I don’t know if you ever use Citysearch, but I use it a lot. I even use it when I’m out of town. I mostly find it very useful.
Lately, I’ve started to review businesses I’ve had experience with, either good or bad. I do this for two reasons; one, I like the idea of a business being rated by its customers. And two, I’ll do anything to avoid working on my taxes. Which were due Monday, by the way.
In any case, I wrote a pretty negative review about the veterinary hospital where we took Sully for a dip a few weeks ago. The whole thing was an absolute nightmare, and I really thought it was worth writing about. Particularly since the place had gotten such a high rating on Citysearch, which is how I found them to begin with.
Strangely enough, the review disappeared.
So I wrote another review and posted it. I guess I guess I didn’t make the same mistake (whatever it was) because this review has stayed up.
Then I checked the Terms of Service to make sure I hadn’t done something wrong. I felt pretty confident that I didn’t violate any of them, so I wrote to Citysearch and asked what happened.
A week later, I received their reply:
If you have any questions about out legal terms, you can find them by following this link. Thanks again, and please let us know if we can helping with anything else.
–Citysearch User Review Monitoring Team
You’ll note this doesn’t even begin to address my question, nor does it convince me that I’m dealing with a native speaker. You’ll also notice that the link they sent doesn’t go to anything.
This is one of the most annoying things a web site can do. Ebay does the same thing: they ask you to forward spoofed emails to their abuse department, and then they reply with a form letter that tells you the email you sent was spoofed.
I should have known better, but I wrote back to Citysearch, and I asked them to answer my question, instead of reading the first few words and taking a stab at what I was after.
They replied:
Displease send me a link to the review please, so I can tell exactly where was the violation.
–Citysearch User Review Monitoring Team
When it becomes clear that you’re wasting your time, and yet you persist in whatever foolish thing it is you’re trying to accomplish, you really deserve whatever you get. And it was in this spirit that I attempted one last communication with them, for no real reason other than the fact that I was now cranky.
The review was removed. How can I send you a link to a page that isn’t there anymore?
They appear to be stymied now.
26 responses so far ↓
1 Speedy Cerviche // Oct 18, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Oh come on, April. You got to at least gib dem a lot oh cray fer trying.
2 pal Jacky // Oct 18, 2007 at 3:16 pm
April, I’d tell you my animal hospital’s name but the circumstances are a bit strange. I’ve inherited from my mom trust fund dogs with a line of credit to a certain Vet group. They are the greatest to my dogs. However, When your little 7 year old, one-eyed bad back, hips displasia, cancer surviving bratty little runt of the littler Peke is referred to as ‘dr. K’s corvette payment’ by the nurses, its kind of hard to judge how the would treat a ‘normal’ client.
3 bnaivar // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Sorry April as of 7:21 EST “404 File Not Found”.
4 nancy // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:25 pm
You haven’t done your taxes yet!! You know I’m a CPA and I am ready to hop on a plane and come out to help you finish.
Sorry for the hysterics-but I just finished dealing with the 10/15 deadline and am a little crazed.
5 April // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Which file? I’m not getting a 404 on any links I have up.
Nancy, I just can’t bring myself to put all this crap into Quicken. I stare at this pile every day.
6 bnaivar // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:32 pm
In the words of Emily Letella “Never mind.” I tried it again and it worked.
I hope you thought of sedating the dogwasher without HER permission.
7 JohnnyBoy // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:55 pm
We can helping put the tax filepapers into Quickly
8 JohnnyBoy // Oct 18, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Ok, I had to search a bundle of reviews before I found it, but this link should work if the others don’t
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/77684
and this one too:
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/42633549/2027961
9 steve // Oct 18, 2007 at 6:40 pm
this link is now down: http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/77684/2048730
it’s the one April said was still up. funny.
10 JohnnyBoy // Oct 18, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Interesting, when I posted two links, a message appers saying my comment awaits moderation
so I’ll try one ( same as yours Steve but seems to work) and then I’ll separately post the other
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/77684
11 JohnnyBoy // Oct 18, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Here’s the other review:
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/42633549/2027961
12 JohnnyBoy // Oct 18, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Most interesting…place took a nosedive after July !
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/review/42633549?rpp=9
13 Auntie Vera Charles // Oct 19, 2007 at 9:44 am
I smell fish.
14 JohnnyBoy // Oct 19, 2007 at 9:52 am
Smello !
15 Stretch // Oct 19, 2007 at 11:08 am
…if I was a pet of April’s - I’d be afraid of DIP too…
…I’ve watched Roger Rabbit one too many times
16 coasterboy // Oct 19, 2007 at 11:10 am
I always love getting email from pay pal. you know - the list of the 1500 ways that you can avoid phishing scams. They always omit the most obvios one: don’t have a paypal account!
I cancelled mine two months ago, and stopped getting the weekly emails from paypal, and never have to worry about the fraud.
17 Stretch // Oct 19, 2007 at 11:21 am
Also found on Citysearch
http://losangeles.citysearch.com/profile/42554627?raid=2299295
Pink Taco…..really?!
GO AHEAD!! Eat the Pink Taco!!
18 Talkin bout the Taurus // Oct 19, 2007 at 11:32 am
I wanted to let you all know, what happened to April also happened to a friend of mine with a restaurant review on Citysearch.
After she annoyed them for days, they finally told her that she in fact did not violate any “rules” in her review, but that the restaurant had asked the negative review be taken down. They said it was their policy to remove negative reviews if the business owners asked them to.
What a bunch of wussies.
19 JohnnyBoy // Oct 19, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Nobody gives a shit anymore
well, I guess I do, but what does THAT make me?
Nobody !
20 xlistnerliz // Oct 19, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Didn’t I tell you people about Mercury retrograde last week?? Once again NOBODY listens to the astrologer!! Well to your own peril. Communication & electrical systems will go haywire. Remember it for next time will ya!
21 Edward // Oct 19, 2007 at 5:19 pm
At the risk of being more cynical than April: What on God’s Green Earth made you think that CitySearch was there for the benefit of the customers?
22 jim // Oct 19, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Cyber-snarkhunt monkeyshines, the new psychic Gremlin.
23 JohnnyBoy // Oct 19, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Get the Honey, Junior !
24 katzinoire // Oct 22, 2007 at 2:17 pm
What do they want you to do, LIE? This is sad, because there could be places out there that suck, but we don’t know because the negative reviews are deleted-probably to keep sponser advertising money. If you had a bad experience, as a pet owner, I would have wanted to know honestly. Sigh, the whole mentality these days is Orwellian when it comes to things like this, unless you agree that one and one is three, you get the short end of the stick.
25 Pookie // Oct 22, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Dear tax-evader;
I think we must take any service with a grain of dubiosity and askanceness. Take it as a fun site to search, but really, anyone who wants to can put in whatever they want and it could or could not be true. For example, I lie continually, but I’m really a pretty decent cat so people don’t know.
Here’s whatcha do. Write a scathing review excoriating the vet, but do it with such elan and effulgence that the ESL person actually believes it is a glittering kudo and keeps it in. Only those of us who depend upon your perspicacity will understand that you are reaming them big time.
Did you get a deadline extension?
C-baby.
26 russnichols // Oct 22, 2007 at 11:10 pm
What the hell good is Citysearch if any business can get a negative review wiped by simply asking to have it deleted?
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