The Vent and Rant Thread

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Not that I don't relate, mind you, but I gotta ask--would this be less annoying if it were well-written, or...? LOL.

I do concur that the whole idea of fighting fake bad reviews with fake good reviews is funny--but as someone who also earns her daily bread online, I know all too well just how devasting even ONE lousy fake review can be. Believe it or not--one, just ONE fake review, in the right place, can nearly destroy an entire, very real business. I know this first-hand and factually.

Hitch

Sure, I totally get that. I've seen it myself for other businesses that have social media accounts. I've never had my own business. Social Media in general is a cesspool. I can't imagine dealing with it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Sure, I totally get that. I've seen it myself for other businesses that have social media accounts. I've never had my own business. Social Media in general is a cesspool. I can't imagine dealing with it.

I don't want to get into the details, here, because oddly enough, this is one of those situations where if people go searching and then worse, try to HELP, it actually makes things worse, (so please, just take my word for all of this), but about 8 years ago, we had a competitor try to hurt us. And bygod, he DID. He posed as a customer and posted this fake review on one of those Revenge sites. And Gargle LUVS those sites and they would pop up this totally fake thing, each time someone would search on us.

People think, "oh, that's no big deal, b/c you can tell your side of the story," but what happens is, you never get to. They see that, in the search results (on page 1, thanks so MUCH, Gargle!) and they bounce away, to the next-business-in-sequence. Your search and inquiry volume falls overnight. When this happened to us--literally--our inquiry traffic and business dropped 80%--overnight. OVERNIGHT. And as long as Gargle keeps showing the fake thing, you're effed and believe me, they love those fake review sites a lot more than they love YOU. It took me 7 months of posting new site articles, doing press releases, all this BS "SEO" stuff to "push" the bad search result, for the PHONY bad review, back 8 pages, so that people wouldn't see it first thing. I funded the entire biz, all my employees, everything from my own funds, for the 7 months, while we got our biz back. That's what ONE, repeat, ONE lousy fake review did. Now, think about trying to maintain a business, today, in that environment.

You cannot get the fake review removed; thanks to CDA 230 (and don't get me started on that, worst thing ever), the site owner has ZERO obligation to remove it, even if you can prove it's defamatory. All you can do is sue the alleged poster (who of course, posts from some cyber cafe), whom you cannot serve, so you can't sue...and if you DO get lucky and find the perpetrator, then the BEST you can do, under CDA 230, is to serve Gargle with a copy of the eventual judgment, and have it removed from Gargle's search results.

People who haven't dealt with this, have NO idea what CDA 230 has done to ordinary, regular businesses. It's Open season for any nefarious schmuck who wants to rip you off. We get this surprisingly often--"If you don't do this for free, or let me have this other service, I'll post a bad review of you on [insert social media site or Revenge Reporting site here]."

And anybody who has a business today has learnt the hard way, you cannot--cannot--ignore those sorts of threats and what happens is, you cave. Or you settle or something.

I had a guy that bought a fixed-layout eBook from us. We made the eBook. I had told him, UPFRONT, that fixed-layout ebooks don't work on all devices. Right?

We give him the book and he's happy. One day later, his buddy tries to buy and download the book, and can't, because he has a K Voyage, right?

And now, he demands that we REFUND him every penny. Even Amazon, mind you, tells him that the eBook is made perfectly. We did absolutely everything right, it meets their highest standards for that format, right? Nonetheless, he claims I 'misled" him, because in my various emails, I used the term "MOBI" (even though our quote, BTW, says "Kindle ebook"). He threatens me, that he'll be all over social media, telling everyone how we ripped him off and misled him, etc.

I finally gave him his money back. For under $400, it wasn't worth it. But that's what happens. It's not just me. Everybody I know that is heavily online--in other words, people go to your websites and find you--has the EXACT same problem.

It's pretty effing horrible. (n.b.: we've never--never--had one legitimate, unhappy review from a real customer. Not once in now-12 years.)

Social Media is Satan and honestly, the sooner those businesses implode and go away, the better for society, IMHO.

BTW, I do want to say, this wasn't really where I meant to go when I posted the thing about the grammar and the rant--I was sympathizing with you. I can really appreciate a good, well-written rant. The ones that look like someone dictated it to their 8-y.o. who is typing on a smartphone--those kill me. I can't read them, no matter how legit they may be. So...I'm with you AND on the irony of the fake reviews to combat fake reviews. I do also, though, sympathize with The Ranter a bit, too. ;-)

sorry for the length.

