RipOffReport.com is CARELESS about small businesses and their reputation!

Reputation is the foundation of all things when it comes to Internet related businesses. Whether you sell something online or simply provide information, if it costs $$, you can bet your bottom that potential clients will be searching on Google to make sure you are not a scam artist.

Here's what the typical sales cycle looks like:

  • Product need, want, or otherwise
  • Product search on google
  • Vendor research
  • Vendor selection
  • Reputation review
  • Purchase or new vendor selection

Imagine for a moment, you've done your custmoer wrong. That customer is furious and decides to post on www.RipOffReport.com telling the world how horrible you are. After the customer posts his complaint, it will land itself a spot in the Google search results anytime someone looks for your business NAME, WEBSITE NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER and possible several other items related to your business. The result is lost sales, usually.

That's one scenario. Let's have a look at another. Just suppose your competitor wanted to mess with you or a customer just doesn't like the way your hair is combed on a particular day. What if that customer posted a FALSE complaint on the Rip Off Report? What if it were a complete lie, just to destroy your reputation and hurt you financially? What can you do? .....NOTHING! There's literally not a thing you can do to remove the post/complaint from the search results. You could email the owner, Ed, editor@ripoffreport.com and he will send you a boiler plate response about how complaints are a “good” thing for your business because it gives you the chance to reply publicly and resolve your issues with customers. It gives you a chance to prove your innocence, he says!

Let me explain why Ed's theory is wrong, big time wrong. Don't allow your brain to read his boiler plate response and be manipulated into the belief that this actually may be good for you. Stand your ground. That's all you have in life is what you believe in. It's all about buying psychology. You could call the problem “first in, last out” or “garbage in, garbage out”. This means that the first thing entering a customers mind is the last thing they remember. Put garbage on their mind, you're likely to get garbage out. Our minds are filters that use previous statements, images, concepts, etc... to judge future statements, images, concepts, etc... and so, if a potential customer reads a complaint FIRST, they will likely view all subsequent comments (whether they are positive or negative) through the eyes of the complaint, causing any positive statement to have much lesser value. Another problem is that studies conclude people remember the bad in life over the good by 95%.

Let me now explain why resolving a complaint or responding to a complaint on the place it was originally posted is the worst thing you can do. When complaints are posted, it's usually just that one complaint, a web page with words about your business and how its bad. Should you respond to the complaint publicly on the same page the complaint was posted, you are now taking a somewhat “dead” page of content or code and making it an interactive, living page. It now has dialogue and no matter WHAT you post, you with automatically add to the “credibility” of the complaint, making it seem even more real.

I had the opportunity to interview a business owner serving up internet services to the small business community a few weeks ago. He's the one that helped me understand Rip Off / Complaint sites like RipOffReport.com. He had a complaint posted about his internet business by a business owner that had HUNDREDS of complaints no RipOffReport.com. The gentleman i interviewed has proof that the complaint made about his business was nothing more than an attempt to extort him and ruin his reputation online. Further, it turned out that the person posting the complaint was not a competitor NOR was he a customer! He was a "potential" customer. Sadly, the gentleman I interviewed followed up with RipOffReport.com, showing them proof, beyond any reasonable doubt that this was just a random jerk that wanted to start a war and prove he could damage the reputation of another, with no real cause and no REAL complaint. The response from Rip Off Report, Mr. ED, was "tough shit", mostly. Even after showing proof, clearly explaining the financial damage caused by this post and the personal stress this post has caused, the owner refused to take it down, repeating that “this is a good thing”. It gets worse for this distinct gentleman – He owns several businesses. This slimy scumbag mentioned the names of ALL the several businesses within the complaint/report. The result – whenever you search for any of this gentleman's business name(s), you'll end up finding this complaint/report. Bad, bad, bad.

As a concession, the business owner asked Rip Off Report to at least remove the other business names that are completely unrelated to the original complaint but they refused!

Ed also claims to have never won a lawsuit. He invites you to give it your best shot though. There should be some federal regulatory system for this. If it hurts honest businesses, it hurts our nation financially, unemployment rates, etc.. etc...

There are techniques you can adopt to "help" move the complaint in the search results DOWNWARD but you cannot remove it. ProvenCredible.com is one example of the concept used to help with these nasty complaints. The system populates several testimonials across several unique individual websites that help to SATURATE the search results with either neutral or positive information. Remember, this does not “REMOVE” the negative results, it only helps to move it down int he search results. You can apply this same concept across the web. In other words, writing a press release, submitting to article websites, creating a twitter account, creating a facebook account, etc... are all techniques that will help move the negative complaint downward by creating more “listings” in the search results with neutral or positive information.

These are all great ways to start increasing the # of neutral or positive results within the search engines for keywords related to your business name, services or products:

  • Proven Credible reputation platform
  • Facebook Account
  • Twitter Account
  • Press Release
  • 2nd/3rd Websites
  • Article Submissions
  • Social Bookmarking
  • YouTube Videos

I conclude that your reputation is important and you should do everything you possible can to keep a good working relationship with clients that are both happy or pissed. I always tell my mother when shes giving the middle finger to other drives on the road that one day, shes going to give the wrong person the finger and will be sorry she did. You should treat your customers the same way.

If you want to generally or proactively improve your reputation within the search results OR fight back against complaints, www.ProvenCredible.com is a great way to start. You'll hopefully generate 25-30 new neutral or positive results within the search engines.

After reading all of the above, what are your thoughts? Is Mr. ED right? Email us at info@provencredible.com and I will post your comments.




Should I respond to Rip-Off Report? Is it GOOD to respond to Rip Off Report?- DO NOT RESPOND TO YOUR RIP OFF REPORT!!! You will only make it appear credible by doing so.


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