When selflessly helping others goes terribly wrong... | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

A few weeks ago I had a reader contact me regarding a company she feared might be a scam organization.  I looked into it and found lots of evidence to convince me that her instincts were right.  Because this was a fairly new website, there were no existing warnings on the internet for people who might be considering giving them their money.  I waited for a couple days hoping someone would call out these people, but nobody did.  I felt a duty to use my blog as a platform to warn other customers.  I figured that each day I waited more people could fall victim to the scam, so I wrote this article exposing it.

As I feared, the people behind the scam saw my article and posted these personal attacks about me (I'm linking to screenshots because I don't want to drive any traffic to the original source).  As an attorney, my reputation is of the utmost importance to me.  I'm disgusted that this nonsense is being said about me, and frustrated that my little blog could lead to serious negative consequences for my real job.  I now have a "Google problem".

Does anyone have suggestions for how to deal with this situation?  I love blogging but I hate that I was put in a position where I had to choose between my ideals and my livelihood over my website.  I don't want to find myself in that position again.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Have you considered filing a rebuttal?

BeatingBroke said:

I'm not sure what avenues there are that are available to you.  I'd say to contact an attorney, but if you are one, that might be a bit of a silly suggestion. ;)  I had to go to page 4 of a google search for "Student loan sherpa" before I saw the ripoff report, so not as much of a google problem as you might think.  Especially if that isn't one of your larger search terms.  

 

You might drop Lazy Man from Lazy man and money though, as he's taken on a few larger scammers, and might have some advice.  

If it were me, I'd just keep throwing at em.  Expose the ripoff report for what it is and go from there.

BB…I think his main concern is the reputation as a lawyer, not a blogger…as such I would expect potential clients to search for Michael Lux Lawyer if they wanted to check him out, not by the name of his blog…and in conducting said search myself his ripoffreport shows up on page 1…that would cause concern for me. 

Michael…I would contact ripoffreport right away!!!  let them know your findings…im sure this sort of thing happens often with their site.