Beware of The Golba Group
If you are thinking of doing business with The Golba Group, please do some research.
Scott Golba is the Owner of Golba Property Management www.AzHousing.com
The Golba Group, A Residential Property Management Company in the Phoenix Metro Area.
These days companies and brands must pay attention to their online presence.
Review sites, social media, and blogs have become ways for people to write about experiences they have had with the world and business. For instance, when I visit a restaurant I can check in via Four Square, rate the food or service on Yelp, or write my very own personal review on a Google Places page.
The more people post information about their experiences, the more reliable the information becomes, the more it influences my decisions.
For example, if I am looking for a carpet cleaner company in my area I can quickly do a search and find several. If I find a company with only 2 reviews, good or bad, I feel there isn’t enough info there for me to make a good decision. However, If I find another company with multiple reviews on multiple sites, I will think of the information good or bad as the truth. If a company has 100 positive reviews and 30 negative, more than likely I will do business with the company. Opposite for a company with 100 negative and 30 positives.
Sure, biased people will write reviews so you must discount a few positive and a few negatives. But if a company has 3 to 1 negative or 8 to 1 positive out of dozens of reviews I feel I can trust the info.
To bad I didn’t use that logic when I rented my previous home from the Golba Group. Had I done so, I never would have rented the property.
If you are a renter or property owner, please do your research before contacting this company.
A simple search for “Golba Group Complaints” on Google will yield multiple sites with dozens of negative reviews.
Unfortunately for myself, I found these sites after I had my entire deposit taken from me. I went through the many reviews and found multiple stories which were similar. Sure, maybe I am a biased former renter. However when you see that many negative reviews across so many websites, eventually it becomes the truth.
***** Feb 2012 Remember, when judging weather or not a review is legit, look to see how many other reviews the person has submitted. For example, since this blog has posted, suddenly two reviews on Yelp popped up which have 5 out of 5 stars. These two people have not reviewed any other business at all. Business owners are notorious for creating fake profiles and filling out a favorable review for themselves. They don’t want to waste further time doing things like reviewing other businesses, adding photos, adding friends etc etc etc. Any real person creates and manages their profile just like you would on Facebook. It takes time and is not something which is done over a weekend.
On the flip side, the two 1 star reviews on Yelp were written by individuals who have taken the time to fill out their profile, add friends, write multiple reviews over a long period of time etc etc etc.
***** June 2012 Update
As suspected, The Golba Group has been hard at work repairing their online image. No doubt they have paid an SEO consultant to clean up their search results.
They now have an abundance of pages like: http://www.ethicalaz.com/golbagroup
and
http://localdirectory.azcentral.com/the+golba+group.9.63859782p.home.html
Companies with tarnished reputations use SEO companies to help out improve their overall online presence. Adding new business profiles like the ones above push older review sites further down the Google results page. This allows them to hide sites like Scam Informer from the general public.
Also, think about how you actually live your life. I find it odd that all of a sudden multiple people are taking time out of their day to hunt down review sites so that they can rave about a Property Management company. Could any Property Management company really be that great that you have to let the world know?
A few example review websites:
Complaints Board
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/the-golba-group-amp-landmark-maintenance-gilbert-arizona-c240833.html
Insider Pages
http://www.insiderpages.com/b/3709800356/golba-group-property-management-gilbert
Yahoo
http://local.yahoo.com/info-20033478-golba-group-property-management-gilbert
Yelp
http://www.yelp.com/biz/golba-group-property-management-gilbert
Scam Informer
http://www.scaminformer.com/scam-report/golba-group-golba-group-harassment-violation-of-landlord-tenant-c21820.html
Scam Checker
http://www.scamchecker.com/content/the-golba-group
golbagroupwarning 
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