Tag ripoff report

Is Google using a new Algorithm? Perhaps. Google watchers and online reputation management teams are reporting that Ripoff Report and a few complaint sites seems to have lost some visibility in Google’s search results at the start of November.

Our CEO Pierre Zarokian first noticed the change around November 6^th, after he checked different keywords related to his clients. He found only one that was still ranking high on Google search.

On Twitter, as well as on several private forum’s, there was barely any mention of the event at the time. In recent days, others have acknowledged that they have also noticed that something is amiss.

The RipoffReport website is a site where consumers can go to complain about business owners, products, and services. Because the website is listed so high in Google rankings, being listed there can destroy or seriously damage people’s online reputations and businesses. The site has a strict no removal policy, and has even defied court orders which demand the removal of information.

Other complaint sites which have also lost ratings include ScamBook, PissedConsumer, ComplaintsBoard, DirtyScam, and Consumer Affairs.

This has led some industry analysts to conclude that Google has indeed made changes to its algorithm in order to downgrade the ranking of these types of sites.

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.

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!

We have just released a press release titled “Reputation Stars Offers Unique Solutions for Reputation Management.”

In summary, Reputation Stars works with a legal team to try and get most negative reviews removed.  These legal methods often work much better than traditional SEO methods and result in complete removal of the report from the offending site or Google.  Reputation Stars, will use traditional SEO method if the legal method is not an option or if it fails.

Reputation Stars management have 18 years of experience in SEO and online marketing services.  “I got into the reputation management industry because I figured out unique, proprietary ways to help people through their reputation crises,” said Pierre Zarokian, CEO of Reputation Stars.

You can see the full release at:

http://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/15/03/p5361249/reputation-stars-offers-unique-solutions-for-reputation-management

By Pierre Zarokian
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was meant to help individuals establish copyrights for their materials online. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work to get defamatory content removed, unless the content was something you owned, such as a section of your website copied or a copied picture that you own the copyright to.  However, be adviced that some sites such as ripoffreport and thedirty.com may not comply with a DMCA take down notice, where the owners use federal protections to justify their behavior.  Sending a notice to Google may not even work, as Google most often asks to deal with the sites directly. We have sent plenty of DMCA notices on behalf of our clients and know what works and what doesn’t.  Unfortunately, most often DMCA would not work to take down defamatory content.

When the DMCA takedown notice fails, there are a few more options left to you.

Establish Your Reputation

You can leverage the power of social media and SEO to help rebuild your reputation after a crisis, and you don’t even need a large budget. It helps to have tools that manage social media for you, identifying what people are saying and who your likely product evangelists are. This lets you build multiple profiles, update content and monitor how everything is performing for you.

Within no time, the negative content will be buried in favor of positive content with a higher user engagement. You also get the bonus of increasing market reach and identifying key influencers you can use to spread your messaging.

This is a service our firm is best at, so if you need a professional to help you, contact us.

Take Legal Action

You cannot sue the site hosting the defamatory content the Communications Decency Act protects them. What you need to do is sue the poster or if it I anonymous you need to sue a “John Doe” and try to subpoena the records of the site hosting the content to find out who posted it. Some sites like Ripoff Report may remove content if you have a court ordered removal and if they don’t Google would most likely comply.

Legal action is costly, and not always guaranteed.  Although our firm does not provide legal removals, we can refer you to one of the best attorneys that does this service.

Pierre Zarokian, CEO of Reputation Stars

Our CEO “Pierre Zarokian” will be speaking about Reputation Management on Feb 19, 2014 in Orange County, CA at an event organized by TechBiz Connection.

Jack Bicer the president of TechBiz Connection stated: “If you are a professional intrigued by today’s evolving world of social media, personal online identities, and online business branding, you need to learn what it means to have an online presence and what this says about you (or your business, brand).  After all, your online reputation IS your reputation.”

For more info, see the official press release here.

RipOff Report is now offering for $89 per month a ongoing service of giving businesses 14 days to resolve complaints before a negative review is posted. Experts say that it may help boost rankings in Google and Bing.

Ripoff Report creates millions of dollars every year by charging implicated companies a flat cost based upon the number of problems have actually been made against them. Business are charged anywhere from $5,500 to even more than $100,000 to have their reports removed, however they only receive inspections rather than removal as advertised to them. If grievances have been dealt with according to the inspection, the website will permit a brand-new heading to be published above the initial post. However the initial complaint will never be eliminated touts owner Ed Magedson, proudly.

The questionable aspect of Ripoff report is that it does not right incorrect details without charge. Some implicate this to be extortion, however after numerous legal procedures, judicial bodies have stated that although they disapprove of the company practices that Magedson uses, because the postings are made by third parties, it can’t be labeled extortion.