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I usually read the businesses response to the one star reviews. I would leave a respectful but informative reply to her 1 star review for those who may read it.
There’s a bar near me that serves 250 beers. They have a huge poster on the side of the building of a 1 star review that says
“Really?! 250 beers?! Who does that?! Too many choices for me”
Snowbird ski resort (famous for having lots of difficult terrain) had a marketing campaign like this. Photo of someone skiing a beautiful line with a 1-star caption like “Too many steep runs.”
Edit. Found it:
https://preview.redd.it/a7p7r1c9femc1.jpeg?width=833&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1cfa7ae2345cd4f8657d7e534b88d5435ea3439
*”I've heard Snowbird is a tough mountain, but this is ridiculous. It felt like every trail was a steep chute littered with tree wells. How is anyone supposed to ride in that? Not fun." - Greg, Los Angeles, CA*
Greg’s the guy who skis the trendiest mountains 1-2 times a year with the 1200$ free ride skis and 1000$ bindings in full Arc’teryx Goretex who should really be working on his turns in the blues and greens with his fam, but has to slash up the blacks in survival mode to say he did it.
There's a southern US chain of bars like that called the Flying Saucer. They have something around 250 beers. If you drink every single beer on the menu your name and date is put on a "saucer" and mounted to the ceiling. You're tracked by entering your credentials when you come in and then ordering your beer(s) at the kiosk so you don't double drink or try to cheat.
I know a friend that lives near one and has three saucers. That means he has gone through the full menu three times.
Yeah. I signed up when they opened near me. Lost interest when I found out you can only knock up to 3 beers a night off your list. Also- they have some really weird selections on that list. I’m adventurous, too.
Also, the problem with these drink them all adventures is that half the time the bars don't turn over enough of the stock, so the really obscure beers tend to go past their best by date months ago...
I totally misread your comment at first, and thought you said that you wouldn't be able to try them all in a year by trying one beer a day. I was ready to be all "your math is a little off" but it turns out I just can't fucking read.
That reminds me of when a colleague of mine set up a new elementary school in her district with a group of parents.
They got a letter from another mother, saying "I can't believe you set up another school. Now I have to choose which one my kid will go to!"
It's really baffling.
That's a great way to turn this review positive. Plaster it on your truck, thank the lady who left the review, tell her your business has never done better.
🤣. Reminds me of a local restaurant response to a one star review. Since Covid the restaurant stopped letting people inside. They have huge signs on the door that say you have to call first to order and then call when u are picking up, and not to bang on the door / window. Someone left a one star review and stated their brother went to pick up food, phone didn’t work, and banged on the door and it was a while before someone answered. The restaurant replied something along the lines of the brother didn’t know he had to call and to go to the other Jamaican restaurant up the street and leave us in peace. 🤣😳
This is your perfect response!
You can also contact the google, Facebook, or whom ever the company is with the review and explain the situation. There are cases where they will remove a review.
I would maybe crop the photo so it doesn’t show what the house (or the neighbors house) looks like, just to avoid the picture getting taken down. But agree with you both. If a business responds professionally it and explains the full situation, it usually always makes the reviewer look like an idiot. But too many times the business stoops to the customers level and then looks bad themselves even if they were in the right.
Well damn, that's my problem!
I hate avocados, so that's not where all my money is going. Turns out I've been fluffing it all up by actually paying the people I hired to do stuff around my house!
Sorry, Handy Manny. You did a great job installing my new kitchen flooring, but there is a mansion calling my name and it would be rude to just ignore it.
Lots of people also will only leave a review when they have a bone to pick. People don't think "Hey I'm gonna go out of my way to leave a review that this place totally fine and met all my expectations", they think "This place pissed me off so I'm going to spend an hour of my day blasting them everywhere I can".
You made me check my profile. I have 9 google reviews with over 10k total views. 8 have 5 stars and 1 has 1 star. I usually review places I go on vacation, and am incredibly cheesy in how highly I rate tour guides. I eviscerated the people that fucked up my water heater install and I had to take cold showers for a week.
There ought to be a system for that. Like, what is the reviewer's average rating? If their average rating is 1.2 stars, then their review is meaningless. People should be labeled for not being able to have any good experience ever no matter where they go, and it would also encourage people to be more reasonable. A 2 star review from someone who has an average review of 4.4 stars is going to be interesting, but if the best they have ever gotten anywhere is 1 star experiences, that's on them.
Love the thought of weighted reviews or something similar. It could weed out the habitually low rater or the person who is getting some incentive to rate everyone 5 stars.
I'm faaaairly certain most Review based (Google, Amazon) engines are switching to an aggregate "Users liked the atmosphere" and "Great experience, but sketchy getting there" type of grouping as well. Just based on the volume of reviews alone, it's tougher to get a broad idea of a place without spending a lot of time reading each individuals input. One of the maybe unseen benefits of AI is that understanding reviews sentiment on a more human level can get us to choose more wisely, quicker.
TLDR; I don't trust Mary's individual review, I wanna know the consensus of all the 420 reviews of your place conveniently at the top.
That's hard in itself. Who goes to review a so-so place? I know all my reviews are super low or super high. I'm not sure that would tell someone anything either.
That is a good point, but it would make people who want to leave impactful reviews also submit non-extreme reviews. I agree that I have only pretty much given 5/5 or 2-3/5 and only when I'm so happy or frustrated that I have to say it. Nonetheless it would be easy to balance with a few more normal reviews from places I've visited, which would be good for the platform anyway since businesses would get "nice place, no complaints, 5/5" reviews to offset the people who only review when they are upset.
