Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews

[Jeffrey Tognetti]

Hello Ryan,

Rather then going back and forth, I have to address our 404 error in IE you pointed out. It maybe because our developers are fiddling with our new site that is getting ready to go live. But I will say this:

1) The FCC fine referred to has NOTHING to do with what is referenced here in our dialogue and looks eerily like a "scare tactic"
2) There are no pages taken from Dealer Raters playbook. I respect that Dealer Rater has a successful business but believe that it will ultimately go the way of Polaroid.
3) Reputation management IS NOT the cornerstone of our business, but it is a service that dealers require. They worry about reputation via CSI and are now forced to worry about reputation being fragmented into dozens of venues across the web, each one like Dealer Rater asking for $$$. Respectfully, I believe you are giving Dealer Rater to much credit in the conversation, there are so many other places where the fragmentation needs to be addressed, thus the need for an independent providers services.

Finally, as for being new to the forum, and "coming out from behind my veil" I have been here for years...posted when I thought it necessary, but forgot my old user id and password. I would have addressed this earlier but it came up in my LinkedIn feed just yesterday and peaked my interest-

 

[ryan.leslie]

ddavis,

(You challenged me to grow an opinion and try to get called something more than a smarta$$ in another thread, here goes...)

Ryan, I was approached by one of these firms that guaranteed a score on several different sites, including DealerRater, for $349 or $399 a month. When I refer to "Reputation Management", this is what I am talking about.

HIRE THEM! Just make sure you have a written guarantee that they will refund your money when they can't do what they say they can do. Wait, you might want to up the ante a bit. Ask them to put up the $250,000 for the FTC fine they are going to earn you too and see if they cash your flippin' check.

Do you have any idea how many fly-by-night's are popping into this space right now promising a dealer they can just buy their way into a good reputation? I have at least one in every market and hear about another once a week. Promising a dealer they can get a number of reviews or a positive score on x number of sites is the same damn thing that happened during the SEO boom when all of a sudden everybody is an expert and promising a dealer they can put them in the first spot for a set of search terms. We've done this dance before and had our toes stepped on by bad dancing partners. Time to leave the floor.

Look, the only way you are going to "buy a reputation" is by paying in time currency to train your staff and hold them accountable to the process you implement. That's it! This is NOT an area where you can write a check as a long term strategy.

Earlier, you proposed a contest to see who could guess how many fake reviews DealerRater has removed. By this, I have to assume that it is a staggering number. The openning question: Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews has been answered. If DealerRater maintains the same diligence, they will continue to remove as many, in the same period of time, in the future.

Again, DealerRater could stop this if they really wanted to. It is all about the money. Honest dealers just want a level playing field.

Closest to the pin is on! I've had a few guesses already, (JQuinn gets the booby prize for being first to guess). I haven't seen your guess yet, though. Take a stab! The guy that thinks that removing content as a means of preserving site integrity is a joke should have been the first to throw out a number since it doesn't really matter, right?

(Nothing but respect for you Sir, hope you know that. How'd I do? )

 

[Chip Grueter]

2) You don't! That said, some of the most damaging content out there isn't the negative reviews, it's the defensive responses to negative reviews from dealers with this type of access.

You don't? If no one needed to respond to a negative review left on Dealer Rater you wouldn't have a job at Dealer Rater as it would not exist. The "You don't" is an illogical statement. So, yes, yes you do need to pay to play in the Dealer Rater game.

As for the following excerpt I am perplexed;
"Some of the most damaging content out there isn't the negative reviews, it's the defensive responses to negative reviews from dealers with this type of access."
Are you saying that people shouldn't use Dealer Rater to respond, or even at all? Maybe I misread that.

Just so this doesn't get lost - yes, I believe you misinterpreted the replies. Ryan was stating "You don't!" have to pay to respond to reviews. That's been free for all dealers since day 1. And for responses to negative reviews, Ryan was saying that responding POORLY will do more damage than good. Responding in a correct manner will turn that negative into a positive for future readers as they will understand that someone is paying attention should a problem arise.

