Quote:
Originally Posted by ShellyCrash
Maybe 5 or 6 years ago a company I worked for was actually contacted by the site owner and solicited for $25k to make it disappear, but I can't say for certain what that entailed. They have great search engine placement and have additional duplicate content sites that don't seem to get penalized such as pissedconsumer.com and badbusinessbureau.com
|
I believe you. In my opinion the owner doesn't have the best reputation in the world but overall I'd say that it's very rare to see a report removed. The wikipedia page for ripoffreport reveals all sorts of lawsuits over the matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripoff_Report and I notice apparently they have some new program where they will submit a report for arbitration and then redact any text found to be false. It looks like it is around $2000 a report.
I myself use the site a lot. I go to it once a week and read the first page of "Latest Reports" just to keep up with the scams. Before doing business with any company I check there first. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Quote:
|
I'm not aware of it having any impact at a consumer level, although I have seen it brought up at corporate / banking levels, which simply required an explanation.
|
That would be an uncomfortable situation. I'm sure it does have some impact on many companies. It has over a million unique visitors a day and the results tend to rank well. It's probably bullshit but I've seen people claim hits to their business in excess of 40% as a result of being listed. It's going to vary depending on how the result ranks and how bad the report is. As someone who has read a lot of reports I can say that if one makes a rebuttal with the proper tone and professionalism you can make it so most people will dismiss the report. But many people do not know how to do that and get too defensive so they come off as assholes and only make it worse. Not having a rebuttal often tends to make me consider that the company is afraid and that the report is true. Unless the report reads like the person complaining is unreasonable.