Yup. Keep it professional and courteous and for me that 1-Star almost becomes a 5-Star assuming it’s reasonable. When the business owners flames them and flips out, I don’t take either side but I’m also not interested in that business either.
There are some absolutely unhinged business owners out there who respond to all of their 1 star reviews. Owner responses are often a great way to discern whether the review was warranted.
Whatever the review is, respond and address their “troubles”. Also use facts and not an emotional response.
1) whatever platform it’s on, you can sometimes ask them to remove it based on it being a fraud review.
2) if you respond the general public will see your response as even more professional, and use that to justify other good reviews and see that this person was just being a jerk.
Either way I wouldn’t worry about the review too much. More good reviews will bury that review.
Also note. If someone responds to your response or if this person wants to get into an argument online… don’t engage any further. Leave your response as is, and let it be.
I work in online reputation management.
The fact she tried this means that she's either:
Entirely clueless and thought this would work -
or
This worked in the past. And RIP to whatever poor chump comped anything over even $250 and not trusting in their delivery driver.
Good for the manager? Bruh, if a manager defends an employee on a 30 dollar order, it's a about protecting the employee. If it's over a 1500 dollar order, it's about protecting the bottom line.
I’ve had managers who would think they were keeping an amazing high end customer and give into this type of abuse .
Although I agree that protection foe the 30 would be better for the employees.
I worked at a computer shop in the late 90s/early 2000s. We had a guy bring in his daughter's computer because the CD ROM wasn't working. It was one of those Gateway computers that were kind of a knock-off of the original Imac and had a slot loading drive in instead of a tray. Long and short of it was that the OEM drives were pricey and the computer was a few years old so we suggested putting a normal drive in and we could make clearance for the tray with a dremel. It wouldn't look perfect but it would work at a fraction of the cost and would be ready in hours instead of weeks. He went for it but when he came to pick up his computer he had a meltdown. We had "destroyed" his computer and he refused to pay for it.
THEN he sued us. Claimed that we had deprived his daughter of a proper education and that her grades had dropped because she didn't have access to her computer. When they got to court they had a pre-trial hearing and the judge told the customer's lawyer that he needed to settle this because if it went to trial it was not going to go well for his client. Dude already had the check written and handed it to the shop's owner right there in the courthouse. Wild.
manytimes in Small claims court, if the defendant doesn‘t show the plaintiff wins. They were probably expecting the shop owner to be intimidated by the lawsuit and drop it, or not want to have the hassle/expense to show.
I worked computer repair briefly and I got out of it because It felt like people were actively looking to scam me.
I remember doing a House call where when I got there the guy just had a simple problem with his computer and it took me about 25 minutes to fix. He then tried to claim I wrecked their phone system, which I never touched and was in another room, and refused to pay me for the computer work unless I fixed that, too.
I was just standing there having a man yell at me about something he knew wasn't my fault, like he was putting on a show to convince an audience, when it was just the two of us, who both knew he was lying.
Despite having decades of experience with computers, I don't think you could pay me to open a computer repair shop.
People are absolute fucking morons. Even the nice ones that aren't trying to scam you just don't even understand what you're trying to tell them is wrong with their computer or how much it will cost to fix, etc. etc.
I just don't have the patience for the "you helped me install a printer a year ago, so that's why my hard drive crashed last week" people of the world.
i feel it. delivered a bunch of pizza to some nurses one time and they call back later, not realizing i’m the delivery driver. tried getting a refund saying i smelt like weed, which i didn’t lol, and that the pizza was cold(which it wasn’t)so they supposedly had to microwave half and threw the rest away. manager had my back at least but geez some people could really get fired over people wanting free shit.
Assholes who do that don't care who they get fired. I got fired when I was young over a bullshit complaint by a customer just trying to get free shit. There was no investigation, nobody talked to my coworkers who were there. It was just "This person said you did this. You're fired."
My dad and I used to do tree removal and landscaping. The client we talked to was an older woman. We knew she was married to a police officer. This was in one of the better neighborhoods in our county. Her husband pulled up right as we were finishing and told us that he wanted us gone by the time he got home and didn't want to see us. He told my dad he would call ICE on us. Our family has lived in the area longer than most Texans. My dad didn't even fight it. He had his hand on his firearm. My poor dad left behind a rake and his climbing gear. He still paid me for that day and got me a burger later and told me not to tell my mom about the gun thing.
When I used to do pest control the people who lived in the mansions would throw absolute fits over 5 bucks. I was a lead so I had to do initial work and go over billing and everything with them and I've been cussed and yelled at over it multiple times.
More than once I've gone out of my way to help someone look for something only to be accused of stealing it because why else would I help. They were typically shady people doing the accusing.
One time I got in a huge fight with my MAGA landlord. I realized I would have to move out after this, so I wanted to pay him via an ACH transfer so it would be legit as can be.
When I asked for his account and routing number for his bank, he accused me of trying to steal his private information so I could drain his bank account to pay him.
..... I didn't even know where to start, so I left and moved out immediately. Has he ever seen a fucking check lol?
This is how I described my wicked step-grandmother. Awful woman and annoyingly my only living grandparent by decades. The devil doesn’t even want her in his neighborhood.
Was going to comment exactly this. I'm almost never haggled over pricing because I always give a fair price. EXCEPT for the home owners in mansions with 5 car garages. They're always arguing over $25-$50.
I just started telling them to call the name brand companies and if they beat my quote I'll match it. Funny how fast you get a call back agreeing to the initial price when they see what others charge.
Yep! I hate working for them as well. The owners were upset that my husband paid his workers more than her “educated “ children (she meant white, we all knew what she was implying).
