

My experience with a 'negative review' scammer. - westiseast
http://westiseast.co.uk/blog/weird-seo-twitter-scam/

======
jrockway
I wouldn't even worry about a subjective review like "this tea tastes like
shit". Even if it's the finest quality tea in the world, someone is going to
think it tastes like shit.

I would worry about reviews like, "ordered, never received product, called
owner and he told me to 'fuck myself with a pointy stick'". That is
significantly more damning, since it reads like an account of a factual event,
rather than an uninformed opinion.

~~~
garron
You have a good point there, it is impossible to define what is good and what
not in flavors. It is like asking what is the best dog bread? And yes, the
review about service is more important.

This guy (Brian) at the end admitted that he did what he did just because he
was unfollowed in twitter. What a guy!

~~~
westiseast
Absolutely - good and bad is subjective, and I'm happy to accept that. My real
anger came from the fact that these people were masquerading as professional
tea reviewers, but then don't even have the decency to back up a negative
review. If they'd written a long blog post slating my tea after ordering it,
trying it fairly etc., then I would have been much more concerned with their
opinions...

------
petercooper
Sad (though sometimes good) fact of the Internet: there are lots of oddballs
out there.

Just as there are people who cut you up on the road or hit people for no
reason in real life, there are people who'll randomly try to ruin your day
with seemingly no motivation (even some people on HN!). Keep your head held
high, gracefully conduct yourself, and let them enjoy steeping in their own
bile (ooh, a tea joke!)

------
locusm
Did you watch their tea review videos? OMG my 8 yr old could articulate a
better description - like watching dumb and dumber. Maybe this was a case of
professional jealousy. See what I mean here...
[http://healthyprofessionals.teatra.de/2011/07/26/the-tea-
sho...](http://healthyprofessionals.teatra.de/2011/07/26/the-tea-show-
episode-23-suffuses-mixed-berry-red-rooibos/)

~~~
corin_
Wow, I really assumed you were exagerating but you were actually pretty
accurate, they clearly know absolutely nothing about tea, or how to even have
a semi-interesting conversation.

~~~
westicle
Plus, they just look plain shifty.

He seems unable to maintain eye contact with the camera and his gaze darts
around. She seems agitated and keeps desperately staring at him.

I don't encourage anyone here to watch and increase their ad impressions. But
in summary, they don't look like people you would ever want to spend time with
voluntarily.

------
bugsy
Thanks for the warning. To be fair, even big "companies" like yelp.com have
been running extortion rackets for years and are still the darlings of the
technical press.

~~~
unwantedLetters
Do you have any more info on how yelp.com has been running "extortion
rackets"?

I don't know much about yelp, and don't use it much, but have generally been
led to believe that they are a good company (admittedly, by the tech press) so
it'll be interesting to hear if you have actual examples of people getting
scammed.

~~~
davidwparker
I personally don't know of anyone who owns a company that has been apart of
any Yelp Extortion, but there has been several cases brought against them.

[http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=yelp+exto&sourc...](http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=yelp+exto&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=yelp+extortion)

~~~
Egregore
It seems that everything is one year old or older, so there is a hope that
they don't continue this behavior.

------
crdoconnor
As a consumer I pretty much rule out negative reviews where the company in
question responds sensibly.

Sometimes it gives me a more favorable view of the company in question,
actually.

The only time I really pay attention to stuff like this is when there is a
bunch of negative reviews and the company never responds to any of them.

~~~
praptak
Yeah, methinks the general rule is: You don't really know a company until you
see their reaction to shit happening. Deflecting blame and stonewalling are
the worst kinds of response.

~~~
westiseast
Thank you. I kind of agree - honest answers, acceptance of criticism etc. are
key, especially when your talking about small companies that can't hide behind
their size.

------
glimcat
Should have gone here instead. I'm pretty sure that extortion is against
Twitter's TOS.

<https://support.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/15789>

~~~
westiseast
Thanks for the link glimcat - I'm going to see how it pans out after a few
days. Tweets fade fast, and if this scammer doesn't continue posting negative
reviews, then I'm happy with that.

~~~
dspillett
This is sometimes the best way. If you get them blocked from Twitter they may
take that as meaning "the fight is on" and register many fake accounts to
continue posting the reviews from.

