Business is censoring my review

DeskInUse · March 21, 2023, 1:35am

edit: removed URL links to avoid being filtered

Hi Everyone,

I know this topic has been discussed, but I searched the forum and could not find a valid answer that worked for me.

Long story short, I sent my kids to a daycare and had a bad experience. My child was injured and hospitalized due to the schools negligence forcing me to withdraw from the school effective immediately

It seems like every day when I go to check on the review its been removed. The business owner is trying to hide my review since they don’t want parents to know what my experience with them was like. Can this be prevented? I don’t want to have to keep checking if my review is live/public, I would prefer it stayed up and I didn’t have to worry about the business generating false review ‘reviews’ in order to have my review removed. Nothing in my review is false and I have receipts/documentation to back up every single claim I make, even the part of them being incompetent since no one was watching my son due to a lack of staff.

I really just want my story to be out there, thats it. I don’t want anything less than the truth to be stated, so if anyone here can advise me on what to do, I’d sincerely appreciate it.

Furthermore, the business has begun posting fake reviews. Many of the reviews even prove this:

This is from a supposed Local Guide who doesn’t give any account of the business, just that they are “good”:

This is from a someone that knew the business owner 23 years ago and has never set foot in the business:

This one says “if I move to the area I will send my grandkids”:

This is from the owners husband:

Can the business owner receive a strike or some kind of notification that their deceptive business practices in soliciting and receiving false endorsements is prohibited by the FTC? The FTC says:
It is an unfair or deceptive trade practice for an advertiser to misrepresent that an
endorsement represents the experience, views, or opinions of users or purported users
of the product.2
• It is an unfair or deceptive trade practice to misrepresent an endorser as an actual
user, a current user, or a recent user of a product or service.
The business and myself are both in the US, and therefore are required to abide by FTC guidance

I have tried the Google Docs form:
That doesn’t really work, is there any admin or mod that can look into this business?
Business page:

MortenCopenhagen · March 21, 2023, 4:05am

@DeskInUse

Kindly share the review text in question. It is very easy to overstep the guidelines when writing a revenge review. And the business could be correct in getting your texts removed. Also, please describe if you are still able to make the review go public by making edits to the text.

If there are local regulations prohibiting fake reviews, please feel free to take appropriate local action on this.

Cheers

Morten

DeskInUse · March 21, 2023, 4:27am

This is what I wrote:

I had a terrible experience at this school, they hurt my son due to their incompetence and when I gave them notice that we were quitting the program, they refused to refund our unused tuition. They were reported to Dept of Education and received 4 violations in just 1 year, that is a significant amount for 1 year. To any parent considering this place, know this: almost all these 5-star reviews are fake, thats obvious. If you can see that Susan/June are this desperate to hide their shame, what else will they hide from you if you send your kids to them? Is it worth the risk? I hope you’ll learn from my mistake and avoid this place, there are better/cheaper options out there, even in the “Korean Daycare” category.

Please note that the flood of their “5-star” reviews came immediately after I posted my 1-star review, before that the business had 1-2 reviews and it is obvious that the new ones are fake because you can see they are coming from accts with 1-2 review history, they openly say that they are not nor have been customers, some even say that they are personal friends of one of the employees.

gmapas · March 21, 2023, 5:22am

Olá, @DeskInUse

Bem vindo ao fórum!

Vou responder por partes:

It seems like every day when I go to check on the review its been removed. The business owner is trying to hide my review since they don’t want parents to know what my experience with them was like. Can this be prevented?

Uma empresa no Google não tem ferramentas para ocultar um comentário. No painel de gerenciamento do “Perfil de Empresas no Google” não há formas ou ferramentas - atualmente - para alguma empresa deletar ou esconder um comentário. O Google não permite isso.

Um proprietário de empresa tem as mesmas ferramentas que qualquer outro usuário tem para fazer denúncias, como descrito aqui

Quem remove avaliações ou oculta avaliações numa empresa é o Google, e eles fazem isso nas seguintes situações:

Quando seus filtros consideram que uma avaliação não está de acordo com suas políticas;
Ou quando há denúncias de qualquer usuário (inclui a empresa) e o Google avalia que a denuncia ou denúncias são consistentes.

Mas em resumo, salvo erros, o Google remove comentários que violam suas políticas como descrito aqui

Se sua avaliação está sendo removida ou ocultada é o Google que fez isso, e não o proprietário da empresa. E quando o Google faz isso é por entender que está havendo alguma violação.

