[FlamesAddiction]

Online reviewing is a huge gear grinder of mine.

There are so many people out there who leave fake or completely unfair reviews and it really hurts the businesses. And Google gives out points to people for leaving reviews thereby encouraging this nonsense.

I was having dinner with a restaurant owner just the other day and he was telling me how difficult it is to deal with. People see Google reviews and avoid anyone with less than a 4-star rating, yet many of the reviews are fake, exaggerated, or left my disgruntled ex-employees. And there is no way to battle it. Google doesn't give a frig. They just want people using their service.

For example, a review popped up as we were there that said the place was out of "half the beer" they advertised and that "they would avoid the place at all costs". The truth is, they were out of one micro-brew because the brewery had a power outage and messed up their supply. The serving staff was telling everyone before ordering that they were out and some stupid dork thought it was such a bad experience, that it was worth 1-star. There was another reviewer who left 1-star because one of the lady's singing karaoke one night was terrible. Another left 1-star because they were fired and were not paid well (allegedly). The owner reported the reviews to Google, but they were left up.