OK, as it was.

Chip-

 

[ddavis]

HIRE THEM!!? Ryan, I have been approached by several of these people. If you knew me, you wouldn't make that suggestion. That is not how I conduct my business.

OK, here is my number 5000, this year.

Whatever the real number is, I think DealerRater will delete that many, next year. Now tell me what that has accomplished. If you found 5000, did you get them all? Was it half? How many fake reviews remain? Has the policy of removing fake reviews stopped it?

In Business School, they talk about hire, train, motivate and retain. I put more emphasis in developing the proper culture. I've hired some very productive salespeople that turned out to be liars and thieves. I found that trying to motivate these types will only make them more skilled liars and thieves. I have zero tolerance and have fired a bunch of 20+ people.

How'd you do? If DealerRater wanted to stop it, they could.

 

[Jeffrey Tognetti]

Slide fixed 404 No more

 

[ryan.leslie]

HIRE THEM!!? Ryan, I have been approached by several of these people. If you knew me, you wouldn't make that suggestion. That is not how I conduct my business.

My apologies, I don't think we connected on that. I know you well enough from your posts here to know you'd never hire them. I was simply pointing out a couple reasons why you wouldn't. If that didn't translate I apologize, there was certainly no character defamation intended.

Whatever the real number is, I think DealerRater will delete that many, next year. Now tell me what that has accomplished. If you found 5000, did you get them all? Was it half? How many fake reviews remain? Has the policy of removing fake reviews stopped it?

Here is where I am having trouble following you. I'm not trying to be cute, I truly don't understand the logic and I want to.

What does removing reviews accomplish?

"If you found 5,000 did you get them all?"- Probably not, but we got 5,000.

"How many fake reviews remain?"- Multiples of 5,000 less than if we did nothing. If there were no prevention Review Boost alone would put that many up if their actions on the Place pages are an indication.

"Has the policy of removing fake reviews stopped it?"- It HAS severely limited it. You aren't going to catch every single instance that breaks TOU in any system, doesn't matter if we are talking about reviews or insider trading, but you should try if for no other reason than to ward off the abusers that would decimate an open system. You seem to be saying that it doesn't matter that content is monitored and removed if you can't catch 100%. Is that right?

"If DealerRater wanted to stop it, they could."- and we are. We vigorously enforce our TOU and commit a lot of resources to that end. It's an important part of what we do and who we want to be in a space that seems consumed with "content for content's sake" and sites that read like a youtube comment feed as Jeff so eloquently put it. I'm offering up data we don't release in a goofy contest here on DealerRefresh just to make the point that we ARE doing something about it. We've removed more content than some of the big names and budgets trying to get into this space have collected.

I guess I'm not sure what it is that you think we aren't doing or could be doing. I promise we work hard at this and would be interested to hear your perspective.

 

[yagoparamo]

HIRE THEM!!? Ryan, I have been approached by several of these people. If you knew me, you wouldn't make that suggestion. That is not how I conduct my business.

OK, here is my number 5000, this year.

Whatever the real number is, I think DealerRater will delete that many, next year. Now tell me what that has accomplished. If you found 5000, did you get them all? Was it half? How many fake reviews remain? Has the policy of removing fake reviews stopped it?

In Business School, they talk about hire, train, motivate and retain. I put more emphasis in developing the proper culture. I've hired some very productive salespeople that turned out to be liars and thieves. I found that trying to motivate these types will only make them more skilled liars and thieves. I have zero tolerance and have fired a bunch of 20+ people.

How'd you do? If DealerRater wanted to stop it, they could.

Is there someone else that also wonders what constitutes a fake review?

We all think we know but we don;t based on Dealer Rater's policy. A fake review to them may not be just the one done by a non-customer or for hire writer but also a review entered at the dealership. When Dealer Rater sees multiple reviews from the same IP they will blacklist you. So not only you can't ask for a review before the sale is finalized but also you can't ask for a review when is finalized. You must wait for the customer to go home, and hope.