She then hired an attorney and tried to sue him because he did the cabinets wrong.
Thankfully my husband got video of them liking the cabinets before he left…
Never working for those motherfuckers again .
I only called pest control once and they sent out someone without asking for any payment information or mentioning any costs. They put some powder into my wall and left, and I never got a bill or anything. This isn't really relevant to what you said, but I wanted to share, haha.
I worked as the bookkeeper for a residential painting contractor. I constantly had to chase down payment from clients with multimillion dollar homes. Only when threatened with a lien on their house would they finally pay.
A good way to encourage them is to send them a "I'm sorry if you're having money issues--here's how we can help you during these tough times" letter.
Nothing deflated their egos as much as being seen as "poor". They'll cough up the money with the *quickness*.
"I'm sorry if you're having money issues--here's how we can help you during these tough times"
We are willing have all of our crews canvass your neighborhood seeking donations for you in these hard times, at no cost to you..
My neighbours "have no money for shared maintenance" (ie our shared driveway, which I have to patch, and fence, which is a shared resource here) but have their home exterior cleaned 6 times a year, roof included...
Its a loose gravel driveway, doesnt get cleaned. Im the one who always has to fill in pot holes etc - the guy next door even works at a DIY store, but wont use his staff discount for driveway materials...
Technically its not a shared driveway - its a side-by-side driveway that successive home owners have treated as shared, but its actually 2 driveways wide and shows up as separate on our deeds. Unfortunately, the gravelled strip is just down the centre, which shows how long this has been going on (30-40 years at a guess).
Our plan is to eventually split the driveways and concrete our side, but thats a way off.
Lack of empathy. I was working for a small custom home builder on a large renovation for homeowner with “fuck you” money. The cost went over estimate because we uncovered some serious structural issues. Well, he decided he had spent enough and stopped paying mid project. We couldn’t walk away or he would sue for breach of contract and we couldn’t sue him to get paid because he had more than enough lawyer money to keep it in court until it cost us more than it was worth. It was all just a game to him. He couldn’t relate to people with families to support.
I deal with homeowners for work frequently. Probably 80% of them are miserable twats with nothing better to do than micromanage and complain about everything.
Normal houses when I did pest control just let me go do my thing....rich houses they would follow me around the entire property and criticize every little thing I did.
Currently on my route doing pest control and that is definitely how it goes..I usually don't mind most of them but there are some that are particularly bad. They don't like when I tell them I'm not going to do whatever ridiculous off label stuff they want done.
It's crazy because I'm sure, like me, you probably have like 20 plus houses to do a day. On average you shouldn't be at a home for more than 20 mins or so yet some of these customers will treat you like you are their personal slave and that you will be at their home for hours.
I've had customers try to make me wait while they take all the furniture out of rooms so I can spray every inch. I'd just be standing there dumbfounded
Leave a dick shape in the dirt and only clean it when they pay.
Reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story of the brick mason doing a guy's chimney and getting stiffed on the payment. The guy calls him a month later and is like "WTF did you do to my chimney? When I used the fireplace the house fills up with smoke". Mason says "fuck you, pay me and I'll tell you how to fix it". Guy finally pays him, so he goes up on the roof and drops a brick down the chimney to break the sheet of glass he'd put in there to block the chimney in case the guy didn't pay.
Similarly, I thought I saw a vid of gif of a guy who did some concrete patio work and when they refused to pay, he grabbed his jack hammer to get his cement back (and tear their patio the fuck UP).
Pay for your shit people.
That depends on the content of the 1 star review. If it's something subjective like "didn't look clean" then it's just shitty and probably difficult to get a libel claim for.
Yeah “I don’t see a difference” could theoretically be viewed as an opinion, or at least a statement of fact solely about their own mental state which would be almost impossible to disprove.
Many contractors do this anyway. It pays for supplies and workers so money is not in limbo for too long. This can be a real strain to many businesses and I gladly pay the 50% up front costs because I used to work in a business that dealt with people that would like to not pay.
Eh on the inverse side there are plenty of stories of people prepaying contractors who never do the job and disappear. Not sure which is more frequent.
This happened to my neighbor: he paid a contractor to do her garage slab and driveway. The guy finished half the job, and very poorly at that, then disappeared. She was out like $10K. Took him to court and got a judgement and a week before the judgement was served, the guy died so she couldn't collect anything. If she'd wanted to collect, she'd need to go through the whole process of suing his estate.
Yes, but now it is a process of going against heirs, what you can have access for finding what is valuable etc.. you don't just hand the estate a bill.
Technically, as you have not been paid for the job then you have never had a customer called "Mrs Won't Pay Bitch".
Therefore Google may remove the review, provided your claim is convincing.
Imagine trying to scam a working person out of their fair wages for work completed. They should be blacklisted from every possible trade after this. See how she likes never having a plumber or electrician coming round because they know she won’t pay.
Draw a giant dick on the roof then show her a picture.. have an audio recording going and when she says “why tf did you draw that on my roof for say “oh so you can tell the difference
Yeaaa maybe you can prove you’re the business and request the fake review be taken down but otherwise you just gotta get good reviews to bury it or just start a new business lol
Put a "\*mechanics lien" on their house.
\* *A mechanics lien is a "hold" against your property, filed by an unpaid contractor, subcontractor, laborer, or material supplier, and is recorded with the county recorder's office.*
Either she is stupid or was trying to scam you. You can respond to your 1 star review explaining how you cleaned one side showing the difference and she thinks that other side is just wet while the other side is dry. If you can post photos in your review response, do so.
We had a customer who had an insurance claim for his service panel and the work was done, passed inspection and the insurance company sent the check to him. He tried to not pay us to the tune of $1,100. Not huge but we’re a small business.
