I have no idea how flawed it is, but in the San Diego BMW dealership scene it's bad. Real bad.
About a year ago, I was looking through some of the reviews for BMW of San Diego. As usual, there were more bad ones than good ones. However, I noticed quite a few 5-star ratings. That's pretty rare for these guys, so I took a closer look. What I found was disturbing.
Many of the reviewers were obviously posting bogus reviews. Indeed, I will lay out my case and prove my point. I will also, through circumstantial evidence, show why the dealers must be involved.
Let's use BMW of San Diego for this little exercise. You'll want to start here. Then you need to scroll down to the Google reviews.
Let's take a look at "Katy," who posted on August 27, 2010. She writes that this was her best experience ever. "This is my 4th new car purchase and Jason Ballelo made this the best experience ever," she says. "He has a great personality and made the transaction fun and relaxing. There was no stress at all." Note that she invokes Jason Ballelo's name. He actually does work at the dealership. So, this review smells like something legitimate.
Now, let's click Katy's screen name. Let's take a look at her other reviews. Notice that Katy also reviewed several other businesses (unrelated to BMW of San Diego) on August 27, 2010 (same day as the BMW of San Diego review). She reviews a Montessori school in Texas where her daughter allegedly attends school. (Sure she does.)
Katy also reviewed a Toyota dealership on August 27, 2010. So, not only did she buy a BMW about that time, she also bought a Toyota too -- but up north in Hollywood. Once again, she drops the name of a real employee. (We'll get to that in a minute.)
Katy doesn't stop there. On August 27, 2010, she also wrote a review for a GM dealership up in Stockton, CA, which is in Northern California. How many cars does this woman have?
Listen, here's the bottom line: this Katy is writing false reviews. Someone is clearly paying her to do it. Who would pay her to do it? My thinking is that this is the doing of a marketing company run amok. However, the marketing company has been hired by a slew of companies to engage in this deceit. BMW of San Diego is definitely a part of this. Why? Because they had to turn over the names of real employees, so that the reviewers could give the reviews an air of legitimacy.
And don't think that Katy is the only reviewer who did this for BMW of San Diego. Check out Pam S. on May 13, 2010. She used the screen name of "review." Click that screen name and you'll see that Pam S goes by many names. Look at all of "her" reviews. She is "Art N, Tina E, Merci B," etc. It's a scam through and through.
And I don't want you to think that BMW of San Diego is the only dealership doing this. This is a widespread game. At one time, every dealership in San Diego had people like "Pam, Art, Merci, Tina, and Katy" doing this stuff.
So, when you see a dealership rating of 2.5 for BMW of San Diego, realize that it would be even lower if not for the scammers who are writing these fake reviews.
I could go on and on. I invite you to take a look at your own local dealerships. See if they are in cahoots with people who are writing fake reviews, which help prop up their ratings. It was a real eye opener for me when I starting digging deeper into this problem. And realize that this review process is not peculiar to the auto industry. I found this in a slew of industries. Indeed, remember that Katy was also doing it for a Montessori school.
In fact, I easily found several more examples of this stuff. See this person here. How many dentists can one person visit in two days? And get treatment at all of them? And notice Pacific BMW in there, too. Ooops. Another BMW dealer.
Or how about this one. This person doesn't mess around. Audi, BMW, and Mercedes. Reviews for all of them. Must have at least ten cars.
Then there is this one. How many teeth does she have? Two dentists in two days -- some 400 miles apart. Plus, in one review she says that she could not imagine going to any other dentist. Oops. She must have forgot that she went to another dentist just the day before.
If I was still an investigative reporter (covering fraud), I would be exposing this scam to a huge audience. Alas, all I have now is my little ZHPMafia.com site. But at least you guys know that there is an obvious problem with the Google rating system.
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