Do you ever type in Google and search your name to see what comes up? How about your business or its competitors?

Well, one day A Perfect 10 Fencing did just that and was surprised at what they saw. Their name came up on ripoffreport.com with a very derogatory review.

Tobias Eastin, the owner of A Perfect 10 Fencing, takes his online reputation very seriously as they receive a lot of leads off the internet and immediately read the review. He was extremely upset as he read through it, trying to figure out who might be writing this about his company.

So that you can visualize how someone might be reading this about their company, here is the text of the original false report, which is being attributed to an anonymous and still unidentified “serial author.” I have “x”ed out the name of the company, as this was filed on at least 23 other local fence companies. No need to single out A Perfect 10. This is verbatim from the online post:
“XXX Fence Co. is a horrible company to have install your fence hudson Florida

I use to work for XXX Fence Co. and wanted to tell people a thing or two before you have XXX Fence Co. come out. I moved out of state to start my own restaurant business and left XXX Fence Co. back in 2011. Owning a restaurant business and offering quality food and taking care of my customers are my number one goal, so anything below that would bother me; this is why I wanted to write this review about XXX Fence Co. Here’s some good info for customers to think about first before you have XXX Fence Co. come out. High reviews that you find with this company are just plain out bogus. They claim to offer such “great work”, but the owner of XXX Fence Co. is just your typical Pasco county drug addict trying to make a quick buck. Yea, they might be cheaper than most companies out there, BUT they order cheap china fencing and presents a bogus booklet to customers during a quote claiming that his fence is “USA” made and offers a “lifetime warranty” on the fence. This is bogus by all means. The fence you see when they come out is NOT what you will be getting. Your fence might look pretty once they get done putting it up, BUT give it about 2-6 months and you will start to see the fence sag and gates bow in. WHY? Because the fence is very cheaply made, along with them not using concrete on any of the post or gates for reinforcement and I asked XXX Fence Co. once why they don’t use concrete on the fencing post or gates, the response were ‘to make more profit from the job and to get the job done quicker.’’ ”

As Mr. Eastin with A Perfect 10 Fencing started to research further, he noticed this same online negative review existed for a few of his local competitors. He immediately reached out to them to advise them of what was going on. They each were startled by this. Then Mr. Eastin’s next action was to contact me, in my capacity as president of the Central Florida Chapter of the American Fence Association, which represents fence contractors in Central and North Florida, to see what, if anything, the association could do for him.

Even though A Perfect 10 Fencing is not currently a member of the American Fence Association, Mr. Eastin has known me for some time and knew if anyone would help, that I would do so. In my office, I began researching these reports and had found a total of 12 companies who were listed with extremely similar reports. I also researched ripoffreport.com and decided to try to contact them.

I immediately drafted a letter to ripoffreport. com illustrating my concerns about these inflammatory and obviously dubious reports on the ripoffreport.com web site. At first, I was stonewalled by their support and legal departments, which I expected to happen. However, after I reached the founder of ripoffreport.com, Ed Magedson, he researched my request which had increased to 16 reports in a short time period that were posted in July 2014.

After Mr. Magedson did his due diligence, he agreed that there was someone who was unscrupulously utilizing his web site for personal gain. He contacted the author of all of the reports and gave them a time period to prove their accusations. However, the perpetrator never responded. Mr. Magedson was very upset that his “for consumer, by consumer” web site was used in such a manner.

However he was torn because his web site policy is not to remove any reports. While it took a few months, through the cooperation of myself and the due diligence of Mr. Magedson, these reports, now totaling 23, are being modified to inform customers that, while the report is there and cannot be removed, the report is false and the result of a serial author. It explains how ripoffreport.com feels they must warn customers of this unscrupulous behavior.

Here is the verbatim text of the alert that Mr. Magedson has posted:
“A Perfect 10 Fencing—Likely a good fence company. Ripoff Report Investigates. A Perfect 10 Fencing FALLS VICTOM to a SERIAL AUTHOR, likely a competitor. SERIAL AUTHOR Writes 16 Ripoff Reports, Each Similarly Worded, About Different Fence Companies in Central Florida. Don’t Believe Everything You Read! Proceed with CAUTION. INFORMATION Provided in this Report is HIGHLY SUSPECT AND MISLEADING! NAME OF COMPANY HAD NO NEGATIVE REPORTS PRIOR TO THIS SUSPECT REPORT and it is likely a good company to do business with.”

Additionally Mr. Magedson has provided me with the e-mail addresses and IP addresses of the perpetrator(s). All 23 reports came from 3 IP addresses. One IP address traces to a parking lot while the other two trace to a residential home. I have been in contact with the Internet Crime Complaint Center attorneys as well as local authorities who this perpetrator is, which appears to be located in Pasco County, Fla. For the sake of the 23 businesses that have been affected, I hope to bring the perpetrator to justice in the near future.

When approached by Mr. Eastin at A Perfect 10 Fencing, I realized this was an issue immediately affecting our industry. Some of the 23 business affected are members of the Central Florida Chapter of the American Fence Association and some are not currently members.

However this is a situation which affects our industry and this is what the American Fence Association is and has always been about—protecting the interests of consumers and contractors as it relates to our fence industry.

I was happy to get involved and help these companies and hopefully they will see the value in becoming a member of the American Fence Association if they are not current members. For those who are members, this is what they know and love about the American Fence Association. We are happy for the help of ripoffreport.com in assisting us with this issue and hopefully we can bring the perpetrator to justice in the near future.

For more information on the Central Florida Chapter of the American Fence Association, e-mail info@fenceassociation.com or visit www.fenceassociation.com for general information on the organization.

Jessica Burton is VP of Sales & Marketing at Poly Vinyl Creations, Inc. and President, AFA Central Florida Chapter of the American Fence Association.