Have you ever found yourself desperate to erase a negative review?

There are numerous “reputation management” companies out there that may try to take advantage of your situation.

You might encounter ads boasting “Guaranteed Review Removal” or “Pay Only If It’s Removed.” This is a highly lucrative industry that capitalizes on the fears of business owners willing to pay to have negative feedback eliminated.

In reality, no reputation management firm, regardless of how much you pay, can guarantee the removal of bad reviews from Google. Reviews are only taken down if they violate Google’s content policies. No company has the power to delete a review, nor can you pay Google for removal.

There are no hidden secrets or backdoor methods to getting reviews removed. The real challenge lies in finding a Google Support representative who understands the guidelines. At best, any paid service might just be effective at communicating with Google Support about its policies.

However, the reality is often much less favorable. So, how do these reputation companies operate?

If your Condo Association or HOA does not have a website, or if your existing website is not in compliance, Concept Digital Media can help.

Florida Statute requires Condominium and Homeowners Association to own and operate a public website where residents and owners can access a variety of documents, without having to contact management or the board

Condominium and HOA websites must also have a password-protected subsection that allows for sensitive information to be shared securely, while protecting the privacy of the owners.

In addition to the numerous legal requirements designed to address transparency concerns, HOA and Condo websites can feature event photos, amenities, and other community highlights designed to attract prospective buyers in an efficient and cost-effective way.

Key features of the best HOA and Condo Association websites include:

Google has been placing increasing importance on mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor for websites.

Starting from July 5, 2024, Google will stop indexing websites that are not mobile-friendly. This means if your website's content cannot be accessed or viewed properly on a mobile device, Google will not include it in its search index, potentially leading to a significant loss of visibility in search engine results.

To ensure your website remains indexed and visible in Google search results after this date, it's crucial to ensure that your site is optimized for mobile devices. This typically involves using responsive web design techniques that adjust the layout and content of your site based on the screen size and orientation of the device accessing it.

If you have an older static website, we can upgrade it to be fully responsive and mobile friendly. Call or contact us through the website for a quotation.

Avoiding becoming a victim of email phishing scams involves being vigilant and following some best practices to recognize and respond to phishing attempts.

Phishing is a cybercrime technique in which unsuspecting individuals are contacted via email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate business or reputable person.  The emails try to lure people into providing sensitive data such as personal information, banking and credit card details, or passwords.  

Here's how you can avoid falling for email phishing scams:

Verify the Sender

Check the sender's email address. Be cautious if the sender's address looks suspicious, contains misspelled words, or is from an unfamiliar domain. Be particularly vigilant of email addresses that impersonate trusted organizations or people – if you look closely there is usually a slight misspelling of the email address.

Never Trust Unsolicited Requests

Be skeptical of unexpected emails asking for personal or financial information. Legitimate organizations typically will never ask for such information via email. Verify the legitimacy of the request independently, preferably through official channels like the company's website or customer service.

If you received a letter from Domain Name Services, Do not pay! It’s a scam! Throw it in the trash. 

This is a scam company (util.com) that sends what at first glance looks like a bill.  The letter says your domain is about to expire and you can take advantage of their “best savings” to renew it.  This company will try to get you to transfer your domain to them so they can charge over 3 times the usual cost, and probably hold your domain name hostage.

If you have registered your own domain through a company like GoDaddy, they will be the ones to contact you when it’s time to renew.

Unfortunately, domain name registration and renewal scams are very common. I get a couple of emails every month from clients asking what they should do with a letter/bill they’re received.

If you read the letter you’ll notice that it actually says “This is not a bill” but obviously there are enough people who fall for this because they send these notifications out quite regularly.

If you get one of these letters, and you are not sure if it’s a scam:

There are some larger marketing companies who occasionally contact my clients.

One company in particular from California spends quite a lot of money. They drop off toolboxes full of cookies, Yeti Tumblers, and even boxes containing a LCD Video Brochure (a video screen that played a commercial). According to this company, all they want is “15 minutes of the business owners time”.

Companies like this use aggressive salespeople who are only trying to make their commission. They promise the world, and sometimes they want to take over your website and then hold you hostage. You will get billed $600 to $800 per month for SEO services (more if they talk you into PPC) with a contract that is almost impossible to get out of.

