GlowingReviews.co sued by Edmunds.com

aakon7

aakon7

Regular Member
Joined
May 15, 2010
Messages
489
Reaction score
250
Heads up to anyone using GlowingReviews.co

Edmunds.com accuses GlowingReviews.co of posting more than 60 fake reviews of about two dozen dealerships, including eight in the L.A. area.

In its lawsuit, filed in Texas, Edmunds alleges GlowingReviews.co, operated by Humankind Design Ltd., of creating multiple accounts and submitting fake reviews in breach of Edmunds' membership agreement. The company also accused GlowingReviews.co of using Edmunds' logo on its website without permission.


Humankind, based in Friendswood, Texas, did not respond to an email and a voicemail seeking comment. But Justin Anderson, who runs GlowingReviews, told Bloomberg that he was collecting handwritten comment cards and submitting them to Edmunds. He called the allegations groundless and vowed to work with Edmunds to allay its concerns.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-edmunds-fake-reviews-20130724,0,2362873.story
 
Advertise on BHW
Might consider signing up now that I know they work well
 
My experience with "Glowing Reviews" was a bad one, although I was using it to try to get reviews on Yelp to stick for a client. None of them did, and I was charged for an additional month of service after I had canceled. Still waiting for that refund...
 
Joelamite said:
My experience with "Glowing Reviews" was a bad one, although I was using it to try to get reviews on Yelp to stick for a client. None of them did, and I was charged for an additional month of service after I had canceled. Still waiting for that refund...
Click to expand...

The problem is not glowingreviews, its that you don't know how to use their service.

I've been using them for 6 months and they have gotten >>>> EVERY single Yelp review
to stick. Every new listing gets a filter applied for 3 weeks. So you post **1** review,
then wait 3 weeks for it to show up. Afterwards, you should never post more than 1
review a week (for Yelp, places like insider pages are obviously different).

A little bit of split testing / research could have solved that for you.

They are not a perfect company, and they should have tutorials that educate people
who have no idea how to use their service. But for the low monthly fee, and the
amount of reviews I have gotten on all of my listings, I would gladly pay double that
fee for the same service. If you had any idea how many phone calls we get from
people saying "your online reviews are really impressive" and how much that helps
conversions, you would know why their service is worth a lot more than what
they charge.

So many people repost the same review with Yelp, or another one immediately,
the filter never comes down and they wind up fucking up their listing forever.

-SB
 
Last edited:
Well their site is now offline so a warning to companies out there looking to do the same type of service!
 
Edmunds and a number of other journalists outed some of their clients too.
 
The site is gone?! What the fuck?

I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY.

It took me a long time to find this place, and for the last half a year I've been using
them they have made it SO EASY to build my online reputation. I can't even say
how angry I am right now that they're gone. They are part of the reason I got into
local lead gen and started making good money.

If glowingreviews does not come back, someone really NEEDS to fill this gap.

And they need to provide this service in a way that is 100% anonymous. To avoid lawsuits.

THIS IS AN OPEN BLACK MARKET FOR ANYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING.

You would have to do it smarter than glowingreviews did. No paypal, nothing that leaves a
trail to you the vendor. The site would need to be 100% untraceable. And if you could do that
you could make a lot of money. I would set this up myself if I had a clue what I was doing.

-SB
 
I think glowingreviews.co just made it a little TOO obvious.... Great service and concept, but it's quite blackhat no matter which way you look at it.
 
ANYONE with a minimum common sense can see what these guys where doing... it was all a matter of time seriously. Let's hope the next guys do it better, these guys are done
 
What did he expect? his "written cards" defense isn't going to mean shit if Edmunds signed up a fake business and got fake reviews posted proving there was no "written cards" before the review was posted.
 
SpiderBlast said:
The site is gone?! What the fuck?

I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY.

It took me a long time to find this place, and for the last half a year I've been using
them they have made it SO EASY to build my online reputation. I can't even say
how angry I am right now that they're gone. They are part of the reason I got into
local lead gen and started making good money.

If glowingreviews does not come back, someone really NEEDS to fill this gap.

And they need to provide this service in a way that is 100% anonymous. To avoid lawsuits.

THIS IS AN OPEN BLACK MARKET FOR ANYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING.

You would have to do it smarter than glowingreviews did. No paypal, nothing that leaves a
trail to you the vendor. The site would need to be 100% untraceable. And if you could do that
you could make a lot of money. I would set this up myself if I had a clue what I was doing.

-SB
Click to expand...

You are doing blackhat and you are getting mad because the money train is gone?
Welcome to SEO.
 
dragonrage01 said:
You are doing blackhat and you are getting mad because the money train is gone?
Welcome to SEO.
Click to expand...

TBO the reason I'm mad is cause I have to build my own network now rather than outsourcing it.
Not really a money issue, its a laziness issue. =]
 
Yikes that is scary, they were advertising on here for a while.

Id love to hear a follow up on this, anyone know more details?
 
I might be wrong about this, but I believe glowingreviews's founder is a member on BHW as well? HKSEO? And he is the same founder as a lot of other services such as linklicious, 24hoursbacklinks etc.?
 
Thanks for the post, aakon. Surprised nobody else in this thread gave a thanks to you for the heads up (at the time of this post).

This should definitely remind people that any form of blackhat can come back to bite you if you don't take the necessary precautions.
 
I'm also pissed that some company can just throw their weight around and cause a small company to immediately take a dump. Just because some dumb ass marketer got too ambitious with the edmonds reveiws. I bet 90% of the GR customers didn't even use freakin edmonds. This was a very helpful tool to drip feed hand-written (REAL) reviews from client's customers to a variety of reviews sites. I've kept all the comment cards for FTC compliance. This is the case of a tool that could be used legally or illegally.

In all reality, If it's against the TOS of a site to do it a certain way, fine, that's a rule of the site but its NOT A LAW... what damages were they suing for? They knew damn well the endgame was to scare the hell out of the owners into ceasing business.

Does anyone know a service or tool like this? It was much easier to use this tool than to hire outsourcers to do this work manually. Who gives a shit about edmonds apart from car dealers... Most of us need google, yelp, citysearch, YP, etc.
 
Advertise on BHW
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sign up now!

Main Menu

Home Main Forum List Black Hat SEO White Hat SEO BHW Newbie Guide Blogging Black Hat Tools Social Media Downloads

Marketplace

Account Selling Content / Copywriting EBooks / Methods Hosting Misc Proxies For Sale SEO - Link building SEO - Packages Social Media Social Media - Panels Web Design More

Making Money

Affiliate Programs Hire a Freelancer IM Journeys Making Money Pay Per Click Site Flipping Want to Buy

BlackHat World

Dispute Resolution Forum Suggestions & Feedback Introductions Lounge
Back
Top