Negative Business reviews

Kent Brockman

Can anything be done about people leaving a bad review (eg gives a 1 out of 5 star rating) on your social media sites?, bearing in mind that these are people who have never had any dealings with your business & are most likely doing it as they are a competitor or for a friend who is a competitor.
The sole reason for the review is to bring down your average rating & basically make you or your business look bad.

Could this be defined as some sort of defamation of character or some other legal term for it?
Interested to hear replies thanks.

Bepolite

Possibly but I'd be concerned about how you'd ever discover, or prove, who was doing it. Is it just a click of a star rating or are there reviews being left?

Kent Brockman

Just a click of a star without actually filling in the comments section (on facebook business page). They were hidden..... until tonight.

Boskowski

The obvious issue with that is who gets to decide whats genuine and whats negative propaganda?
You, I assume. So that means most likely only star ratings will be allowed. And boom the whole point of reviews goes out the window.

I guess its just one of those things you have to live with once you signed yourself for the whole social media reviews thingy.

Bepolite

Kent Brockman wrote: »

Just a click of a star without actually filling in the comments section (on facebook business page). They were hidden..... until tonight.

Can you not just remove it/contact facebook et al?

Someone might be kind enough to point me in the direction of whether a company (as a legal person) can be defamed? I assume it can but have no basis for that assumption.

Doh!

12.— The provisions of this Act apply to a body corporate as they apply to a natural person, and a body corporate may bring a defamation action under this Act in respect of a statement concerning it that it claims is defamatory whether or not it has incurred or is likely to incur financial loss as a result of the publication of that statement.

Kent Brockman

Boskowski wrote: »

The obvious issue with that is who gets to decide whats genuine and whats negative propaganda?
You, I assume. So that means most likely only star ratings will be allowed. And boom the whole point of reviews goes out the window.

I guess its just one of those things you have to live with once you signed yourself for the whole social media reviews thingy.

Customers leave ratings mostly 5 star and some 4, they write a review.
You don't sign up for it as such but if you have a business page on facebook the feature is there automatically.

I have 4 x 1 star ratings which I had been blocked from seeing until tonight, so I can now see who they are.
None of the 4 people have ever done any business with me or even contacted me in any way so they do not have anything to review as regards product/service

Boskowski

Kent Brockman wrote: »

Customers leave ratings mostly 5 star and some 4, they write a review.
You don't sign up for it as such but if you have a business page on facebook the feature is there automatically.

I have 4 x 1 star ratings which I had been blocked from seeing until tonight, so I can now see who they are.
None of the 4 people have ever done any business with me or even contacted me in any way so they do not have anything to review as regards product/service

Not very nice. Can you just block them again?

Kent Brockman

Bepolite wrote: »

Can you not just remove it/contact facebook et al?

.

I initially contacted FB as I could not see all the reviews, particularly the low or negative ones.
As a business owner I would like to be able to see the negative issues & address them, to hopefully provide a more satisfactory conclusion for the customer.

However if someone is giving negative ratings for no other reason than to put down a competitor (who they have never dealt with)., Then I would also like to address that issue

Kent Brockman

So anything legal I can do about this?

Manach

Offhand it might be worth more trouble than it is worth. There was a recent case in the US about a company who went after a reviewer for a perceived negative review on Amazon. The difficult that they had was proving it was done maleciously, and the resulting publicity meant that Amazon dropped them from their market place.
Thus, precede with caution.

Homer

Kent Brockman wrote: »

I have 4 x 1 star ratings which I had been blocked from seeing until tonight, so I can now see who they are.

Mind if I ask how managed to see who they were? Did FB unblock them for you?

Bepolite

Manach wrote: »

Offhand it might be worth more trouble than it is worth. There was a recent case in the US about a company who went after a reviewer for a perceived negative review on Amazon. The difficult that they had was proving it was done maleciously, and the resulting publicity meant that Amazon dropped them from their market place.
Thus, precede with caution.

Do you have a citation (or even just party names) by any chance? Sorry to be a pest but that case sounds like an interesting read.

28064212

Bepolite wrote: »

Do you have a citation (or even just party names) by any chance? Sorry to be a pest but that case sounds like an interesting read.

Your Google-fu needs work I would imagine they're referring to this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/lawyers-bully-redditor-for-negative-amazon-com-router-review/. It didn't go to court

Kent Brockman

Homer wrote: »

Mind if I ask how managed to see who they were? Did FB unblock them for you?

Seems FB unblocked them for me.

Little CuChulainn

If you have identified them and really want to do something about it then you should be talking to a solicitor. Start with a solicitors letter and move on up the chain to a defamation case.

Manach

Bepolite wrote: »

Do you have a citation (or even just party names) by any chance? Sorry to be a pest but that case sounds like an interesting read.

Offhand, this was the article:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/judge-kleargear-cant-collect-3500-from-couple-that-left-negative-online-review/

Boskowski

I don't know. I understand one would be concerned if ones business was involved. I get that. But clicking on a star instead of five hardly mounts up to defamation even if you never had any dealings with the reviewed business in the first place. I guess I could go there and click on a star just for giggles and so could every kid in town, right? I mean this is Facebook not exactly the Financial Times.

goz83

Can you contact these people to see what their agenda is? Maybe ask them to delete their negative star if they have never dealt with your business.

Going Forward

Not sure who actually makes any decisions based on these ratings.

They're nothing more than page fillers in my mind, and all the 5 star reviews can be orchestrated by family and friends just as easily as randomers on the other side of the world giving 1 star for kicks.

This should have been obvious and considered before embarking on the social media bandwagon.

Is there any method to publically challenge those who left the poor reviews?

Can you post a clear reply inviting some dialogue, saying that your records prove they are spurious?

If not drop the so called "service" that social media claims to provide.

Kent Brockman

I commented under the review posts, with some success.

I have asked the 2 and 3 star reviewers what we can do differently to improve the rating next time.
(2 have deleted their ratings without replying and another 2 have actually left good comments, but said they clicked on the stars by accident and were unable to change them!)

I have told the others that we have no record of them on our customer database & asked them to explain their low ratings. (3 have have deleted their ratings without reply, 2 others replied saying they have no recollection of having ever rated the page but don't seem to know how to undo it)

No replies from the others but some have again hidden the rating without deleting.

Seems it is easy to hit the rating by mistake while using a phone & for some strange reason FB will not let you change it once you have made your selection.

I suspect the ones who deleted & hid the comments or didn't reply may have been a bit sneaky, thinking they wouldn't be found out.