Answered by a user
September 29, 2009 14:23.
It seems that Matthew Bailey is at it again. On his news website he attacks AVVO with the following;
Avvo.com Scams Lawyers And Businesses
By: Matthew Bailey
At a first glance, the site looks appealing, useful and credible. The same as many other online consumer, ratings, networking and other business related sites. These sites can be enjoyed by many, use them and believe that they have valuable things to offer. However, delving deeper into Avvo’s rating system, a discovery of substantial issues came to a realization that although the concept of publicly rating attorneys and other professionals is a great idea, in terms of execution, Avvo is really lacking.
The biggest concern, is that it is believed that Avvo is medium to large firm friendly; it’s biased against solo practitioners and small businesses. Many people are saying that this is in it’s self is an AVVO.com Scam. Some have said that this web site is just a bunch of attorneys that have the upper hand on all of the others and have a place to kiss each others butt when one makes a mistake.
More specifically, Avvo’s interface is very time consuming to use, it is better geared towards firms that have the resources to devote to providing all of the information required and obtaining peer and client references (peer references from their own firm’s employees?). Information requested by Avvo includes a credit card number, even though the site is free. This aspect strikes odd to many. Moreover, attorney peers who want to leave an endorsement for another attorney or business, have to sign up for Avvo (i.e., what Avvo calls “claiming your profile” and provide the credit card information, again, even though Avvo is free, except for all of the time and effort to complete a profile and defending your business from attacks.
There’s another huge difference between Avvo and other online networking and business sites. Once a profile is “claimed” by an attorney (i.e., once an attorney or business joins Avvo or a business is attacked on the site) that attorney can’t quit/leave and the attacks and false claims can not be deleted. You’re stuck.
AVVO.com is a scam because of this. If you have to or have to hire someone to defend your business and/or claim your profile as an attorney, you are being scammed out of your time and resources. Of course there is a thing called freedom of speech but if your forcing people, companies and/or attorneys to come on the AVVO.com web site to defend, or claim your profile, it is like your being held hostage. No matter what you tell an AVVO.com Customer support rep, they will not delete any false information even if you prove to them their mistakes. This is why it is said that AVVO.com is a scam.
Avvo’s information is inaccurate on many counts. One problem is that attorneys who are primarily licensed in one state that Avvo doesn’t cover are depicted as having been licensed for many years less than they actually have been licensed - in some instances, decades less. If a lawyer moves from an uncovered state into a new state and has been licensed there for only a year, he is depicted to the public as a first year attorney. There is no attempt at accuracy and when requests for correction are sent in by attorneys they are ignored or declined. For this, and many other reasons, AVVO deceives consumers and is deceptive speech is not protected by the first amendment. Most lawyers are not public figures so in deciding to publish things about them that are not true, one is engaged in defamation and disparagement, and that is what AVVO has done to many.
I think that when avvo was being sued and then avvo won the case against them, a very fine detail had been over looked. Avvo.com had been allowed to run small business down with out any real proof of what they had been allowing on their web site. They allow first and last names, locations of these people and but not limited to falsehoods of those people even when they