There seemingly are as many outlets for consumer generated media as there are consumers. The ability for anyone to post an opinion, comment, or grievance and get it seen by hundreds or thousands of people gives every day consumers a power and a voice not seen before the advent of the internet. In many ways, the unfiltered information can provide valuable, first-hand information on products, companies, and services. While positive reviews are common, many of the product and company related content seen on the web is generated in terms of negative reviews, complaints, and grievances. Much of this negative sentiment is seen regularly on two sites; Complaintsboard.com and Ripoffreport.com.

Posting information on either site is as easy as going through a brief registration where the only verification of information is on a valid email address. Even then, setting up an email with false information is fast and free on any number of providers. The registration process does ask for some personal information such as name and phone number but both can be fabricated easily as the only requirement is that an answer gets placed in the corresponding box to the question. The anonymity on both sites provides a secure environment, encouraging posters to submit content without the concern of recrimination.

When true, the postings can present a huge value to readers on the sites by providing information on faulty products, poor service providers, and companies that don’t deliver on their promises. One can assume that it is for this purpose that the sites were set up originally. Unfortunately, the anonymous nature of sites and the lax registration procedures also allow for information to be posted on their boards which can be patently untrue, malicious, and/or meant to do damage to the targeted company. The purposes of these types of postings can include:

* Attempts to gain competitive advantage from players in the same industry
* Disgruntled ex-employees trying to trash a company’s reputation
* Personal grudges driving motives of revenge

Of the two, Complaints Board does a much better job of policing fabricated content once it’s called out by the targeted company. The board will attempt to verify the content by reaching out to the author and delete the content if said verification is not forthcoming. Additionally, Complaints Board goes even further in their efforts by removing complaints from the site and the URLs from Googles's search results once they have been confirmed as resolved. In fact, by just opening the first incoming email from a targeted company, Complaints Board jumps light years ahead of the Ripoff Report, which makes no effort to remove erroneous content regardless of how ridiculous the accusations may be. By allowing this baseless content to stay on the site, everyone loses except for the people that put up the content in the first place. Another inevitability is that as more of these types of posters find out that their propaganda will not be challenged at Ripoff Report, there will be more propaganda posted there, further diluting any posts that may actually have some value.

While the intent of both boards has been the protection of consumers from the bad actors of industry, it is now those same bad actors which have corrupted the boards to the point where any posting must be double checked for its veracity on impartial sources such as Consumer Reports, Cnet.com, etc. Complaint Board can be applauded for knocking unverifiable content off their website whereas Ripoff Report’s unwillingness to make corrections on even the most absurd allegations makes everything on their website suspect and unreliable. It may be ironic but consumers seeking information from Ripoff Report’s website should take the following advisory; Buyer Beware.         


The sites, and others like them, are increasingly used in attacks which, despite carrying little or no truth, can be extremely damaging and costly to targeted companies. The increase in attacks is attributable to the fact that they can be carried out at minimal cost, offer total cover to the attacker, and can reach a large audience with little or no effort beyond writing and posting the negative content. Both Complaint Board and the Ripoff Report are getting around two million visits per month, according to statistics at Compete.com so their respective audiences are significant, at least for the time being. While Ripoff Report’s traffic numbers have remained fairly constant for 2009, the traffic numbers at Complaint Board have doubled since December 2008.

The major problem with both boards at present is that there is so much unverified negative content being posted to the boards that it’s now becoming difficult for visitors to ascertain what is real and what isn’t on a “post to post” basis. This type of scenario has been playing out on Yahoo’s message boards associated with publicly traded stocks for years. In Yahoo’s case, paid “bashers” will lock on to a message board connected to a stock where an institution may want to see a price decrease. Institutions will often hire multiple bashers to agree and concur amongst themselves on rumors, innuendo, and half-truths to make it appear that a group has a line on negative news or other information which could be potentially damaging to the company and its share price with the objective of dissuading potential buyers and/or inducing current share holders to sell their shares. For financial institutions with tighter budgets, a single basher can assume a variety of different “handles” and largely accomplish the same thing.

What this situation forces investors to do is to seek independent verification of whatever is being said on the message board, much like what needs to be done with content on display at Complaint Board and Ripoff Report. Inevitably, after several findings where content is determined to be baseless, regular visitors begin to find that the board which at one time provided value now delivers much less due to the dilution of real information with agenda driven propaganda.