I stumbled upon being a Local Guide just last year, and love being one -- trying to contribute whenever I have the opportunity. I live in a vacation/resort town, and also run a B&B in the high season, and find that my Google Maps reviews are a great way for my guests to get my personal recommendations when they are visiting my town. I am also a former newspaper restaurant critic, and now a freelance travel writer, and try to do reviews and post photos from my travels, too. In just a few months I have reached Level 8, and by the end of this week, it appears I'm on track to have my photos viewed over 10 million times, which is very exciting! I write this intro as a way to say I'm not just some random reviewer who has only posted a handful of reviews out of vengeance or something. As I do in my professional writing, I try to write helpful, truthful and detailed reviews, covering things that I would want to know if I were reading or researching a business online.
Like many of you have probably experienced, the Google Maps app will often pop up on the phone saying "you were at So-and-So's yesterday, help others and leave a review." If that popup is timely, I will do a review right then and there. But often I don't have the time to do a proper review, so I give it a quick star rating (sort of like bookmarking it), to remind myself to write a review later in the week, when I go back and open up my contributions in the app to do my catch-up and upload photos.
Recently I visited a law office, one that I personally have had multiple legal and court experiences with over the last NINE years, to drop off some papers. This is a small firm (5 attys) that I can honestly say does a poor job, in many respects of handling their practice. I can cite easily a dozen instances of procedural or documentation mistakes they've made, and have also personally witnessed the poor as well as unprofessional performance of two of its partners in trial court (I witnessed one have a juvenile temper tantrum where he shook his fists, stomped his feet and ran out of the courtroom!). Shoot, their legal filings are riddled with typos and incorrect tense/ grammar, they use the wrong forms, the list goes on and on. Over the last several years I have literally asked myself how in the world do they stay in business, and how many other cases have they botched?
Well, the day after I was recently there, Google Maps popped up and asked me to review, so I left a one star rating, with the full intent to go back a few days later and write a brief but truthful review stating clearly that I was not a client, but have witnessed xyz ... The firm has now tracked me down and demanded that I remove the "review" (even though at this point it's still only the rating, no words/review/content). They have threatened me twice now, by email, stating that they are requesting that Google remove it, and promised they will sue me if I don't remove it by tomorrow, asking the court for damages, along with their legal costs/time and trouble, etc because I am not a client, and therefore have no right to review them. Of course, I disagree, because as long as I have had concrete experience with them, in whatever capacity, I think I should be allowed to write a review stating my experience. (funny, my research says Google will only remove a review if it violates their terms, which this doesn't, because there IS NO content, but also Google is highly unlikely to remove it because it's only the star rating, not even a written review.)
So here are my questions:
1) Of course because they are a law firm, it only costs them time, not money to sue me, so I believe they will make good on their threat. I however, don't want to have to pay big money to defend myself. Does anyone have any info (citing Google terms or case law), advice, or experience having to defend themselves for a review? (before I go off and talk to an attorney myself)
2) I still want to write a review, because I really believe people out there should know how sloppy these guys work. I have researched this also (how best to write an online review that WON'T get you sued), and have found two opposing camps of advice: One camp says don't give facts in the review -- only state opinion, because that's not tangible, and I have a right to my opinion. The other side advises to only write facts that I can physically prove, and leave opinion completely out. What should I do?
3) Is there any way to pre-empt these guys today by me notifying Google of their harassment and threat to sue? .. before they even "call Google to have the review removed" (I can hear them now... "Hello, Google? I'm a lawyer and I’d like to speak to someone in charge" )
I really, really don't want to give in to their sleazy bullying and just delete the rating, and not write a review... people should be warned! It's precisely stuff like this that shows their true colors. They shouldn't win this. Besides, I am proud of my LG work, and believe that I am a credible asset to the program, along with all of you! I did NOT set out to try to ruin them with this review. I had no idea about their online presence, or knowledge of other online reviews. I just did what I always do... gave an honest and thoughtful opinion, as I have for hundreds of other businesses.
Oh yeah, and here's the best part. 😉 They don't have one single other review. Not one. Nada. Of course they have reviews on Lawyers dot com, but none on Google, not surprisingly.
So their Google 'rating average' which shows front and center when you search for their firm, is the one star that I gave them, ha ha.
It's clear to me that they don't even have a clue as to how they can counter my review by one of many things, like responding to me online, or getting other clients to leave enough (supposedly good) reviews to dilute mine, or manage their online presence by setting up a Yelp listing, a Facebook page, etc... or even just getting their webmaster or hiring someone to do some good ol' SEO work so that the first thing you don't see when you Google their firm is that they have a sad one-star rating.
Thank you all in advance for any advice.
2022
