Disgruntled customer

Thanks guys for taking the time to respond on this.

I have removed my long responses and will make them brief. If they continue, I will speak to a lawyer but hopefully this will be the end of them.

I honestly have no idea how this guy knows how I started the business. As I said to him, the start up process I went through was fairly typical - doing work for family and friends to build up a portfolio and start the "word of mouth" train. I am now using a products formulated locally by a professional detailing company called Huttons and they have special bottles etc. I have used things like 303 and stuff like that that has a more generic bottle.

I will also contact Google about these reviews. Thank you again guys for everything. I may also register the business so I can take advantage of the tax benefits here in Canada.
 
Wow all I can think of is....rival!


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Pete Strain said:
Thanks guys for taking the time to respond on this.

I have removed my long responses and will make them brief. If they continue, I will speak to a lawyer but hopefully this will be the end of them.

I honestly have no idea how this guy knows how I started the business. As I said to him, the start up process I went through was fairly typical - doing work for family and friends to build up a portfolio and start the "word of mouth" train. I am now using a products formulated locally by a professional detailing company called Huttons and they have special bottles etc. I have used things like 303 and stuff like that that has a more generic bottle.

I will also contact Google about these reviews. Thank you again guys for everything. I may also register the business so I can take advantage of the tax benefits here in Canada.
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Registration here in Québec is 30$ per year for the provincial permit, it should be similar in Ontario. GST and PST registration is free... they want you to charge taxes ;) Don't wait, do it! ;)

Make sure to keep any and every receipt that has anything to do with your business: Products, Equipment, car expenses, publicity, etc. You can also deduct part of your home expenses that are used for your business... so let's say you use 1 room out of your house and you have a 5 room house that is a 20% deduction from house payment, electricity, etc. You can deduct part of your cel phone bill if it's used for your business, same for Internet access. It might not be an enormous amount of money but a few thousand dollars per year will make all the difference in the world when you are first starting out.

Good luck!
 
Calendyr said:
Registration here in Québec is 30$ per year for the provincial permit, it should be similar in Ontario. GST and PST registration is free... they want you to charge taxes ;) Don't wait, do it! ;)

Make sure to keep any and every receipt that has anything to do with your business: Products, Equipment, car expenses, publicity, etc. You can also deduct part of your home expenses that are used for your business... so let's say you use 1 room out of your house and you have a 5 room house that is a 20% deduction from house payment, electricity, etc. You can deduct part of your cel phone bill if it's used for your business, same for Internet access. It might not be an enormous amount of money but a few thousand dollars per year will make all the difference in the world when you are first starting out.

Good luck!
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Thanks again for everything. So you did not have to pay anything to register for a business number with the Canadian Gov? So do you charge tax to your customers? I guess you dont have to charge (HST here) if you are making under 30k a year
 
Yes. If you want to be able to get a refund for the taxes you pay for everything in your business, you have to register to both agencies and you have to charge taxes to your clients. Now as a mobile detailer many people will ask you not to charge them taxes, but you have to otherwise you cannot get refunded for the taxes you pay. For me that is about 1000$ per year, so ya, I charge taxes. In a way, if you really don't want to look profesionnal don't charge taxes and explain you can do that because you do less than 30K a year in business... and look at the clients run away.
 
Calendyr said:
Yes. If you want to be able to get a refund for the taxes you pay for everything in your business, you have to register to both agencies and you have to charge taxes to your clients. Now as a mobile detailer many people will ask you not to charge them taxes, but you have to otherwise you cannot get refunded for the taxes you pay. For me that is about 1000$ per year, so ya, I charge taxes. In a way, if you really don't want to look profesionnal don't charge taxes and explain you can do that because you do less than 30K a year in business... and look at the clients run away.
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That makes sense. Thanks again. Going to be in Montreal in May! Maybe ill see you around lol talk soon
 
I agree with the brief response and leave it alone. Chances are these people will get bored and give up. Keep encouraging your customers to leave reviews to push these to the bottom. Also request that Google or whomever remove the bad ones because they're a fabrication.

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Social media is likely the worst thing to happen to the fabric of culture in the last 20 years! With a forum... people pop in, hiding behind a keyboard, and have quite literally lived lives of fantasy whilst ripping the heads off of everyone in their path... if that's what the so choose. Even worse.... they can assume multiple (screen) names and do it over and over and over yet again.

But that was in the past.

Now... we have "social media", "trolls" and purely anonymous reviews that can, AND DO come from all corners of the globe. Were social media sites self policing (as in they have moderators like you'll see on ANY DECENT FORUM) then you'd not have to worry about "trolls". However... it's just far too easy to pop in, make up a screen name, and then go about berating your local businesses till your hearts content. It's also easy to spread your particular level of hate and have that take a life of it's own (read ISIS for instance).

I wouldn't honor their dribble with a response. Instead... I'd contact the powers that be at Google (or wherever else they posted) as well as a local attorney and have the matter taken care of. Any response you put up will only fuel the fires at this point.