They will say they have over 400 employees (the majority of them are salespeople), but they may outsource most of their web development and SEO to India. This is why your “customer service rep” will never be able to answer questions or get any work finished in a timely manner.

They do have lots of reports with pretty graphics that make little sense.

One of these salespeople who contacted a client had to brag in an email about her mad skills:

If you have a website, then you probably receive spam SEO emails on a regular basis by scammers trying to make a quick buck, or worse yet doing something malicious.

Naturally, when I receive a spam email it’s mild annoyance and I just delete it. But occasionally, a newer client will forward a spam email that claims their website isn’t as good as it should be. And sometimes even ask “is this something I should be worried about” I can’t blame the client if they want to know what’s going on, after all – it’s their business and their livelihood and anyone would be concerned if they kept getting emails saying their website could do better.

You’ve probably received emails like these:

“I found your details on Google.com and I have looked at your website and realized your website has great design but your website ranking is not good on all search engines Google, AOL, Yahoo and Bing.

Do you want more targeted visitors on your website? We can place your website on Google’s 1st Page. Yahoo, AOL, Bing. Etc. “

Or…

There are web development companies all over the world – legitimate web design companies!

A lot of spam emails claim they are part of a large group of professionals from India and they want to design your next website. Sometimes these are start-ups or inexperienced tennagers, but sometimes these are malicious emails just trying to get your information and take your money.

You’ve probably seem an email like this:

Hello,

I sincerely hope you are doing well.

We are India based Web Design company with primary focus on SEO based Website Design & Development (PHP development).

We have a dedicated team of 150 professional designers, developers and SEO specialists; especially for Graphic/Flash/3D designing.

We can assure you of getting quality works. Most firms overseas have achieved a significant amount of savings by outsourcing either part of, or their entire work to us in India.

We would like you to give us an opportunity to work with your company and AMAZE you with our service.
Please let us know in case you are interested.

Kind Regards,

Damita

They always use an outlook email or Google email address (Free email accounts). Never a full name, phone number, company name, address, or website.

Some spammers will crawl the web to collect email addresses so they can sell them to other spammers. An email address once posted on the web is likely to be spammed forever, even if was removed from the web.

Lately a lot of us are getting bombarded with unsolicited and poorly written emails from Eric Jones. 

They usually come through a website contact form, and even adding Google reCAPTCHA to the form doesn’t seem to help. Every email is sent from a different IP addresses, so we can’t block the IP. 

A typical email looks like this:

First name: Eric
Last name: Jones
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: 555-555-1212

Share your experience or ask a question: Hi, my name is Eric and I’m betting you’d like your website to generate more leads.

Here’s how:

In the past few days I’ve had clients forward phishing scam emails to me that claim they have copyrighted images on their websites.

The emails come through website contact forms and ask you to click on a link to view a document which shows which images have been used without permission.

Remember – never click on links in any email sent from someone you do not know. If these links are clicked on they will download viruses, malware, etc. to your computer. Then the hacker may be able to hold your device hostage and demand some kind of payment, obtain access to your computer and compromise accounts like email and banking, or Inject viruses that infect your computer and use it to launch attacks against others.

The emails come from emails like Melgallery654@gmail, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. etc. with names like Mel Johnson, Mel Stone, Meleeora, Mellie, Melina, Melissa or even Melibella.

They claim to be a qualified photographer, licensed illustrator, certified illustrator, professional photographer, licensed photographer or illustrator etc…

Here is one of the emails:

This morning (March 23, 2021) 2 different clients of mine received a bogus invoice via FAX (Yes I said FAX) from a company called Web Envy.

The invoices were for SEO/Link Building services for $98.57.

This is the first time I've ever seen one of these letters being sent via fax. And normally there is some fine print saying “this is not a bill, etc. But this came through like a regular invoice.

Supposedly this company is in Texas but the number the FAX was sent from was (239) 237-1702 which is a Florida number. A quick search on this phone number showed many complaints about this number with some people stating when they received the fax via eFax the PDF’s contained Malware.

Apparently, the phone number (239) 237-1702 also sends bogus faxes claiming to be from GoDaddy, CareMax Pharmacy and even Amazon as well.

