Everyone wants to remove bad reviews of their business online, but because online review websites are built on honest feedback, they make it particularly difficult to get reviews of your business removed from their forum. This makes sense in the context of honest reviews because it helps to keep consumers safe from scams and to “out” unscrupulous business owners. Unfortunately, when negative reviews of your business are shared and those reviews are false, written by competitors to purposefully make you look bad, or are otherwise untrue and defamatory, that means that getting them removed is equally impossible…unless you have a reputable attorney on your side.
Remove Bad Reviews: Why You Need to Act Now!
As we mentioned above, online review websites can be a very beneficial tool in giving your customers honest information about your business. Unfortunately, these same online review websites open up an avenue for unscrupulous competitors, people with personal vendettas, and online “trolls” to destroy your business with defamatory reviews that are far from the truth.
Unfortunately, like bad news, bad reviews spread like wildfire and just a simple defamatory review of your business can very quickly take over your entire search engine presence. What does that mean for you? It means that all of the hard work that you have put into growing your business and building your reputation can be undone in a matter of seconds. The further those false bad reviews spread, the more likely it is that clients and potential clients are going to see them and develop a negative opinion of your business before they have even given you a chance. Those who do decide to give your business a chance anyway…well, they’re coming in to see you with a pre-conceived notion and that alone is going to influence their judgment of you, your staff, and your business.
So…what is the solution?
Remove Bad Reviews and Prevent Them From Dragging Your Business Down
So what are you supposed to do when you receive a false bad review for your business online? The first step you can take is to petition the website to remove the false review. You will have to provide evidence that supports your case, however. Even when you do provide adequate information to a company, they don’t always find in your favor and that means that the bad review stays up. You have seen no results.
What comes next?
You Hire a Defamation Attorney to Fight Your Case For You
While you may not get results in your own case, that is not to say that a reputable defamation attorney cannot get the results that you are after.
How can an attorney get the results that you couldn’t? By knowing the law and having access to the legal forms and avenues that you, as a private citizen, are unable to gain access to alone.
How Does Your Attorney Get the Job Done?
So, what steps does your attorney take to remove bad reviews of your business?
The first thing they will do is to contact the online review website, let them know that they are your attorney and that you are requesting that they remove the review in question. In some circumstances, all it takes is a strongly worded letter from a licensed attorney to prompt the review company to act accordingly.
If a company does not reply to the request from your attorney or they flat out refuse to comply with your attorney’s request, your attorney will then obtain a subpoena. This subpoena is a document that your attorney will send to the online reviews website owners which requires them to provide you with the IP address of the individual who posted the review so that you can pursue that individual for defamation.
When subpoenaed, the online review site will then have to send the IP information requested to your attorney. With this information, your attorney can now contact the internet service provider for the contact information for the individual using that IP address. This will more than likely require another subpoena so it can be a lengthy process.
Once your attorney has received the contact information for the individual who posted the defamatory review of your business, you can begin filing your case of defamation against them. It’s important to have a reputable and knowledgeable attorney on your side for this part of the bad review removal process because pursuing a case of defamation in court can be complicated and confusing. For your attorney, however, it’s just par for the course. With your attorney’s knowledge of the legal system, your case will be filed in no time at all and your attorney will ensure that it’s filed with all the right people, in all the right places, and by all the necessary deadlines.
Once you have followed through with your lawsuit for defamation, if you win your case you can go back to the online review website and demand that they remove the false review that has now been proven to be false in a court of law.
Let Weidner Law Help You to Remove Bad Reviews of Your Business
If you have false or defamatory online reviews of your business in the St. Pete area and you would like to have removed, call Weidner Law at 727-954-8752 and make an appointment for a consultation today!
