Phone Call
Yesterday, I got a phone call at the office that started like this:
Voice on phone: Hello! Is this Accordion Guy?
Me: Yes, this is. How can I help you?
Voice on phone: My name is [X] and I own [moving company X]. I was wondering how I can get a comment removed from your blog.
It turned out to be another case of my blog entry titled Anyone Know any Good Toronto Movers? having a Google-based ripple effect. Regular readers of this blog will recall that this is the entry that led to my receiving a phone call from Quick Boys Moving. As a Google search will show, their vague threats backfired on them; the first page of results is largely about their thuggery.
In the entry, he said that [moving company X] got a couple of bad reviews. These reviews, being in a highly-linked article, were the number one results for Google searches on his moving company’s name. He was asking what he could do to get those comments removed, and if he could buy ad space on this blog. I explained to him that the ads were Google Ads; the content of the ads were determined by Google’s analysis of the contents of the web page currently being shown.
At least this guy was considerably more pleasant that the thug who called from Quick Boys. I was in a rush to get a lot of things done, so I took down his name and number and said I’d look into it and get back to him.
What I Plan to Do
I doubt that those comments were economic tort. I’m going to try and contact the people who left the comments about [moving company X] and see if they still stand behind what they posted. Based on this, I’ll make the decision as to whether those comments will stay or be deleted.
It’s incredibly unlikely that I will delete them. I asked specifically for opinions on movers in Toronto because I was moving and because it seemed that the general opinion is that there are many unscrupulous movers out there. These people came forward with their opinions and their experiences, and if you’re getting bad reviews, perhaps it’s because you’re providing terrible service. The way to fix this is not through threats or offers to buy ad space from me; it’s to provide good service and to respond in kind: with a rebuttal online.
Which Movers Did I End Up Using?
Based on the recommendations in the comments to my article, I went with Tippet-Richardson. Yes, they were pricier — about CDN$1000 for four hours — but they sent three guys in a truck equipped with all sorts of packing gear, wardrobe boxes and padding, and they were professionals who treated my nearly three bedrooms’ worth of stuff very well.