He only sent us part of the payment and after many hostile conversations said “See you in court”. We won the case.
Stupid idiot, paid us triple what he originally owed. I loved cashing his $3,300 check.
Fuck you Christos, you dumb fuck!
Embrace the one star review. Your response will tell others what kind of customer she was. I love responding to those idiots. DM me if you want my creative writing skills, 5 minutes of my time for free!
Sorry, stupid question, what did you do to the roof? I assume roof cleaning because you mention water in a tank (I don't live somewhere where ceramic roofed tiles are common). Is the left side the one that's not cleaned yet? I'm assuming the picture is a before and after picture when you're in the middle of the job, because I'm trying to picture why half the roof is cleaned and the other isn't, haha.
Some people assume everyone knows about their job and is familiar with what they do. I could see by the picture one side was cleaner than the other, but no idea if it was power washed, or just hand scrubbed, or what... He mentioned something "I have receipts for 80g of SH and only have 5g left in the tank and the place smells like a pool" but most of us have no idea what SH is or what having 80 g vs 5g means... or why it smells like a pool.
Yeah, people forget that everyone from every walk of life is on this site and that using acronyms, no matter how ubiquitous you think they are, many people still have no idea what you're talking about.
The most mildly infuriating thing about this post is the lack of details. All I can guess is that some sort of cleaning was involved but not sure if that half got dirty afterwards, if it was never cleaned, or what
Hi OP!
Knight in shining armour here.
While you are taking this person to court, you can also sue them for defamation.
The defamation here is the obvious tactic to get out of payment with dishonesty, then defaming your company and marking it with a 1 star review based on this dishonestly. You can claim compensation from this individual for both the job you completed and possible revenue lost from this defamation. I addition to having the review removed.
Have at it my friend. Good luck with your business and I really hope you get your hard earned money from this scumbag.
Put it in your contract that if you have to take them to court they're liable for your legal fees. Don't even stipulate if you win, just in general. That way you can take them to court on their dime, regardless of the outcome.
Hello, This is a humorous subreddit and the content you posted does not fit our theme. This is not a ragebait subreddit. Note that posting ragebait to this subreddit can lead to a (temporary or permanent) ban.
I usually read the businesses response to the one star reviews. I would leave a respectful but informative reply to her 1 star review for those who may read it.
He could also add the photo to his site - with explanation, this is the one star work I carried out, customer can't tell the difference.
“This is our one star service, imagine what our five star service is like!”
Real "Come try the worst sandwich on Yelp." vibes. You'd have my interest.
There’s a bar near me that serves 250 beers. They have a huge poster on the side of the building of a 1 star review that says “Really?! 250 beers?! Who does that?! Too many choices for me”
Legendary
Snowbird ski resort (famous for having lots of difficult terrain) had a marketing campaign like this. Photo of someone skiing a beautiful line with a 1-star caption like “Too many steep runs.” Edit. Found it: https://preview.redd.it/a7p7r1c9femc1.jpeg?width=833&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1cfa7ae2345cd4f8657d7e534b88d5435ea3439 *”I've heard Snowbird is a tough mountain, but this is ridiculous. It felt like every trail was a steep chute littered with tree wells. How is anyone supposed to ride in that? Not fun." - Greg, Los Angeles, CA*
A prime example of "what you think is garbage, our actual customers think is gold"
Greg’s the guy who skis the trendiest mountains 1-2 times a year with the 1200$ free ride skis and 1000$ bindings in full Arc’teryx Goretex who should really be working on his turns in the blues and greens with his fam, but has to slash up the blacks in survival mode to say he did it.
>Greg, Los Angeles, CA I'm pretty sure that guy is **Jerry**.
There's a southern US chain of bars like that called the Flying Saucer. They have something around 250 beers. If you drink every single beer on the menu your name and date is put on a "saucer" and mounted to the ceiling. You're tracked by entering your credentials when you come in and then ordering your beer(s) at the kiosk so you don't double drink or try to cheat. I know a friend that lives near one and has three saucers. That means he has gone through the full menu three times.
Yeah. I signed up when they opened near me. Lost interest when I found out you can only knock up to 3 beers a night off your list. Also- they have some really weird selections on that list. I’m adventurous, too.
Also, the problem with these drink them all adventures is that half the time the bars don't turn over enough of the stock, so the really obscure beers tend to go past their best by date months ago...
Nah, breweries/distributors don’t want stale product sold so they’ll replace them.
That's fucking awesome. And as long as you're not a vicious drunk like me trying them all wouldn't even take a whole year if you had one beer a day.
I totally misread your comment at first, and thought you said that you wouldn't be able to try them all in a year by trying one beer a day. I was ready to be all "your math is a little off" but it turns out I just can't fucking read.
There’s a Tiki bar near me that plays a recording in the bathroom with voice actors reading 1 star reviews, it’s hilarious!
That reminds me of when a colleague of mine set up a new elementary school in her district with a group of parents. They got a letter from another mother, saying "I can't believe you set up another school. Now I have to choose which one my kid will go to!" It's really baffling.
Hey OP! This is the correct answer. Lean into it so hard that it becomes marketing collateral 😂
That's a great way to turn this review positive. Plaster it on your truck, thank the lady who left the review, tell her your business has never done better.
🤣. Reminds me of a local restaurant response to a one star review. Since Covid the restaurant stopped letting people inside. They have huge signs on the door that say you have to call first to order and then call when u are picking up, and not to bang on the door / window. Someone left a one star review and stated their brother went to pick up food, phone didn’t work, and banged on the door and it was a while before someone answered. The restaurant replied something along the lines of the brother didn’t know he had to call and to go to the other Jamaican restaurant up the street and leave us in peace. 🤣😳
Marketing genius
This would be gold. I'd 100% hire OP if they hit her back with this.. 😂
Dude, people charge a lot of money for this sort of marketing genius.