I don’t want to have to keep checking if my review is live/public, I would prefer it stayed up and I didn’t have to worry about the business generating false review ‘reviews’ in order to have my review removed.

Comentário removido é uma ação extrema do Google. Isso geralmente acontece quando várias violações consideradas graves pela revisão foram detectadas.
Mas caso seu comentário esteja sendo ocultado ele pode ter violações ou ser um excesso de zelo da IA do Google descrito aqui. Seja qual for o caso, se você acredita que seu comentário não tem violações a única forma atualmente de reestabelecer avaliação ou avaliações ocultadas é utilizando o formulário indicado aqui.

Furthermore, the business has begun posting fake reviews. Many of the reviews even prove this: (…)

Você pode utilizar esse formulário para denunciar uma ficha de empresa no Google.

I have tried the Google Docs form:

Qual formulário? O link ficou oculto para mim.

That doesn’t really work, is there any admin or mod that can look into this business?

Se algum perfil de Local Guide está desrespeitando as regras clique aqui e veja como proceder.

Sucesso

Gil

gmapas · March 21, 2023, 5:47am

Oi, @DeskInUse

Depois de responder você eu vi que adicionou um novo comentário.

Eu não sou expert em avaliações, e sinceramente não me sinto apto em achar que posso dizer se uma avaliação é boa ou não para o Google Mapas.

Mas ao ler seu “comentário” e fazer uma análise fria do texto escrito por você com as políticas do Google encontrei os seguintes “problemas”.

"I hope you’ll learn from my mistake and avoid this place, there are better/cheaper options out there, even in the “Korean Daycare” category."

Viola essa regra: Promotional or commercial content.“Korean daycare”.

Em outras partes de sua avaliação, em várias partes há outra violação.

Viola essa regra_: Off-topic, We don’t allow content which contains general, political, or social commentary or personal rants._

Isso é minha percepção pessoal.

Sucesso

Gil

DeskInUse · March 21, 2023, 8:05am

@gmapas @ How’s thi

My experience with this daycare was extremely negative. After an initial incident with another parent, which was mishandled by the school, we decided to give them 30-day notice and withdraw our son from the program. The school was contractually obligated to refund the unused tuition, but the administrator, Susan, refused to do so.

Then, just two days later, my son was injured while under their care. This was a very serious incident that could have been avoided if the staff had been more attentive. After this incident, we told them that we no longer had faith in their safety practices and had to immediately withdraw our son from the program.

Once again, we requested a refund of the unused tuition as per our contract, but they refused. Frustrated, I filed a complaint with the Department of Education, which led to an investigation and the school receiving its fourth violation in just one year.

In an attempt to recover the unused tuition, I took the school to small claims court. However, they lied to the judge and did not provide the refund that was owed to me. To make matters worse, the school is now attempting to censor my critical review of them and has been flooding their reviews with fake reviews from personal friends and family, which is a clear violation of the terms of service.

Overall, I would strongly advise against using this daycare. The safety of the children should be the top priority of any daycare, and it is clear that this is not the case here. Additionally, their refusal to abide by their contractual obligations and their attempts to censor critical reviews are extremely concerning.

MortenCopenhagen · March 21, 2023, 10:05am

@DeskInUse

I agree with @gmapas that your review text is pretty much a rant. I also use the term “revenge reviews” see my tutorial on suspension found here. Please see these guidelines for reviews. One of the bullet points is “Be respectful”.

I’m not doubting that you had a bad experience, but trying to fix serious issues by writing a one-sided review on Google Maps is not the proper thing to do in my opinion. If this place is dangerous, then you need to report it to the relevant authorities so they can investigate the matter.

In conclusion, I believe your review gets taken down by Google for violating the guidelines. Rants and not being respectful could easily be the causes.

Best of luck

Morten

DeskInUse · March 21, 2023, 11:22am

@MortenCopenhagen @gmapas

Thanks for your responses, I truly appreciate being able to get some guidance.

I agree, my review is strong, but imagine a daycare sends your kid to the hospital and pockets $5k of money they shouldn’t have…its more than enough to get anyone angry.

One aspect of my initial post that I haven’t gotten answer for, what of the obvious fake reviews the business is spamming onto their Google review page?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/zScMz4Css5svnaBu7

Can someone from Google do an audit of these reviews and see if the users were even in the business as the writers purport to be?