Obviously they/she/he either didn't want your services in the first place, or couldn't afford them. I say didn't want them, because if indeed it's a competitor, all they did was SHOP YOU to find out what you'd say, what you'd sell, and if they'd be able to talk you down. And if they couldn't afford them... then that's not your problem. Stick to your guns, price yourself higher, and DO your services better than your competition. Those that come to you will appreciate the difference. ;)


You separate yourself from the rest in the detailing business by NOT being the cheapest guy in town, period. If they want cheap, then you tell them to get out the yellow pages, or head over to craigslist. You have no idea how many jobs I turned down over the years back when I owned my towing business, JUST BECAUSE OF PRICING. I had people call me all the time wanting XXX$$$ prices on a tow job, thinking that because THEY didn't have money that it was MY problem. All of my trucks were rollbacks (flatbeds) and ALL of my private tows went on the bed. There was NO WAY that I'd tow a vehicle for the same that AAA would, especially as they'd drag it behind some jack-legged truck down the road. That is why I ended up doing hi-line towing, insurance company towing, and hundreds of Mercedes dealer trades a year all over the country, when the $25 guys stayed local and broke. ;)
 
Thanks for the response Tony. I have reported them to Google but unfortunately it did not let me give a reason other than that it was "inappropriate". I am trying to get customers to leave reviews for the business but so far they are hesitating because of having to create an account to do so. The "customers" who left these reviews have seemingly gone silent at this point. Now just have to deal with the damage the reviews have potentially caused.
 
Contact google and let them know you never did anything for them, and never even met them. They should take it down.
 
JeffM said:
Contact google and let them know you never did anything for them, and never even met them. They should take it down.
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Is there a specific way to do this? I clicked the little flag and it asked me to report them only giving me four options to do so and no where I could add my own comments. Thanks..
 
Found this when searching through Google support pages. To say that they actually WILL do something might indeed be more of a miracle than walking on water!




>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
...and notice STILL no constructive or authoritative response or acknowledgement from Google.


The DEMONSTRABLE FACT is that the whole review process is fundamentally flawed. It's as simple as that. Firstly competitors can put up fake reviews as has happened to me, or disgruntled customers can blame one business for the work of sub-contractors as has happened to "notoreview". But remember it's not just the negative reviews that can give out false information. As I already posted, while DOZENS of other mobile disco operators here in Melbouren have NOT EVEN ONE review, another company, trading under TWO separate names has SEVEN positive reviews against both trading names - and none of those reviews give the company just 3 stars or even 4 stars, they are ALL 5 star reviews. It's blatantly obvious to me that they have been put there by that business owner, but potential customers out there would not know that. So very clearly, BOTH POSITIVE and NEGATIVE reviews are so easily manipulated that they can't be relied upon, making them totally misleading and ultimately POINTLESS. The review system therefore MUST be scrapped ASAP.


SO back to my particular case. After having flagged the FAKE review to Google a couple of times and then starting this thread, I waited for Google to do something. But after about 10 days of no response I took the matter into my own hands. The negative review as fully quoted in the first paragraph of this thread had been placed against 6 of my 10 locations on Google Maps, so I went to yahoo and created an email account and then a Google ID in exactly the same name as the poster of the negative review Aaliyah_taylor - identical right down to the lower case "t" for taylor. Then I went to all 6 affected locations and posted the following:


Last Friday I had a big fight with my Fiance who owns this disco business and did a very stupid thing. I drank way too much then created a FAKE review and posted it here which I very much regret. Seriously, Absolute Class is one of the VERY BEST and biggest in Melbourne - they have very high quality DJs, nightclub quality sound equipment and fantastic lighting (ELEVEN disco lights with every system). But don't just take my word for that, look at the Photo Gallery on the web-site. They also provide a fantastic 80 page Music Request Book that I myself chose my music from when I hired Absolute Class for my 25th birthday 4 years ago - which is how I met my Fiance:). As you can see from my own experience it is just SO VERY EASY TO CREATE FAKE REVIEWS here on Google so do be careful. Call Absolute Class and get the free info package sent out, then you can make up YOUR OWN mind if it’s good or not.


So now both the FAKE review and this follow-up appeared to be posted by the same person, Aaliyah_taylor. I only did this as an interim measure, to "take the sting out" of the FAKE negative review. But in doing so of course I created a perfect example and further proof of just how easy it is to manipulate the Google review system. In the meantime I immediately went to my LBC and cancelled my 6 affected listings, then changed the title of my business slightly and re-listed those 6 locations immediately. Because I am in Australia, I had to verify by "snail mail", so all the validation cards (except one which I have now requested another card for) have arrived in the past couple of days, more than 3 weeks after I made the changes - another example of Google's inefficiency. After I posted my lttle piece of fiction (above), within 2 days my competitor then went and changed his name to just Aaliyah - so as soon as I discovered that I went and did the same - more manipulation of the system. By the way, even the cancelling of the affected listings took close to 3 weeks to take effect, they kept coming up in searches all that time, so I'm glad I created my own fake reply to hopefully negate the effect of the fake review over that 3 week period.