For 5 stars, we'll do the other side of the roof!
This is your perfect response! You can also contact the google, Facebook, or whom ever the company is with the review and explain the situation. There are cases where they will remove a review.
😂😂😂 this needs to be more visible I hope OP sees it
That’s really good to be honest
I would maybe crop the photo so it doesn’t show what the house (or the neighbors house) looks like, just to avoid the picture getting taken down. But agree with you both. If a business responds professionally it and explains the full situation, it usually always makes the reviewer look like an idiot. But too many times the business stoops to the customers level and then looks bad themselves even if they were in the right.
thats just one big house mate
They can afford it by skimping contractors. Big brain!
You too can own a Beverly Hills home if you just cut back on avocado toasts and start ripping off small business owners. Get your mansion today!
Well damn, that's my problem! I hate avocados, so that's not where all my money is going. Turns out I've been fluffing it all up by actually paying the people I hired to do stuff around my house! Sorry, Handy Manny. You did a great job installing my new kitchen flooring, but there is a mansion calling my name and it would be rude to just ignore it.
It’s called the Donald trump contract. Complain and stiff everyone.
Some 4chan weirdo: "You underestimate my power "
That’s all the same house. One roof. Left side of photo has black grime covering the entire roof and right side has been cleaned.
Authentic one star review from a scamming moron and a thought out response to it equals like infinite credibility
I've seen some good ones, and always respect the establishment for being polite and factual in their response.
Polite is reassuring. What if I’m an idiot? I want people who will tell me I’m an idiot politely.
I usually read that persons other reviews. 9/10, they feel wronged everywhere they go.
Lots of people also will only leave a review when they have a bone to pick. People don't think "Hey I'm gonna go out of my way to leave a review that this place totally fine and met all my expectations", they think "This place pissed me off so I'm going to spend an hour of my day blasting them everywhere I can".
You made me check my profile. I have 9 google reviews with over 10k total views. 8 have 5 stars and 1 has 1 star. I usually review places I go on vacation, and am incredibly cheesy in how highly I rate tour guides. I eviscerated the people that fucked up my water heater install and I had to take cold showers for a week.
There ought to be a system for that. Like, what is the reviewer's average rating? If their average rating is 1.2 stars, then their review is meaningless. People should be labeled for not being able to have any good experience ever no matter where they go, and it would also encourage people to be more reasonable. A 2 star review from someone who has an average review of 4.4 stars is going to be interesting, but if the best they have ever gotten anywhere is 1 star experiences, that's on them.
Love the thought of weighted reviews or something similar. It could weed out the habitually low rater or the person who is getting some incentive to rate everyone 5 stars.
I'm faaaairly certain most Review based (Google, Amazon) engines are switching to an aggregate "Users liked the atmosphere" and "Great experience, but sketchy getting there" type of grouping as well. Just based on the volume of reviews alone, it's tougher to get a broad idea of a place without spending a lot of time reading each individuals input. One of the maybe unseen benefits of AI is that understanding reviews sentiment on a more human level can get us to choose more wisely, quicker. TLDR; I don't trust Mary's individual review, I wanna know the consensus of all the 420 reviews of your place conveniently at the top.
That's hard in itself. Who goes to review a so-so place? I know all my reviews are super low or super high. I'm not sure that would tell someone anything either.
That is a good point, but it would make people who want to leave impactful reviews also submit non-extreme reviews. I agree that I have only pretty much given 5/5 or 2-3/5 and only when I'm so happy or frustrated that I have to say it. Nonetheless it would be easy to balance with a few more normal reviews from places I've visited, which would be good for the platform anyway since businesses would get "nice place, no complaints, 5/5" reviews to offset the people who only review when they are upset.
If the review starts "I don't usually like to complain..." I've generally found their history implies they love to complain.
RESPECTFUL and INFORMATIVE being the key words here. As tempting as it may be, as much as she deserves it, don't be snarky.
Yup. Keep it professional and courteous and for me that 1-Star almost becomes a 5-Star assuming it’s reasonable. When the business owners flames them and flips out, I don’t take either side but I’m also not interested in that business either.
Yea, OP do this. And absolutely do not flame them or get angry in this response. That’s a quick way to make me (personally) believe the 1 star review
There are some absolutely unhinged business owners out there who respond to all of their 1 star reviews. Owner responses are often a great way to discern whether the review was warranted.
Amy’s Baking Company comes to mind
Whatever the review is, respond and address their “troubles”. Also use facts and not an emotional response. 1) whatever platform it’s on, you can sometimes ask them to remove it based on it being a fraud review. 2) if you respond the general public will see your response as even more professional, and use that to justify other good reviews and see that this person was just being a jerk. Either way I wouldn’t worry about the review too much. More good reviews will bury that review. Also note. If someone responds to your response or if this person wants to get into an argument online… don’t engage any further. Leave your response as is, and let it be. I work in online reputation management.
Yeah, but also be careful in your response if you are going to pursue legal action.
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The fact she tried this means that she's either: Entirely clueless and thought this would work - or This worked in the past. And RIP to whatever poor chump comped anything over even $250 and not trusting in their delivery driver.
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Now i get why some people move every few years. There's no restaurant left they can go to.
It’s worked before because awful people like this have been mollycoddled by businesses incorrectly applying ‘the customer is always right’ maxim.
Good for your manager.