Since the pandemic started there has been a noticeable increase in phishing emails, scams, and different types of fraud.

Recently phishing attacks look even more like they came from a specific company. This is called “spearfishing,” and hackers might pose as your bank, credit card company, or a site like Dropbox or PayPal. Generally, targets receive an email that looks as if it came from a legitimate business. You might be prompted to click on a link to “verify account details” and from there, malware is installed on your device.

Where you once had to download a file or an app to get malware, it’s now a matter of clicking a link. These kind of fileless attacks are also more difficult to detect, as most antivirus programs only scan your hard drive.

What to Do if you receive one of these emails

• Never click a link in an email that comes from a bank, government agency, or commercial institution. If the link comes from a company, check your account by going directly to the website by typing the URL into the navigation bar manually.
• Check at least once a week for updates for your computer’s security software, and run scans several times a week. I personally have used Webroot for the last 8 years – it runs in the background and automatically scans for viruses. I have been very happy with it. Also Malwarebytes is a great program that removes malware and spyware.
• If you get an unsolicited call from someone who claims to be a tech support provider for your computer or software – hang up!
• If you get any warning message on your computer – read it carefully. Bad grammar or misspelled words are telltale signs of a false warning.
• If you get a fake virus alert message – just shut down your browser. You can do this on a Windows PC by pressing Control-Alt-Delete and bringing up the Task Manager. On a Mac, press the Option, Command, and Esc (Escape) keys, or use the Force Quit command from the Apple menu.
• Never allow someone who calls you out of the blue to access your computer remotely.
• Never rely on caller ID to determine if a caller is on the level. Scammers can make it appear as if they’re calling from a legitimate number.
• Never give your computer username or any account passwords to someone over the phone.
• Never provide financial information to someone who calls a few days, weeks or months after you've made a tech support purchase and asks if you were satisfied — it's probably a “refund scam.” If you say “No,” the caller will ask for bank or credit card information, ostensibly to deposit a refund in your account but actually to steal from you.

The majority of the content used for this blog post was taken from a great email newsletter sent out a while back from H-Built Computers here in Sarasota. Sadly, the owner closed the business this last year to pursue his passion for video production. I really miss those guys, they built 3 different computers for me over the years and did all my IT work. They were the go-to guys I trusted my computer to when there was a problem. Heath – I hope you don’t mind me “borrowing” your newsletter content, but it was some great advice I wanted to pass along.

If you need Video Production or Graphic design and you are in the Sarasota Fl or Johnson City TN area – check out Rocket Booster. They also do Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing and Web Development (I don’t mind giving them a plug – I know they do great work). Also check out Heath Jordan’s site.

I always find it amusing when I get emails like the one below. Obviously, this is not a real person and even if it was they never looked at my website. Unfortunately too many people who get these spam emails actually reply to them – and that only encourages these spammers.

Sometimes they even send emails that have been personalized with your name and website address, but rest assured it was an email automatically generated by software probably on a computer located in a dark dusty closet in Turkey, china, or India.

The software behind these emails uses publicly available information on domain name owners to get the contact emails.  Or, your contact info may have been just on a list purchased by the spammer.

When hundreds of thousands of emails are sent – they only need a handful of gullible people to take the bait.

From: Caroline Vance <vance _caroline@ aol.com>;
Sent: Fri, May 29, 2020 5:38 am
Subject: Re: Website Designing

Internet Networx SCAM

Scammer's website Www.internetnetworx.net
Scammer's address PO Box 957268 Duluth, Georgia 30095
Scammer's email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Type of a scam Fake Invoice/Supplier Bill

Scam artists often send fake invoices to businesses hoping to trick them into paying for products or services that they did not order, that have little or no value, or that are never delivered. Many of these “invoices” appear at first glance to be legitimate bills.

One of these is a website listing scam by Internet Networx. They send solicitations disguised as bills for website listing services.  If you receive any mail from Internet Networx asking you to send them a check – throw that mail in the trash where it belongs.

Internet Networx has an F Rating from the BBB

BBB Pattern of Complaints

According to information in BBB files, this company has a pattern of complaint regarding invoices being sent to consumers. Specifically, complaints allege the invoices being sent look like they are coming from a government agency or other agencies.

