Perusing the peopleperhour.com site (where I do post some of my own services), I ran across some “hourlies” that seem to be generating some decent, albeit, easy cash for such users. A quick search brought up dozens of listings for writing reviews on Yelp, Google and other sites.
Take a look:
What’s the big deal? Last October I wrote about how New York State fined 19 companies a total of $350,000 for fake reviews, under Operation Clean Turf.
One might argue that paying for these services is merely a reward for a legitimate review, but the copy on some of these listings says otherwise.
One of the users, for example, claims to be “The original and still the best provider of genuine Yelp reviews”. The company, however, is based in the UK, and requires only that businesses send a link to a product or website. Nothing else.
Another job description reads: “You can send me this reviews cz you know better than me about your business”
I’m guessing that a good number of companies who utilize these services are quite small. I was surprised, however, that many of them took the time to review the provider’s work.
Fake reviews are a huge no-no. They can ultimately affect your business by steering away legitimate customers. While smaller businesses are under less scrutiny, all’s fair on the internet. Enlist fake reviewers, and don’t surprised if one day you wake up to your company’s name being bashed, even if just locally.