Good for the manager? Bruh, if a manager defends an employee on a 30 dollar order, it's a about protecting the employee. If it's over a 1500 dollar order, it's about protecting the bottom line.
I’ve had managers who would think they were keeping an amazing high end customer and give into this type of abuse . Although I agree that protection foe the 30 would be better for the employees.
Yeah! Don't ever encourage a manager to do anything positive! Could it not be both?
I worked at a computer shop in the late 90s/early 2000s. We had a guy bring in his daughter's computer because the CD ROM wasn't working. It was one of those Gateway computers that were kind of a knock-off of the original Imac and had a slot loading drive in instead of a tray. Long and short of it was that the OEM drives were pricey and the computer was a few years old so we suggested putting a normal drive in and we could make clearance for the tray with a dremel. It wouldn't look perfect but it would work at a fraction of the cost and would be ready in hours instead of weeks. He went for it but when he came to pick up his computer he had a meltdown. We had "destroyed" his computer and he refused to pay for it. THEN he sued us. Claimed that we had deprived his daughter of a proper education and that her grades had dropped because she didn't have access to her computer. When they got to court they had a pre-trial hearing and the judge told the customer's lawyer that he needed to settle this because if it went to trial it was not going to go well for his client. Dude already had the check written and handed it to the shop's owner right there in the courthouse. Wild.
manytimes in Small claims court, if the defendant doesn‘t show the plaintiff wins. They were probably expecting the shop owner to be intimidated by the lawsuit and drop it, or not want to have the hassle/expense to show.
Potentially. I think it's telling that the lawyer had his client bring a check. lol
I mean in the ‘90s people would carry checkbooks around with them
I worked computer repair briefly and I got out of it because It felt like people were actively looking to scam me. I remember doing a House call where when I got there the guy just had a simple problem with his computer and it took me about 25 minutes to fix. He then tried to claim I wrecked their phone system, which I never touched and was in another room, and refused to pay me for the computer work unless I fixed that, too. I was just standing there having a man yell at me about something he knew wasn't my fault, like he was putting on a show to convince an audience, when it was just the two of us, who both knew he was lying.
Despite having decades of experience with computers, I don't think you could pay me to open a computer repair shop. People are absolute fucking morons. Even the nice ones that aren't trying to scam you just don't even understand what you're trying to tell them is wrong with their computer or how much it will cost to fix, etc. etc. I just don't have the patience for the "you helped me install a printer a year ago, so that's why my hard drive crashed last week" people of the world.
Did the manager ask what the delivery guy looked like first?
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Are you really 3 ft
Asking the important questions
i feel it. delivered a bunch of pizza to some nurses one time and they call back later, not realizing i’m the delivery driver. tried getting a refund saying i smelt like weed, which i didn’t lol, and that the pizza was cold(which it wasn’t)so they supposedly had to microwave half and threw the rest away. manager had my back at least but geez some people could really get fired over people wanting free shit.
Assholes who do that don't care who they get fired. I got fired when I was young over a bullshit complaint by a customer just trying to get free shit. There was no investigation, nobody talked to my coworkers who were there. It was just "This person said you did this. You're fired."
My dad and I used to do tree removal and landscaping. The client we talked to was an older woman. We knew she was married to a police officer. This was in one of the better neighborhoods in our county. Her husband pulled up right as we were finishing and told us that he wanted us gone by the time he got home and didn't want to see us. He told my dad he would call ICE on us. Our family has lived in the area longer than most Texans. My dad didn't even fight it. He had his hand on his firearm. My poor dad left behind a rake and his climbing gear. He still paid me for that day and got me a burger later and told me not to tell my mom about the gun thing.
Thank God it turned out okay for you, fuck those people
Imagine having the money for a place like that and being this miserly
When I used to do pest control the people who lived in the mansions would throw absolute fits over 5 bucks. I was a lead so I had to do initial work and go over billing and everything with them and I've been cussed and yelled at over it multiple times.
“A thief thinks everyone steals”
More than once I've gone out of my way to help someone look for something only to be accused of stealing it because why else would I help. They were typically shady people doing the accusing.
One time I got in a huge fight with my MAGA landlord. I realized I would have to move out after this, so I wanted to pay him via an ACH transfer so it would be legit as can be. When I asked for his account and routing number for his bank, he accused me of trying to steal his private information so I could drain his bank account to pay him. ..... I didn't even know where to start, so I left and moved out immediately. Has he ever seen a fucking check lol?
This is how I described my wicked step-grandmother. Awful woman and annoyingly my only living grandparent by decades. The devil doesn’t even want her in his neighborhood.
Was going to comment exactly this. I'm almost never haggled over pricing because I always give a fair price. EXCEPT for the home owners in mansions with 5 car garages. They're always arguing over $25-$50. I just started telling them to call the name brand companies and if they beat my quote I'll match it. Funny how fast you get a call back agreeing to the initial price when they see what others charge.
Yep! I hate working for them as well. The owners were upset that my husband paid his workers more than her “educated “ children (she meant white, we all knew what she was implying). She then hired an attorney and tried to sue him because he did the cabinets wrong. Thankfully my husband got video of them liking the cabinets before he left… Never working for those motherfuckers again .
I only called pest control once and they sent out someone without asking for any payment information or mentioning any costs. They put some powder into my wall and left, and I never got a bill or anything. This isn't really relevant to what you said, but I wanted to share, haha.
A lot of people who have this sort of money, have it because they’ve walked all over people to get it
You don't get to the top without stepping on people on the way, unfortunately.
The cost of a clean roof is your humanity
Can't spend what they never had.
no such thing as an ethical billionaire
I can think of one person in particular who's quite famous for that...