Federal law prohibits any mailing which is “in the form of, and reasonably could be interpreted or construed as, a bill, invoice, or statement of account due” but is, in fact, “a solicitation for the order by the addressee of goods or services,” unless the mailing includes the following notice:

Let’s face it, most customers, happy or otherwise, don’t leave reviews, but why?

Understanding a few of the more common reasons why customers don’t leave reviews will help you overcome those barriers and get you more 5-star reviews.

Reason #1: They forgot what you did for them.

Customers are far more likely to forget the good things you did than the bad so make sure you ask for reviews before they forget what a great job you did.

Reason #2: They can’t find your business on the popular review sites.

Make it super easy for them by providing links to the right pages.

Reason #3: They are secretly unhappy…

For every customer who bothers to complain, 26 remain silent* and 91% of those unhappy customers will never do business with you again.** Providing a forum for unhappy customers to privately share their experience will give you an opportunity to regain their business. 

Our automated Review Management tools will help you follow up with customers, while the experience is fresh in their minds, they provide links to your company’s page on the most popular review sites so your customers don’t give up before leaving a glowing review, and they direct unhappy customers to privately share their experience so you can correct the situation before they go public.

Concept Digital Media can help you amplify the voice of happy customers, reach unhappy customers, monitor all reviews as they come in, and share the best reviews with potential clients.

Call 941-993-7790 to learn more about the #1 Review Management and Marketing platform. 

Why should you spend money on business email hosting?

For starters, @gmail and @yahoo (not to mention @AOL) addresses just scream “Unprofessional!”, but there are many other reasons why you owe it to your business to have email using your domain.

1. Credibility
Free email addresses make potential customers wonder whether you’re a “real” company and they make you look cheap. Plus, why would you want to advertise Google, Yahoo or your internet or cable provider on your business cards and collateral materials?

A “real” email address gives your company credibility (maybe it shouldn’t, but it does). Savvy consumers aren’t comfortable sending personal information to jimmydogg69 @yahoo.com or even YourCompanyName @gmail.com. Branded email addresses give customers the added assurance that your business is legit and their information is secure.  If you don't care what your own email address looks like - how are you going to treat your customers? 

2. Control
If an employee uses their personal email address for business and they quit or get fired, you lose access to those emails – especially, if they leave under less than amicable circumstances. With premium email hosting, you can easily redirect those emails to yourself or another employee.

3. Portability
With your own email domain, your email address is as portable as your cellphone number.  You aren't tied to Verizon, Comcast or any oterh ISP.  This allows you to switch internet service providers without losing your email address.

4. Less Spam
Are you fed up with spam? With a premium email address, spam won't even make it to your inbox and you have full control over inbound and outbound spam filters.

5. Flexibility
Even if your business goes from 5 employees to 500 employees, we can scale right up with you.

6. Access
With premium email, your employees can access their email from anywhere through mobile, webmail, and other mail clients, allowing them to be more productive.

Concept Digital Media offers:

• Secure POP/IMAP/Webmail
• Premium anti-spam and anti-virus
• 25GB Mailboxes
• Outlook auto-setup
• Custom email filtering
• Free user aliases
• Up to 50MB Attachments

And, for an additional fee, you can get:

• Mobile Sync to sync contacts and calendars
• 30GB Cloud Drive for storing and sharing documents
• Online editing of documents and spreadsheets

There is an email scam that seems to pop up every couple years. The sender poses as a Chinese registrar company and attempts to convince the receiver that a company is trying to register variations of the receiver’s domain name.

Here is an example:

Subject line: It's very urgent, please transfer this message to your CEO. Thanks

We are the domain registration and solution center in China. On Oct 24, 2019, we received an application from Kangwei Ltd requested "conceptdigitalmedia" as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (conceptdigitalmedia.cn, conceptdigitalmedia.com.cn, conceptdigitalmedia.net.cn, conceptdigitalmedia.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it's necessary to send this message to your company and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?

