There was also a report about the ratings and how companies paid for good ratings vs honest opinions. The more the company paid.. the higher on the list they were listed.
I heard a similar story regarding YELP reviews online from my dentist. I had been going to him for years. I looked up his phone number on the internet and came across three bad reviews of his business. He stated he knew each customer and incident. He had contacted Yelp to have those reviews removed. They stated if you paid us $500 we could remove those bad reviews from the internet. It reminded me of the way the mafia would operate: “nice business you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it.”
That is not quite right...
Ratings and opinions come from people served by the company.
IF you have good reviews, you can pay for advertising. Part of the advertising “deal” is your business gets placed at the top of the search list in the call center and/or search engine. The company has to already have good reviews under their belt to be eligible.
Is that a bit deceiving to the consumer? I guess it is debatable as most folks will take the first 3 or so listings to call.
This is true. As a business owner I am in there. While they say they don’t take advertising, they are real fast to offer better placement with a paid fee to them. AL is a scam.