Hitch

[ownedbycats]

Bell Canada is an evil company that deserves to be forcibly broken up and/or go bankrupt.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Bell Canada is an evil company that deserves to be forcibly broken up and/or go bankrupt.

I have no opinion, one way or another. But, as someone who went through the implosion of the Bell System/AT&T from the initial breakup in 1981-1984 and the subsequent downsizing/extinctions, I had flashbacks.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Bell Canada is an evil company that deserves to be forcibly broken up and/or go bankrupt.

Originally Posted by cromag

I have no opinion, one way or another. But, as someone who went through the implosion of the Bell System/AT&T from the initial breakup in 1981-1984 and the subsequent downsizing/extinctions, I had flashbacks.

Frankly, all the Telcos in Canada stink, but I have to agree completely with ownedbycats.

[ownedbycats]

Mostly I'm just cranky because of Bell Media changing formats on my favourite station from active rock to some generic soft-rock/pop "variety hits" format. Not like we didn't already have a bunch of those. It also happened to one of the active rock stations in New Brunswick.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Mostly I'm just cranky because of Bell Media changing formats on my favourite station from active rock to some generic soft-rock/pop "variety hits" format. Not like we didn't already have a bunch of those. It also happened to one of the active rock stations in New Brunswick.

I've never heard the term Active Rock before. Could you give examples?

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[ownedbycats]

Something like album-oriented rock but a bit harder. Plenty of grunge and hard rock. Newer stuff too—they'd been playing a new track by the Pretty Reckless which was pretty cool.

The new format still plays rock, but it's all soft classic stuff from the 80s-00s that every other station also plays. Nothing new at all.

[Rumpelteazer]

I've recently discovered Kink, it's a Dutch alternative radio channel. They stopped in 2017, but in 2019 someone started it again, though at the moment only online and on DAB+. They also want to get back on FM, too. But the government postponed the auction of FM frequencies yet again.

They play a nice mixture of classics and new music. I usually listen to it when working on Friday morning and on Saturday, and any other time I'm fed up with listening to current events on the radio.

If you don't mind listening online to the Dutch DJs and news you might give it a try: Kink

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Something like album-oriented rock but a bit harder. Plenty of grunge and hard rock. Newer stuff too—they'd been playing a new track by the Pretty Reckless which was pretty cool.

The new format still plays rock, but it's all soft classic stuff from the 80s-00s that every other station also plays. Nothing new at all.

I freely admit, I'm trying to figure out the appellation. "Active" Rock? As opposed to what, Somnolent rock? Sleepwalking Rock? "Rock for Oldies," (aka Shuffle Rock!) which is automatically dismissed as not-listen-worthy?

Really, no snark meant here. Just curious as hell. Active Rock...lol.

Hitch

[ownedbycats]

Not sure what it means either, but it's the format name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_format

Anyways I've been doing some digging and Bell Media is even worse than I thought. In February, there was a huge layoff (to make things even better, this just a week or two after their stupid mental health awareness campaign that's really just meant to be cheap advertising). There was a sports station in Vancouver from what I can gather, they informed the station management they were shutting the station down in the middle of a commercial break and gave the on-air hosts 30 minutes to get out of the building.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Frankly, all the Telcos in Canada stink, but I have to agree completely with ownedbycats.

The amalgam of telcos and media was the beginning of the end

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Not sure what it means either, but it's the format name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_format

Anyways I've been doing some digging and Bell Media is even worse than I thought. In February, there was a huge layoff (to make things even better, this just a week or two after their stupid mental health awareness campaign that's really just meant to be cheap advertising). There was a sports station in Vancouver from what I can gather, they informed the station management they were shutting the station down in the middle of a commercial break and gave the on-air hosts 30 minutes to get out of the building.

TSN 1040. And yes, it was about as poorly handled as a shutdown could be.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DNSB

TSN 1040. And yes, it was about as poorly handled as a shutdown could be.

Apparently they just randomly cut out with a creepy robotic voice explaining the change... which immediately segued into a song called "Good Riddance." Wonder if they also laid off all their PR staff.

They also took the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy in bad faith. It was meant to prevent mass layoffs, but it just went to the stockholders.

[ownedbycats]

The delivery company Amazon uses in my area likes to dump my packages in the apartment lobby without even buzzing the apartment.