Is Online Reputation Mostly Blackhat? Getting ratings

When trying to improve ratings, do most companies create fake accounts with geo-location real IPs or do they simply try to find ways to make existing customers give them reviews? I have an old SEO client who wants me to improve his ratings across several sites and he wants blackhat type ratings but I'm not so sure if that is the right way.

What are you guys doing to improve ratings? My first idea is to simply contact people who have already given a positive review and to offer them a discount to add a review to a site that they haven't already made a review on.

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Real customer don't mind sharing their experience if they are provided with it. If the experience was bad, they are more eager to share their experience. I don't think bad reviews should be removed. I think is a great sales tool to show how much we have improved since we fail to provide our service. People love it!

Haven't you seen those eating places fully packed and with long waiting lines, and have good and bad reviews. Why you think they keep them? More targeted traffic. But that would be a topic of its own analyzing peoples behavior and demographics marketing.

I get what you are saying about bad reviews and leaving them. What I'm most concerned is about getting clients to leave reviews. I think I will just contact people who have left reviews and see if they will make a review on a different site. Also, there needs to be a system in place where reviews are organically generated at the point of sale.