~~~
blackboxxx
Not doing the right thing for fear of retribution? Staying quiet essentially
allows them to do the same to others.

Fear should never dictate the decision process. They need to be reported.

~~~
dspillett
If the damage done is somewhere between zero and negligible and you don't know
you are not the only one affected, inaction is sometimes the best policy. The
idiot will get bored from getting no reaction and fade away. Reporting them
won't stop them doing the same thing to others and more and inaction will -
they can do the same thing to others using new accounts just as well as they
can re-hound you with new accounts.

It is the same as arguing with idiots, as the old saying goes: they will drag
you down to their level then "win" through a mix of experience and
perseverance. (please note: this is a general comment, I'm not intending to
call you an idiot at all here!). I dealt with bullies as lot in earlier life
and random fools on the Internet are absolutely no different (aside from
getting their apparent confidence due to relative anonymity rather than size
of fighting experience). Sometimes ignoring them is the best policy for all
(though, of course, use your judgement).

Of course if they are causing appreciable damage, the picture is different.
And don't just report them to twitter. If they are trying to extort money from
your business, report them to the relevant legal authority (if one is clear,
this unfortunately can be difficult to determine).

------
greenpaint
I don't think the negative reviewer fully understands how Twitter works. In
the thread you link to he says that he didn't delete the tweet, and that they
"disappear after a certain number of days". They don't. Here's the tweet
you're referring to (28 Jul):

[http://twitter.com/#!/FoodBlogTeaShow/status/966666235864719...](http://twitter.com/#!/FoodBlogTeaShow/status/96666623586471936)

and here's another from 14 hours ago:

[http://twitter.com/#!/FoodBlogTeaShow/status/981033271197696...](http://twitter.com/#!/FoodBlogTeaShow/status/98103327119769601)

I can't tell if that second one is supposed to be sarcastic or not.

~~~
westiseast
I'd made the mistake on Twitter originally - I didn't see the tweet in my
"Mentions" page, but it was still there on his feed.

------
DenisM
_I've also learned a valuable lesson - however angry you are, openness and
honesty will always win over in the end. Structure a logical argument, stand
your ground, and idiots/scammers like Brian DiVita will expose themselves
without you needing to lift a finger._

I fear you've reached the wrong conclusion. Haters gonna hate, and there is no
way you can answer them all. The more you sell, the more crazy people will be
among your "customers" and some of them will have a bad day and take it out
all on your tea and you. The victory over one hater may make you happy for a
day, but you can't scale it.

Focus on encouraging public praise from your happy customers.

------
peterbe
Haha! Now I get it "My angry tweet at wasn’t directed towards you in first
place.You Unfollowed me. I insulted your tea. Now go away. " /bigfacebrian

So he insulted the tea itself (which he hasn't even tried) because he was
unfollowed on Twitter. That's illegal and you can send him a cease or desist
letter telling him to unpublish any unfounded slander. However, just carry and
selling your tea any ignore this douche bag.

------
Joakal
It's a good lesson to 'assume good faith' where possible, even with negative
reviews. Otherwise it may flare up a PR blunder. eg getting personal with the
reviewer rather than responding with class like this guy did.

~~~
westiseast
thankyou. I don't think I responded with too much class actually, and after
I'd starting posting publicly about this, I felt like a douchebag myself. It
could have easily backfired, so I think you're right. Assume good faith first,
be very polite all the time, get your facts together, and then make your case.

------
mattraibert
It's a shame the OP doesn't ship to the US. Hacker News US people would
probably buy a lot of tea and this is good exposure.

