By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2010-10-23 23:30:12 | Word Count: 664
Allegations that Optimum7 has been extremely unprofessional have been posted on the internet and have been making its rounds through a vicious copy and paste campaign; however they are utterly false. A lone poster who cannot be verified as ever having been a client of Optimum7, and who is perhaps a competitor trying to gain a portion of our market share, has been circulating a report that we are not in fact SEO functional and have strange billing practices. These claims are so transparently false as to be ridiculous. We ask any interested party to go to our testimonials page and read these as carefully or to contact us directly, we have nothing to hide.
Anyone who has faced these scammers before while trying to defend their company’s reputation knows the drill. Someone with crooked intentions writes a fake review about your services, therefore taking a punch at your integrity and reputation. This gets picked up and recycled by various websites and blogs looking for new content, then those get disseminated further by RSS feeds and automated blog content management systems like WordPess, and before you know it, your company’s reputation is damaged and your credibility is being questioned by all. The poster of the content does not have to have to show proof or validate their claims in anyway, and in these circumstances; certainly, they can’t. They don’t even have to identify themselves. But that is not their intention; they know that if they can just dent your business’ reputation, they have accomplished what they set out to do.
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Fortunately, at Optimum7, we are abundantly capable of handling fabrications like this one, intended solely to damage our good name. Since we’ve been offering Reputation Management Services to our clients who are subject to the same assaults that we are now experiencing, we know the right strategies needed to the quash abusive tactics employed by poachers.
* The first important thing you can do if your company is targeted, is to contact the website on which the false ‘buyer beware’ was posted. Talk to them and let them know it is an erroneous post, intended to inflict damage against your company. Be frank about how you know this because you’re going to then ask the site to remove it. They won’t do it for you if they don’t sense you are being forthright.
* The other important thing you must do is to respond to the comment directly in the post, letting users know you are willing to defend your name. Ask the reviewer to contact your company directly to resolve any dispute they claim to have with you, thereby showing that your business has no problem addressing legitimate complaints. It might be counterintuitive when you’re trying to show that your company is the justified party, but in the online environment, it pays to have the last word.
The good news: We already successfully have had some of these posts removed by the publisher simply by providing the facts … the truth. Yes, the truth shall set you free.
We are without question taking the steps necessary to combat this fraud, just as we do for our clients. Our experience has taught us that these scare tactics are nothing new, just part and parcel of the new level playing field of the internet environment. We can protect ourselves and any other business needing solution strategies to this all too common problem. Contact us if you have negative unfair reviews about your company online, we can help.
You can call us at 1-800-736-9618.