Best Regards

***************************************
Adrian Liu | Service & Operations Manager China Registry (Head Office) | 6012, Xingdi Building, No. 1698 Yishan Road, Shanghai 201103, China
Tel: +86-02164193517 | Fax: +86-02164198327 | Mob: +86-13816428671
Email: adrian @ chinaregistry .org .cn
Web: www. chinaregistry. org. cn
***************************************
It might look like a legitimate domain name registry, but it is not.

This fake site sends out thousands of emails every month to scam business owners into sending money to secure a domain name.

These emails tell you to act quickly to protect your domain name. They claim a Chinese company is attempting to register your domain name with the .cn extension. For a fee, the company will prevent this from happening.

Responding to these emails will only result in exorbitant prices for your own domain name.

In addition to seeking money, the purpose of the scam is to gather more specific information about your company and in order to commence a targeted attack.

What to do if you receive this email?

If you get one of these emails, send it to your company’s IT department for evaluation, and then delete it. And Remember the three key anti-phishing rules:

1. If you receive an email from out of the blue, never click on a link or attachment.
2. If you receive an email from someone you know, but it includes an attachment that you were not expecting to receive, call the sender to confirm it came from the sender and not a hacker.
3. Finally, if you forget rules 1 and 2 and click on something which opens a dialog box asking you to supply additional information—or click on something to enable a later software version or to open a zip file—close it immediately and call your company’s IT department to have a scan run on your computer.

What customers say about your business online… is powerful.

Reviews give your business credibility and help new customers find you online.

It’s no wonder 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations more than any other form of advertising.

This Makes customer reviews the single most effective piece of marketing you can invest in. 

Concept Digital Media can help you harness that power with our complete solution for review management and local search marketing.

Our review management platform provides an easy and unobtrusive way to ask and remind customers to review your business on the sites that matter most to you.

Now you can amplify the voice of happy customers by making it easier for them to leave reviews…

Reach unhappy customers to improve their brand experience…

Monitor all of your reviews…

…and share your great reviews on your website and social channels.

Contact us today and learn more about the #1 review management and marketing platform for your business.

I just received the following email this morning – it has been cut and pasted with nothing added or removed.

He (or she) forgot to set up the form email so it would auto populate the fields. Maybe they are just getting lazy – or maybe this is done on purpose because unfortunately, I’m sure someone somewhere will still reply to them.

No one online knows your business exists...

What do I mean by that?

I did a quick Google search for [Name] in [City] and I noticed your business is not in the Google 3-pack.

The "3-pack" is the place on Google that shows 3 businesses in a specific area at the TOP of the search results.

If you aren't in the 3-pack that means your competitors ARE.

54% of your customers will do a Google search at least once per month to find a local business - although it's likely more.

Most business owners have no idea how to get into the 3-pack, but I've mastered the art of ranking there and I can help you...

If you'd like to know how it's done and maybe even have me just do it for you -- simply reply to this email.

I can only help 3 businesses per city since the Google 3-pack only lists 3 businesses...

I sent this same email to your competitors and I work on a first come first serve basis. Don't miss this opportunity!

Don't let your competition outsmart and outrank you.

Check out << Link >> or Call me now at 555-555-5555 or reply to this email and I look forward to helping you get more clients in the door.

Best,
NAME
NUMBER
COMPANY (optional)

Well Mr. Coe, and that’s probably not your real name to begin with, I think what you need to worry about is your fellow email spam competitors outsmarting you.

You would never hire a plumber or auto mechanic that contacted you out of the blue, so when you get an email like this – just delete it!

The following is just one of many spam emails that are sent to anyone who has registered a domain.

The spammer gets the name and email address from domain information on file and never actually visits the website. This is the same email that thousands of people will get.

Hi Sir/Madam,

I was looking at your website and realized that despite having a great design; it was not ranking high on any of the search engines (Google, AOL and Bing) for most of the keywords related to your business. We can bring you more clients and customers. I will do this by advertise your business structure and its merits on different social media platforms with the help of my SEO skills. I will put you on the first page of Google; this will help clients and customers to find you more easily. This will be done within your budget which doesn’t affect your business a little.

I am affiliated with a SEO company that has helped over 200+ businesses achieve (1st Page Ranking on Google) search result page for highly competitive keywords.  Let me know if you are interested, I will send you our SEO Packages & price list and our company details.

Kind Regards
Nancy Jain
Business Development Manager