~~~
westiseast
Yep - I will be shipping to the US very soon, but we're a new business. I've
been testing supply chain, quality and bedding in the business before I take
on the world :)

------
crockstar
Unfortunately your experience is not something new and I've heard of
considerably worse involving pointing dodgy links at competitors sites,
"review" sites that charge to rebut a negative review, etc. It really sucks
that people behave like this but good on you for the outing, maybe it will
help.

~~~
westiseast
Yeah - I can't be the first person whose had this "give me cash or I'll post
negative reviews" scam. What can you say - the world is full of disreputable
people.

Part of the blog post was about setting the record straight, and part of it
was also to remind other people in similar situations they're not alone when
this kind of thing happens. It's effectively bullying, and the worst part of
bullying is suffering in silence.

~~~
crockstar
Totally agree, as I say: well done for getting it off your chest. If people
don't speak up about it things are unlikely to change. Though obviously if
there is any justification whatsoever to the claim scratching that itch may be
bad news.

------
plasma
Perhaps make a blog post about this (more detailed, with proof of this scum
attempting to extort you) and let the tea lovers know to not follow their
recommendations.

I'd like to think if anyone ever tried to do that to me, I'd be replying back
with a response 10x fold.

------
ElliotH
Well, you've now nicely turned a negative review into some positive attention.
Bookmarked for next time I run out of tea.

------
peterbe
I think you did the right thing in defending yourself.

Suppose I was to stumble across an argument like that about any
product/startup/business/whatever I'll almost certainly believe the one who
argues in good grammer, without spelling mistakes and without vulgar tones. I
think you did the best one can do.

------
lazy_nerd
What this kind of scammers don't realize is that internet and subsequent
proliferation of social media networks has leveled the playing field to a
large extent. So, if people who are being arm-twisted become more vocal about
it, it might come back to bite the scammers.

------
robjohnson
Kudos to the author. His research/due-diligence in tracking this guy
illuminates to the community his nefariousness. If everyone took this type of
a pro-active defense in injustice, the frequency would be much reduced.

------
code_duck
"406 Following 350 Followers"

is not exactly a position of great influence.

~~~
westiseast
No, you're right. However, most of those followers are other tea bloggers, tea
companies and tea industry people. It's a small community. I'm new to the
business, so an 'established' tea blogger posting lies about my company can
have a really negative impact.

~~~
code_duck
I see. It does seem that this guy is blatantly an idiot, which hopefully
limits his influence... not that being so prevents one from being taken
seriously in politics and other realms these days, I suppose. Bringing this
extortionary behavior to public attention is exactly the way to go.

------
marcelfahle
Interesting story. Well, this Brian guy is an idiot ("You unfollowed me. I
insulted your tea. Now go away!"). Really?? But what I like most is the last
comment on teatra: "Reviewers who judge about a tea quality from the point of
someones followunfollow in twitter is… well such people earn 5bucks a week.
Period." Nuff said :)

By the way, I need to try that stuff. Cheers from Hong Kong.

------
PoundSterling
This isn't particularly on topic so I'll keep it brief. On your site you
mention delivering via Amazon UK; I was curious how this works or if you had
any links that explained the process better? I'm currently dabbling with the
idea of a simple site and this isn't something I've seen before as a way of
handling deliveries. Thank you.

~~~
westiseast
there's positives and negatives to using Amazon FBA shipping service. I'd be
happy to help you with a bit of information about my experience with them so
far. There's contact details here: <http://westiseast.co.uk/about/>

------
madiator
This scammer has a scary bplan. I mean what would you do if the scammer sets
up a bunch of twitter accounts and posting negative reviews and then demands
money?

~~~
tsotha
But if he becomes more than a very minor irritation he'll get sued or even
arrested. I can't imagine what he's doing is legal, and his emails are
evidence. Extortion in the flesh works a lot better because you can threaten
someone and lie about it later. This guy is banking on the fact that it's just
not worth the money and time to squash him like a bug.

