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Roofer Guilty of Targeting Competition With Defamatory Reviews

Let’s Talk About the RipOffReport Review!

As a service company Sparrow Exteriors strives to ensure every single client experience is positive and rewarding. We encourage our clients to provide feedback and Review our services as we see this as a critical role in shaping our company. We manage our reputation across a wide spectrum of review sites, from Google to Facebook, Kudzu, Porch, Houzz, Twitter, Yelp, and many, many more. Since our founding in 2010 we have maintained exceptional customer service and have been rated very highly. A four out of five star review is rare and sets off alarms within the company as we take our reputation and our client’s experience VERY seriously.

Back in 2014 a competitor went online and began targeting our Company and our President on several such forums, often under an assumed name. Each reputable review site investigated his posts and removed his reviews. One site known for seeking money from victims of online defamation refused.

Rip Off Report

RipOffReport.com is a website which stylizes itself as a consumer advocacy group “run by consumers for consumers” but it’s practice of permitting defamatory statements to remain on its website has been described by Florida’s Court of Appeals as “appalling”. There is no real verification of the user or the claims they levy against others. Anyone with a keyboard and internet connection can log on to the website and make any claim they wish. Using this site a competitor can target their competition with untruthful claims to sully their reputation; a disgruntled employee can make posts targeting their former employer’s family and posting misleading or personal information.

When the victim reaches out to Rip Off Report, they are told the site refuses to vet, let alone remove the content. Often victims are told that for a hefty fee, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, the site will investigate and allow them to respond. Essentially this “review site” exists to exploit a loophole in the laws designed to protect legitimate content providers like Google, YouTube or Facebook from being held liable for the content posted by their users, and then seeks to profit from the victims.

“The business practices of Xcentric, as presented by the evidence before this Court, are appalling. Xcentric appears to pride itself on having created a forum for defamation. No checks are in place to ensure that only reliable information is publicized. Xcentric retains no general counsel to determine whether its users are availing themselves of its services for the purpose of tortious or illegal conduct. Even when, as here, a user regrets what she has posted and takes every effort to retract it, Xcentric refuses to allow it. Moreover, Xcentric insists in its brief that its policy is never to remove a post. It will not entertain any scenario in which, despite the clear damage that a defamatory or illegal post would continue to cause so long as it remains on the website, Xcentric would remove an offending post.”

-Florida Court of Appeals Judge

Rip Off Report In The News

Consumer Affairs

Websites such Consumer Affairs show negative review after negative review regarding RipOffReport’s practice of seeking money from victims of defamation. The company does NOT participate in Consumer Affairs Accreditation Program.

Click each image to enlarged & read.

Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau shows the Rip Off Report is NOT an Accredited Business and maintains an F rating.

Our Experience

Sadly, many years ago Sparrow Exteriors was targeted by a competitor, Preston M Carter of Sentinel Exteriors, who used RipOffReport, Kudzu, Porch and other review sites to damage our reputation. Our President, his family and extended family were also targeted. This competitor posted the names and ages of our owner’s young children as well as their home address, potentially placing them in danger. In the post he levied some pretty strong allegations regarding our treatment of our staff & our customers.

Each site was contacted and each investigated the posts. In each and every case these review sites concluded the posts were false and so they removed them. However, RipOffReport.com refused to remove the post but they did agree to redact some of the content targeting our owner’s young children, all while encouraging us to pay them a sizeable amount to respond. Seeing this as exploitative we declined.

Instead, Sparrow Exteriors and its President, Warren McGrew, took Mr. Carter to the Superior Court of Cherokee County. The Court ruled that the comments made by Preston M Carter in his RipOffReport post were an invasion of privacy and defamatory as a matter of law. The Court also implemented a Permanent Stalking Ex Parte Protective Order against Mr. Carter, barring him from future communication, close proximity or any such postings.

Click the image below to enlarge and view the entire Court Order.

John 8:32

As of the time of this posting Sparrow Exteriors is in its 8th year in business and has maintained an impeccable reputation. We encourage anyone considering us to see our real reviews, written by real clients on sites such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, Kudzu & To Your Success.

Sparrow Exteriors is an Accredited Business and maintains an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, has been voted “Best of Atlanta” multiple years by Kudzu subscribers, voted “Best of Atlanta” by Expertise, has won the National Project of the Year Award and our work is featured in manufacturer Brochures and our company is preferred and listed on numerous manufacturer websites as a trusted and reliable installer.

The post Roofer Guilty of Targeting Competition With Defamatory Reviews appeared first on Sparrow Exteriors.



This post first appeared on Atlanta's Very Best Contractor, please read the originial post: here

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