court Ordered Removals:
  This is the only way a report may be completely removed. Basically you need to file a lawsuit against the poster and win. If the poster is not known, then you file a John Doe lawsuit and may get a default judgment. You then request a court ordered removal from the judge and present it to Ripoff Report. Ripoff Report may or may not remove it. They are more likely to remove it if you actually fought someone and won. If they fail to remove, then you present the judgment to Google, Bing and Yahoo and they are more likely to honor it and remove, so at minimum you may get the report deleted from the search engines, but not RipoffReport itself.  It can be expensive because most often attorneys need to do it. This is a service that we offer, but we do not charge as much as attorneys do, because we do not use attorneys. We even would guarantee at least removal from Google or you would not pay.  If interested, please contact us for details.

• SEO Push Down
  Using SEO techniques you can push down the report to second or 3rd page of Google search results so it is less visible in searches for your name or brand. This may also involve creation of mini sites, many social profiles, videos and writing many articles. This method is used by majority of reputation management companies.  This method could also be expensive because Ripoff Report is a pretty powerful site and you have to do lot’s of SEO efforts to succeed in pushing it down. One benefit of this method is that if you get posted again in the future, most likely the post would not show up high. However, if you use the court ordered removal and another post shows up, then you have to do the removal again, which would cost you more money.

• Cyber bullying or Harassment Removals
  Ripoff Report claims that they would redact information in cases of Cyber Bullying or online Harassment.  In fact, we have been successful in using this method for a client. You still need to make a good argument, so we recommend using us to do it, rather than trying it yourself.  This method would work for a very few people, maybe less than 1%. However, if you try to do it yourself, then it would cost you nothing. To try yourself send an email to the owner Ed Magdeson at editor@ripoffreport.com.

• Copyright Removals (aka DMCA Removals)
  DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It was a law created in the 90’s to fight online copyright issues. If the post contains any copyright of yourself, such as if the poster has used your photo or content from your website, you may be able to file a DMCA request to have it removed. The DMCA may also be used to remove content if your personal info is posted such as your social security number, bank info, or other personal info.   If you send a DMCA to Ripoff Report, most likely they will just redact the content in question, but would not remove the whole post. Therefore, it is our recommendation to send it direct to Google. However, in 99% of the cases Google will tell you to send it to the site direct. You may have a small chance that Google may accept your request. This could be because Google may have tens of staff members viewing these requests and something may fall through cracks or the reviewer at Google may be having a good day and side with you.In the past few years, many people and/or reputation management companies have also tried to game the system and filed what is called Fake DMCA orders.  The way it works is that first you post a copyrighted content in the comments or rebuttal section of Ripoff Report and then you file a DMCA take down notice with Google claiming someone has copied your content.  Some people would use fake contact info and claim ownership of the content, even tough they were not the rightful owners. This is why it’s called a Fake DMCA order.This method worked for a while, but then Google caught on to it and started declining them. It is against the law to file fake DMCA’s so we do not recommend it. Although, it is highly unlikely that anyone would get in trouble for it, so that is why many got away doing it. You can see evidence of this happening if you search past DMCA removal requests at lumendatabase.org.In summary, this method does not work anymore, so do not even try it. The only time you may want to try it is if you really have your copyrighted content stolen and posted on RipoffReport.

• Ripoff Report’s VIP Arbitration Program
  Ripoff Report is offering an arbitration program to try and redact false info.  We have heard different numbers as far as what it costs. It could be as low as $2000 and as high as $10,000 per post. Basically, they will use an independent arbitrator to look at evidence provided by you and also by the poster and then make a decision if the report is false. If they decide in your favor, they will remove or redact certain parts of the report, but they will not remove your name or brand name from the post.  Hence, the post would still show up in Google search results, which is not a good thing.There are two huge cons with this method. A) It would only work if the post is untrue or fake and the poster does not respond or provide any evidence. B) The post remains on the site, so it still shows up in Google search results, hence anyone searching in Google for your company name will see it and that in itself is bad, because most people may associate a listing at RipoffReport to be negative and would move on without even reading the report.

If you have a negative review on Ripoff Report and need help with deletion or push down, contact us today to see what we can do for you.

Our CEO Pierre Zarokian and attorney Aaron Minc from Dinn, Hochman & Potter, LLC will be doing a free online webinar on July 19, 2016 at 2:30pm EST.

Pierre Zarokian will discuss Yelp and general reputation management, including:

– Why Yelp is so important!
– Yelp Filter : How it works and how to beat it
– Methods to get negative reviews removed on Yelp
– Ways to increase positive reviews on Yelp
– Discussion of other review sites and how they work, including: Google+, Ripoff Report, BBB and others.
– How to do proactive reputation management
– What to do if you get negative reviews on complaint sites such as Ripoff Report, including SEO push down, Copyright removals and other methods

Aaron Minc will discuss legal issues surrounding reputation management, including:

– Why Your Online Reputation Matters
– The New Age of the Internet & The Online Defamation Problem
– The Communications Decency Act
– How to Remove Online Content
– Court Ordered Search Engine Removals
– Online Reputation Management Myths
– What Can I Do To Proactively Protect Your Online Brand

We have just announced a new service which would legally remove negative Yelp reviews. Our team of experts will review each negative review and contact Yelp’s legal department to challenge their validity.  Our CEO Pierre Zarokian stated: “The Yelp algorithm tries to remove fake negative reviews, but it is not always successful at that. Our clients want to fight back against slanderous reviews from anonymous people that threaten their livelihood.”