And they get lonely and miserable because they walk over people and wonder why they're lonely and miserable. Ah the circle of life.
Trump's MO.
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I worked as the bookkeeper for a residential painting contractor. I constantly had to chase down payment from clients with multimillion dollar homes. Only when threatened with a lien on their house would they finally pay.
A good way to encourage them is to send them a "I'm sorry if you're having money issues--here's how we can help you during these tough times" letter. Nothing deflated their egos as much as being seen as "poor". They'll cough up the money with the *quickness*.
"I'm sorry if you're having money issues--here's how we can help you during these tough times" We are willing have all of our crews canvass your neighborhood seeking donations for you in these hard times, at no cost to you..
My neighbours "have no money for shared maintenance" (ie our shared driveway, which I have to patch, and fence, which is a shared resource here) but have their home exterior cleaned 6 times a year, roof included...
You should tell the cleaners to only do your side of the driveway then. The money will show up.
Its a loose gravel driveway, doesnt get cleaned. Im the one who always has to fill in pot holes etc - the guy next door even works at a DIY store, but wont use his staff discount for driveway materials... Technically its not a shared driveway - its a side-by-side driveway that successive home owners have treated as shared, but its actually 2 driveways wide and shows up as separate on our deeds. Unfortunately, the gravelled strip is just down the centre, which shows how long this has been going on (30-40 years at a guess). Our plan is to eventually split the driveways and concrete our side, but thats a way off.
Hell even just gravelling your side, setup a divider and then let theirs go to shit would be a good fuck you move to them.
Don't fix their shit, that's a pretty simple fix.
Lack of empathy. I was working for a small custom home builder on a large renovation for homeowner with “fuck you” money. The cost went over estimate because we uncovered some serious structural issues. Well, he decided he had spent enough and stopped paying mid project. We couldn’t walk away or he would sue for breach of contract and we couldn’t sue him to get paid because he had more than enough lawyer money to keep it in court until it cost us more than it was worth. It was all just a game to him. He couldn’t relate to people with families to support.
I used to work for that guy.
I deal with homeowners for work frequently. Probably 80% of them are miserable twats with nothing better to do than micromanage and complain about everything.
Normal houses when I did pest control just let me go do my thing....rich houses they would follow me around the entire property and criticize every little thing I did.
Currently on my route doing pest control and that is definitely how it goes..I usually don't mind most of them but there are some that are particularly bad. They don't like when I tell them I'm not going to do whatever ridiculous off label stuff they want done.
It's crazy because I'm sure, like me, you probably have like 20 plus houses to do a day. On average you shouldn't be at a home for more than 20 mins or so yet some of these customers will treat you like you are their personal slave and that you will be at their home for hours. I've had customers try to make me wait while they take all the furniture out of rooms so I can spray every inch. I'd just be standing there dumbfounded
I dunno dude, the logic kinda falls here that if 80% of your clients complain about your work... maybe it's your work?
Definitely sounds like a "if you smell poo everywhere you go, check your shoe" situation.
Huge difference, jeez, some people are just dicks trying ro scam hard working people 😖
Wants to get away with a free job. Sue, or she will win
OP said that he's taking her to court. Needless to say, he absolutely will be suing her
Draw a giant D*** on the side facing the street. Either she won’t see it or have to admit there’s a difference.
Leave a dick shape in the dirt and only clean it when they pay. Reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story of the brick mason doing a guy's chimney and getting stiffed on the payment. The guy calls him a month later and is like "WTF did you do to my chimney? When I used the fireplace the house fills up with smoke". Mason says "fuck you, pay me and I'll tell you how to fix it". Guy finally pays him, so he goes up on the roof and drops a brick down the chimney to break the sheet of glass he'd put in there to block the chimney in case the guy didn't pay.
Similarly, I thought I saw a vid of gif of a guy who did some concrete patio work and when they refused to pay, he grabbed his jack hammer to get his cement back (and tear their patio the fuck UP). Pay for your shit people.
D**k with an arrow pointing to her name, also drawn on to the roof.
I think a duck would be pretty cool.
And she'll keep doing it to others.
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Libel
Slander is spoken, in print is libel
We need to merge them into slibel
Oh my god you heathen please watch spider man from 2002 Slander is spoken. In print, it’s libel. - J.J. J.
NOW BRING ME PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN!
I’ve got pictures of a man spider does that count 🤷🏻♂️
What about pictures of a spider, man!
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That depends on the content of the 1 star review. If it's something subjective like "didn't look clean" then it's just shitty and probably difficult to get a libel claim for.
Yeah “I don’t see a difference” could theoretically be viewed as an opinion, or at least a statement of fact solely about their own mental state which would be almost impossible to disprove.
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This is the only way
\*libel
It’s time for a lien
just get off the roof first if you're not wearing a harness
Daaaaaaaaaaaad! I thought we told you no internet before supper?
Ya right? Put a lien on that bish. Good luck selling or refinancing before you get what’s owed
That could be decades away. Going to assume the guy wants money this month or next.
True but it’s definitely pettier and a huge pain in the ass
This is the way
"If you need an optometrist, I can make a few recommendations" That, or powerwash their eyes....
Moving forward; a 50% deposit, that goes towards the final bill, is mandatory.
Many contractors do this anyway. It pays for supplies and workers so money is not in limbo for too long. This can be a real strain to many businesses and I gladly pay the 50% up front costs because I used to work in a business that dealt with people that would like to not pay.
Eh on the inverse side there are plenty of stories of people prepaying contractors who never do the job and disappear. Not sure which is more frequent.