So now I have 9 "clean" listings again (and will have 10 when the final authorisation card arrives) BUT I have lost position alongside the Google map in various related key phrase searches, "mobile discos melbourne", "mobile disco melbourne", "mobile djs melbourne", "mobile dj melbourne", "wedding djs melbourne", "wedding dj melbourne", and various others. I still have high position in those seach phrases in the main search results directly under the map and its top 10 results, but now that the map results are positioned above "normal" search results, I have to wonder, do prospective customers look down to those "normal" search rsults anymore, or are they satisfied with the top 10 Google map results? And has Google considerd whether these Google maps results affect the efficacy of one of their key income sources, Adwords? Now that browsing users have the map results AND the "normal" search results, do they even bother to look to the right of the page at the Adwords listings?


The end result is that even though I have eliminated the FAKE negative review for the time being (will my competitor now post another fake review against my new listings?) I have lost position and thereby lost exposure, so I am getting a LOT less enquiries and it's wholly and solely Google's fault. This seriously affects the income of my busines. As I said in a previous post, if the same information contained in the FAKE review had been published in a newspaper, I would have excellent grounds for a law-suit and compensation. That's why newspapers check the veracity of this sort of information BEFORE they publish it. But Google has no real way of doing that, so they MUST scrap the review feature entirely and stick to just providing business type and description, along with location. That's all we business owners need

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Note the poster's solution was to actually CREATE yet another fake ID, then go to Google and post a reply to the scandalous "review" that was seemingly left by the person that did it in the first place.

While I gotta' say... that took a bit of thinking, and honestly gave me a belly laugh thinking just how frustrated the person may have been once they read their own 'new' notation to their negative review.... you got to admit... it would work better than the business owner himself trying to leave a reply that told HIS side of the story! ;)

Later in the above thread, I read this:

>>>Really sorry to hear that you're having the same problem my business is. I'm pretty sure I've been slandered by the competition. It's pretty obvious for me to identify similar writing styles of good reviews on their site. And, I know how you feel having your reputation tainted by someone like that. It's BS.

I am also demanding Google either implements a response/resolution system, or I can figure out another way around Google maps. It's really hard to do business without Google, but I'm not going to sit around all day while Google's web site says my business sucks because one of my competitors was bored on a lunch break.

Defamation of character is ILLEGAL, and Google provides these people enough anonymity to get away with BREAKING THE LAW! <<<

Unfortunately, the above statement is ALL TOO TRUE! :(

It was clear when reading through the thread that Google has no intention of providing a solution, much less rectifying the situation.
Here's the link to the thread: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/0bAQMgA-4ww

Your only Google solution is to contact the Google Business Help Center, but even then... I'd start practicing walking on water as it'll be easier than getting them to do anything.

The REAL solution is to totally forget about Google, drop it, don't link to it, and move forward with a different media approach.

As most 'Geek level' detailers will tell you... word of mouth is the greatest tool a high end detailer can get. Just as working from craigslist ads is about the worst tool. ;)

I still like the guys approach though, just thinking about how the scammer must have felt when they read their NEW reply to their scathing review! :laughing:
 
These two people are crazy, no wonder they are dating each other.
 
Ok, let's figure out exactly who these people are... And every single member on Autogeek send them an envelope of glitter. Shenanigans will ensue. Lol
 
Anything YOU DO to try to make this situation better just isn't going to work. Why in the world would you want to drag it out on any social media or web page or service? The way I see it yes you bent over backwards to please and also show your customer where she really needed to have her vehicle cleaned but some people just don't want to be educated and well it looks like she took it out on you but to prolong it on a web site and ask your "Other" customers to help you in this, I would have did what you did but exclude her from your social media page(s) just to keep it clean.

It is sad that people do what they do when they don't get there way in life. Yes you were the bigger person in this but you still got clobbered and well take it as a lesson well learned.

I am sorry for you in certain ways but get this behind you and them out of your life, Yes you should seek legal console if this escalates as it is hurtful not only to you but demoralizing to all parties and yes your good name and reputation are at stake here.

I would never use Facebook for anything else other than just what's is for, (fun and sharing memories) and not for any business or commercial interest.

Good luck and I wish you the best. . . . . .
 
Thanks for the response. Facebook has been great. Its the Google reviews that are the issue. At least on Facebook I can hide their scathing reviews but on Google I cannot. They seem to have gone silent and I am focused on the future! Thanks again everyone for your input!
 
Facebook is a massive source of advertising if you know how to use it correctly. I can spend $5 and target the exact people I want, nothing else currently does this.

I can say give me males between 20-30 in age with an income greater than 40k who like cars within fifty miles of my zip code and pinpoint target who gets my post.

Do not under any circumstances count out the power of target marketing.

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