Someone went on Complaints Board dot com and wrote a nasty, incoherent review about my website, troyfarah.com. It basically claimed that I have *still* not finished the work I was assigned. This is what they said:
“Troyfarah.com is an essay writing service that develops writing related assignments on behalf of the customer. As usual of course, they looked like a reputable company with a strong sense of customer morale. I hired one of their writers to get started on my thesis two months ago and work is not finished so far.”
Of course, this is not what I do on my website. At all. I do scattered freelance journalism, take shitty photos and write blogs without capital letters while drunk. I don’t even have a “strong sense of customer morale,” whatever that means.
How did I know about this review? Why, because several hours after it was posted, I received an email from a mysterious company (who I refuse to name) claiming they could help me manage my online reputation. Here’s an excerpt (emphasis theirs):
Your company has a Complaint in the first pages of Google search results and it might affect your online reputation. … People don’t ask for character references anymore, they ask Google. And what Google shows people — accurate or not — is your reputation. Bad search results can be a real problem.
Then they asked me to pay them a monthly fee of $149 to make this go away. I checked on Google and Bing and the CB message is not ranking. But this is hardly a coincidence.
Not that I really give a fuck. On SiteJabber.com, I wrote negative reviews of my own website on purpose because I thought it was hilarious. Am I worried about my online reputation? Not really. The more I misrepresent it, the better it seems to me. I responded to the Complaints Board post, agreeing with the OP. Like, whenever I get a Nigerian princess scam email promising me that I have a long-lost uncle who wants to give me billions of dollars, I always respond back with, “Keep the money and give it to the poor kids in Uganda.” Maybe I actually have been awarded money and done a good deed without even knowing it.
Anyway, you’re gonna have to try harder than that, you idiots. So I responded to them with this email:
“Thanks for pointing this out to me. I can’t wait to get started with your program, but I’m a little confused. First of all, I didn’t order 18 tons of vanilla frosting for my donut factory. Besides, when I opened the boxes, all I could find were some moldy bananas. Do you think I know any gorillas or something? Well, I don’t. My cousin works at the zoo, but that’s way off in San Diego. Maybe he’d like some of that sweet nectar. Could you email him? And while you’re at it, answer me, why is John McCain always talking about the importance of buttering both sides of a pancake? That just seems like extra work to me.