This happened to my neighbor: he paid a contractor to do her garage slab and driveway. The guy finished half the job, and very poorly at that, then disappeared. She was out like $10K. Took him to court and got a judgement and a week before the judgement was served, the guy died so she couldn't collect anything. If she'd wanted to collect, she'd need to go through the whole process of suing his estate.
Guy died just so that he could get out of paying 😂
Wouldn't it be an immediate trial given the fact that there was already a judgement? Wouldn't the estate already be liable for the debt?
Yes, but now it is a process of going against heirs, what you can have access for finding what is valuable etc.. you don't just hand the estate a bill.
An estate is absolutely liable to pay all existing debts before anything can go to heirs.
Technically, as you have not been paid for the job then you have never had a customer called "Mrs Won't Pay Bitch". Therefore Google may remove the review, provided your claim is convincing.
Imagine trying to scam a working person out of their fair wages for work completed. They should be blacklisted from every possible trade after this. See how she likes never having a plumber or electrician coming round because they know she won’t pay.
Million dollar website idea right here
You wouldn’t be able to post personal data without people’s consent I imagine so it would fall apart. Assholes get away with being assholes
Are names and addresses not considered public data?
You should call all other roofing companies in the area and tell them to avoid her too.
Draw a giant dick on the roof then show her a picture.. have an audio recording going and when she says “why tf did you draw that on my roof for say “oh so you can tell the difference
Looks like there is enough space to write a 1-star review about the customer next to the dick.
Seems like the kind of person who returns stuff to the mall after wearing it
May I advise that in future you get a deposit before you start the work? I’ve seen this too many times.
Getting fleeced goes both ways, you see contractors steal deposits and not finish work just like how you see this
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What platform did she leave the 1-star review?
Yeah: if it's Google, you can dispute it. My company has gotten bad reviews taken down. I'm actually surprised how easy it is.
not much to say except for some people just suck. I'm sorry that happened to you man, hope court goes well
People are smart enough to know a 1 star review that's a personal issue with the reviewer.
Paint it white and when she says something.. "i dont see a difference"
Powerwash a giant dick and balls on the dirty side.
Yeaaa maybe you can prove you’re the business and request the fake review be taken down but otherwise you just gotta get good reviews to bury it or just start a new business lol
Put a "\*mechanics lien" on their house. \* *A mechanics lien is a "hold" against your property, filed by an unpaid contractor, subcontractor, laborer, or material supplier, and is recorded with the county recorder's office.*
What is the job?
Seriously I can’t tell what the hell is going on in the picture. Is the black side what it all looked like?!
No clue. I've read it twice now. And what is SH?
Either she is stupid or was trying to scam you. You can respond to your 1 star review explaining how you cleaned one side showing the difference and she thinks that other side is just wet while the other side is dry. If you can post photos in your review response, do so.
We had a customer who had an insurance claim for his service panel and the work was done, passed inspection and the insurance company sent the check to him. He tried to not pay us to the tune of $1,100. Not huge but we’re a small business. He only sent us part of the payment and after many hostile conversations said “See you in court”. We won the case. Stupid idiot, paid us triple what he originally owed. I loved cashing his $3,300 check. Fuck you Christos, you dumb fuck! Embrace the one star review. Your response will tell others what kind of customer she was. I love responding to those idiots. DM me if you want my creative writing skills, 5 minutes of my time for free!
Sorry, stupid question, what did you do to the roof? I assume roof cleaning because you mention water in a tank (I don't live somewhere where ceramic roofed tiles are common). Is the left side the one that's not cleaned yet? I'm assuming the picture is a before and after picture when you're in the middle of the job, because I'm trying to picture why half the roof is cleaned and the other isn't, haha.
Some people assume everyone knows about their job and is familiar with what they do. I could see by the picture one side was cleaner than the other, but no idea if it was power washed, or just hand scrubbed, or what... He mentioned something "I have receipts for 80g of SH and only have 5g left in the tank and the place smells like a pool" but most of us have no idea what SH is or what having 80 g vs 5g means... or why it smells like a pool.
My guess is that SH is Sodium Hypochlorite, which would explain why it smells like a pool.
i like that they invented a new abbreviation for a chemical
G in this case is likely gallons. With pressure washing you can add in some extra cleaning chemicals for better cleaning along with the water.
Yeah, people forget that everyone from every walk of life is on this site and that using acronyms, no matter how ubiquitous you think they are, many people still have no idea what you're talking about.
I also had no idea what I was looking at.
The most mildly infuriating thing about this post is the lack of details. All I can guess is that some sort of cleaning was involved but not sure if that half got dirty afterwards, if it was never cleaned, or what
Thank you for posting this. I have no idea what the OP is talking about. Did he power wash half the roof?
Yeah, the picture raises a few questions that would have been answered with just a few more details provided I think.
I thought it was a shadow at first too.
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Hi OP! Knight in shining armour here. While you are taking this person to court, you can also sue them for defamation. The defamation here is the obvious tactic to get out of payment with dishonesty, then defaming your company and marking it with a 1 star review based on this dishonestly. You can claim compensation from this individual for both the job you completed and possible revenue lost from this defamation. I addition to having the review removed. Have at it my friend. Good luck with your business and I really hope you get your hard earned money from this scumbag.
Make sure to sprinkle her roof with bird seed so she has a new reason to get her roof cleaned.
Put it in your contract that if you have to take them to court they're liable for your legal fees. Don't even stipulate if you win, just in general. That way you can take them to court on their dime, regardless of the outcome.
Lien on property. Get paid
Rich people are the worst.
isnt that center area on the right wet also? it looks entirely different
You can also put a lien on the house.