John L.

Last month I googled my company's name. Instead of my website popping up like it has for the last ten years, the top of the search was dominated by the text of a fraudulent, negative generic one-star review of my company. This was window for the BuildZoom website. The fraudulent review was purportedly written by someone named "Shanelle" who I've never met, and who our company has never worked for. The review didn't mention any specific work, or the name of anyone in my company, nor a time frame or general location. It was just an insulting series of generic negative comments. I have never signed up for BuildZoom nor gave them permission to collect and assemble their "profile" of my business. This profile has a partial list of building permits that I have pulled in the last 23 years with personal information of my clients, including addresses and job costs. Their site also had inaccurate info regarding my license, location etc. They seem to be compiling this personal and business info from public records and then assigning a "score" based on their partial/inaccurate findings. They admitted that they allow anyone to post a review on their site without any specific verification and that, in order to have it removed, I need to sign up for their site and complete my "profile" (which I did) then they will accept a written explanation from me about why the review is fraudulent. I have no idea how long this false review has been visible to the public. Every time I click on it, the date of the review changes, spanning the last 7 years. Eventually they removed the fake review from their website. My "profile" says there are no reviews as of last week. However, when you Google the name of my business, the text of the fraudulent negative review still appears at the top of the google search with its one-star graphic. On a link to the BuildZoom website. This fake review has done damage to my business and BuildZoom does not seem interested in fixing the damage that they are responsible for. They also refuse to remove my company's name, listing and "profile" from their website.