Our team of experts are good at finding and removing negative and fake Yelp reviews. We will dig deep, analyzing a user’s profile, or their related accounts, to challenge the validity of those reviews. We will also look for content that may be against the Yelp Terms of Service. In addition, if our clients can provide any hard evidence on why a review is not accurate, we can then use the evidence and send a legal letter to Yelp to request their removals.

We have just realezed a press release with more info here: http://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/16/07/p8176859/reputation-stars-launches-negative-yelp-review-removal-service#ixzz4EYUWzF00

BadBoyReport bills itself as the Web’s destination for helping people avoid bad dates, but the website isn’t doing a great job keeping users honest. Users are encouraged to be honest, but there is no verification process for reviews. Plus, Bad Boy Report removes itself from blame by allowing these posts from anonymous third parties. As a result of a recent move to Korea, the website is nearly untouchable on any legal basis.

This haven for cheater shaming ranks well in Google and can follow someone around for life. These websites don’t just vanish, and they are seen by every employer and potential date from now until you decide to take action. BadBoyReport does not remove any posts directly, but they recommend hiring a reputation management company for help and they only work with reputation management companies to try and remove a post that may be incorrect.

Bad Boy Report was once caught stealing content from another site and sued, which resulted in the shutdown of the .com site, but the site is back with a new domain at badboyreport.kr. It does not interfere in posts on anyone’s behalf, and claims that it may take up to one year to remove posts even with a legitimate request.

How Reputation Stars Can Help

Everyone makes mistakes, it’s not Bad Boy Report’s job to chronicle those. Here at Reputation Stars, we believe that your choices are your business. We have helped many people remove negative listings from Bad Boy Report legally, and quickly. In fact, most of our customers see their negative posts vanish entirely within one week. We also create long term strategies aimed at keeping your search engine page free of negative press.

Don’t take chances on your reputation, contact Reputation Stars Today!

Everyday, thousands of people all over the world wake up to the realization that nude pictures of themselves have appeared online. It could be that you were the victim of a targeted attack, or just a vengeful ex looking to get back at you. Whatever the case, these pictures can be damming to your career prospects, your future relationships and your life. If you, or someone you know, has had this horrible thing happen then you’ll be pleased to know that Google can help remove some of that content from search.

Google has a public policy that acknowledges the terrible truth: sometimes, vengeful people do awful things. One widespread method is to post naked pictures of that person online. These compromising pictures are often shared consensually, and they are taken under the knowledge that they will be kept private.

Google has laid out certain requirements it uses to determine if your content fits this profile:

• The subject of the photo or video, and the person making the request, must be nude or shown in a compromising sexual act.
• The content must be intended for a private audience, such as sharing between spouses.
• If the second condition is true, it follows that the subject never consented to making this information publicly available.

As long as you can prove that your content meets these conditions, Google should help you take this content off of search. It’s important to note that this only applies to Google search. Google will also display a notice that certain content was removed from the search results. The content still exists on whatever website is hosting it, which can creep up in other ways.

What if your next potential employer or spouse uses a different search engine to find information about you? What if this person is tipped off that your videos or photos exist? For these reasons, reputation management is a route you might want to look into. Reputation management offers long term solutions to these types of problems, including complete removal of your compromised content.

In the past few months we have seen Ripoff Report remove several posts from their site and change the titles to:

“(((NAME(S) REDACTED DUE TO PERCEIVED HARASSMENT / CYBERSTALKING / CYBERBULLYING / REVENGE POST)))”

Here are some examples:

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

As you will see the names and info of the victims have been replaced by words “REDACTED.”

So it appears that they would remove some posts if they are considered to be harassment, cyber stalking, cyber bullying or revenge posts!

We had some doubts whether RipoffReport did this to make it look like they are the good guys and actually care or whether they were paid removals.

We decided to try it for a client by contacting them. One of our clients was a perfect candidate for this service, because they had purchased something from a business and the item was not delivered on time for their event as promised, so our client had left a negative review for the business. The business owner in return retaliated and posted a negative report for our client. Therefore, it could be considered a revenge post.

It took several months from the first time we contacted RipoffReport about this, but we finally checked the page and noticed they had redacted our client’s name.

One word of advice… Mr. Ed Magdeson can be a tough to deal with. If you try to call him on the phone to request this, he may even hang up on you. If you piss him off, you will ruin your chances of redaction! Do not try this yourself and let a professional like us handle it. If you are listed on Ripoff Report, contact us to see if we can help you!