------
nodata
(Just because you don't ship to the US doesn't mean he hasn't tried your tea,
just that it's unlikely). But I like the rest of the post.

~~~
westiseast
Right - it's extremely unlikely. The fact is, as a small business, I make it a
point of communicating with my first treasured customers, so I know almost all
of them by name. In almost all cases, I know how they've arrived at my
business via friends, recommendations, family etc. And given the situation, I
made a very confident guess.

------
free
The site appears to be down for me and could not find any cache links. Anyone
else facing this problem?

~~~
d2m
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://westiseast.co.uk/blog/weird-
seo-twitter-scam/)

------
nhangen
This concerns me because I can see it reaching an even bigger scale across all
markets, especially in light of these new "reputation monitor" rackets where
companies try to improve small b/m reputation online in places like Yelp &
Urban Spoon.

Right now, there isn't any easy way to defend against it.

------
Mr-Swiss
Wow, all this over some tea? I must try your tea.

------
adamcollingburn
"You unfollowed me. I insulted your tea. Now go away!" These kinds of people
make me loose all hope in humanity.

------
danso
I think you are righht to stand up for yourself, but in practical terms, it is
doubtful his tweet wouldve ever been seen by any of your potential customers.
It's not like Yelp, where the business listin serves as a repository for
reviews and is often the first Google result.

~~~
westiseast
yes, you're right. In retrospect, for my own sanity and sleep, I would have
left this alone. But I guess the anger rises and emotions get the better of us
all, and so I fought back. The business is something I've poured my heart and
soul into, so I really responded poorly I think. Anyone who has been in a real
fight (physical or mental) knows, even when you win, it doesn't feel good.

------
pitdesi
Not too dissimilar from the BBB, which is a total scam/protection racket...
You have an "F" rating... now pay us $1000 to "rate" you again and review that
rating. 3 days later Boom you have an A.

More: <http://feefighters.com/blog/the-bbb-is-a-scam/>

~~~
rkalla
For anyone else interested in this topic (or doubtful about the claim) 20/20
did an cover story on this:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw&feature=player_embedded)

------
coldarchon
I give you a hint. His domain is German, but he is in the USA. To be able to
do so, he needs an Admin in Germany responsible to receive any complaints and
legal actions. <http://denic.de/domainbedingungen.html> Read §3. Don't have
the time to translate, I used google: "If the domain holder is not domiciled
in Germany, he appoints a Germany-based administrative contact shall also be
the person authorized by § 184 of the Zivilpro-zessordnung, § 132 of the Code
of Criminal Procedure, § 56, paragraph 3 of the Administrative Procedure Code
and § 15 of the administrative procedure Act and the relevant provisions of
the Administrative procedure law of the countries."

I doubt he has one, and our laws are very strict about scamming. The keyword
here is "Abmahung", which can become very expensive ..

~~~
westiseast
It's a shared community site, with hosted blogs. The maintainers of that site
and other bloggers all seem fine, and I think there's possibly some connection
with Germany, hence the hosting. I contacted the owners, so they should be
aware of what one of their bloggers is doing. It's up to them if they take
further action.

~~~
coldarchon
There is no connection to Germany. <http://www.whois.net/whois/teatra.de>
"www.teatra.de (69.175.69.250) located in United States"
<http://teatra.de/about/>

And in fact they violate the German law about telemedia. <http://www.gesetze-
im-internet.de/tmg/__5.html> Just an email adress and no phone number, no
registrar of companies or entry in the commercial register in Germany and I'm
very sure the admin won't be able to reply in German.

This means they will have to pay for the Abmahnung/warning from a lawyer
between 800 and 1.000 € or if they don't provide the information within a
given time a fee of 50.000 € for violating § 16 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 TMG (TMG =
telemedia law).

The German law doesn't tolerate "unavailable" internet commerce.

------
rickdale
Chinese Tea from the Min River Tea farm tastes like shit. Yeah I said it.

~~~
westiseast
crap....I lost enough sleep last night over this :)

~~~
rickdale
glad you have a sense of humor about all this. sounds like your tea business
is ultimately coming along. What business doesn't start with customers that
are friends of friends...

