Contractors say bogus negative Google evaluations a huge hit to their company
Nicholas Waldram of EaveSafe Gutter Protection and Jackson Mayers of Gutter Guys Plus each say that starting a few weeks ago, unfavorable critiques started to seem on their company pages at the price of about one particular a day.
Each contractors say they right away compared the names of the posters to their client list and determined that the testimonials weren't written by actual customers. In some circumstances, they posted replies stating such.
Mayers mentioned he was notified soon after receiving a one particular-star evaluation on Google's 5-star scale back in February. But it wasn't just the low rating that was a challenge, it was also the written evaluation. Mayers was suspicious correct away mainly because at the time one particular of the adverse reviews appeared, daytime temperatures have been nevertheless nicely beneath freezing. He typically doesn't install gutters in winter due to the fact the caulking used to waterproof seams usually won't seal adequately.
But it wasn't just Gutter Guys. Mayers began to examine notes with his friend and competitor Nicholas Waldram of EaveSafe Gutter Protection.
Waldram had also been dealing with suspicious one particular-star critiques posted by accounts with names that didn't match his client database. He reached out to the posters for clarification, but didn't get any response back.
He said he had a five-star Google rating prior to the current string of 1-star critiques but the negatives pushed that down considerably.
“These new evaluations have dropped us down to a 4.4 star rating,” he mentioned. “It takes an emotional toll. Every person right here requires a lot of pride in what we do.”
Whilst there are some similarities in the comments, each contractors said the account profiles utilized in the one-star evaluations weren't identical.
Some of the accounts have been new, other people had many evaluations of diverse corporations from months or years ahead of. 1 account utilized a photo lifted from the Facebook web page of what appears to be a high school student.