 

[yagoparamo]

Jeffrey,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for taking off the veil. This thread started 7 pages ago with a post from your company (looks like the user has been deleted) and now it has come full circle. I'd encourage any casual reader's to jump back to the beginning and Refresh your memory as to how this thread got started, it always helps to know where someone is coming from. I appreciate a good discussion and hope that my response will be seen by the dealers here as that. Vendor Spats aren't productive, but healthy discussion is always valuable.

1. Is your company selling a service to dealers to represent yourself as a customer and load reviews to multiple sites? Most of your comments look like they are intended to justify what the FTC and most here will fundamentally oppose- this may not be the cornerstone of your business, but it shouldn't be part of your business at all. Loading a review on behalf of anyone is a HUGE problem. This thread began there and I am glad to see it come back to this point. A dealer is ultimately liable for the actions of those they employee and paying for review content is expensive. The FTC is already handing out fines for this, $250,000 is a lot of money, but the most expensive part will be trying to climb back out of the gigantic PR hole getting caught will create. Read this article if you haven't already: FTC Fines Company For Bogus Online Reviews | paidContent

Ryan,

I like you; you are a smart guy and a good sport, but the FTC link is a cheap punch.

The FTC ruled against a product that was deceptively misrepresented, in the case of a dealer we are talking about services, something much harder and different to score.

The ONLY person clicking submit on ANY review on ANY site should be the uncompensated person with the FIRSTHAND experience. PERIOD.

Absolutely, but also:

• at any time in the sales process they decide to do so.
• at any location they decided to do so.
• in any format they decide to do so.
• with full access by the business owner to that data (so it can't be blackmailed).

2. This may sting a little, sorry, but how long has your company been in "Reputation Management?" I tried to research this, but I'm getting a 404 error on your site where the graphic that is referenced earlier in this thread used to be. DealerRater has been around and truly specializing in this for 10 years, it's all we do and rest assured, I've read a few reviews. What you may not know is that DealerRater started as the result of a review you would have said was ineligible. Chip had a very bad experience with a BMW dealer in the sales process and chose to take his business elsewhere. The second dealer he visited was a night and day difference in how he was treated, and boom, DealerRater was born. Chip's thought was pretty simple, "Consumers shouldn't have to get that far in the process just to discover they don't want to do business. There needs to be a way for objective consumers to identify the great dealers." 4000+ dealers have benefited from that simple thought. DealerRater provides a platform for consumers to share experiences. I don't need to open my wallet for my experience to be relevant to another consumer. I think I've already established that point. Consumers aren't stupid, they digest content really well and quickly make a determination about relevance. Pithy stuff like cologne choice isn't making decisions for anybody. That is one thing we don't need to police.

If Chip's thought was so pure and simple, then create a free channel for dealers and customers to party together and make up for misunderstandings.

The biggest change in this process will come when someone challenges the system and the FTC or some other organization rules that the reviews about a business are owned by the person that writes then and that the owner of the business has the right to answer to them and to re-post them if he wishes.

 

[ddavis]

Ryan, It is really simple. Have a three strike policy:

Strike 1) remove the fake reviews
Strike 2) leave the fake review(s) and identify them as a fake(s) or questionable
Strike 3) you're out - blacklist

That would not only bring more integrity to DealerRater, but you would spend less time, eventually, investigating. It would stop all of this funny business and give the dealerships a level playing field.

 

[Eley Duke]

Ryan, It is really simple. Have a three strike policy:

Strike 1) remove the fake reviews
Strike 2) leave the fake review(s) and identify them as a fake(s) or questionable
Strike 3) you're out - blacklist

That would not only bring more integrity to DealerRater, but you would spend less time, eventually, investigating. It would stop all of this funny business and give the dealerships a level playing field.

Wait, Ryan, doesn't Dealer Rater already have a fake review policy of black listing a dealer over fake reviews?

Also while on the fake review subject and talking about Google, several have been using A large Honda dealer in Miami as a perfect example about their 1,200+ reviews! But also lately they have been talked about for fake reviews on Google, with multiple reviews in the same day and week by several user names! Just saying.