When Cyber Trolls Attack

This is minisode five of the eighth season of The Creative Influencer podcast. Today we are discussing what to do when cyber trolls attack your online reputation.

There as an overall dearth of information on how to handle trolls that leave negative comments or reviews. Some sources recommend fighting back, while others warn against “feeding the trolls.”

So we decided to create this guide and to provide a collection of our thoughts and recent experiences in dealing with online trolls.

First, let’s set the scene: what happened?

In November, our firm, Pfeiffer Law, received its first, and only, Yelp review from Niki Aghili (A-G-H-I-L-I), a 20-year-old UCLA student. As a firm that works mostly with companies, film studios and influencer teams, this is not a normal channel of business reviews for our firm.

Nikkii Aghili, via an account registered in Los Angeles, CA as “Nikki A,” posted the following review on December 3, 2024:

I had a shockingly unprofessional experience with Jon Pfeiffer at Pfeiffer Law Corp. I reached out with a professional inquiry about a part-time legal internship, only to receive a curt response: 'We are a USC firm. Sorry.' When I followed up to clarify if this meant I was ineligible because I attend UCLA, his reply was condescending and unnecessarily rude. It's disheartening to see such dismissive behavior, especially from someone representing a law firm. This type of unprofessionalism reflects poorly on both him and the firm, and I would strongly discourage others from reaching out if they expect courtesy and respect.

Before we go deeper into the background here, let’s pause to note the hallmarks of online trolling.

First, the troll created an account with only one review. It means that this account was likely created just to make this review.

Then, there’s the hyperbolic warning to all customers, despite not being a customer or client. This is a classic example of swatting. Swatting can take several forms—in the most extreme, sending the police to your house over a social media feud—or in the most basic sense here, swatting can take the form of targeting a business without any real-life interaction with that business, such as when people leave yelp reviews for places they’ve never visited. In that sense, trolling can even become Defamation if it causes harm to the reputation of the business.

Now back to the background and setting the record straight. How did we respond? Despite the noise online and the lack of any true authority on the subject, there is one rule that stands out: always respond. To expand a little:

The Cardinal Rule of dealing with Trolls: Always Respond to Fake Reviews and call them out as such.

Our first step was to post a reply to the review. Here is our Yelp reply:

This review was written by a 20-year-old UCLA student by the name of Niki Aghili. Ms. Aghili sent an email on December 5, 2024, at 9:16 p.m. asking for a paid part time internship with my firm. Her generic email did not mention my name or my firm’s name. It was a form email.

My responsive email which to Ms. Abhili called “condescending and unnecessarily rude” simply stated “If you want your employment search to be successful, I suggest you customize your emails to each individual person and/or firm.”

We are always looking for smart, driven employees who want constructive criticism to help them improve their skills. But, if you believe my email was “condescending and unnecessarily rude,” I wish you the best of luck but please do not apply for a job with us.
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For anyone who would like copies of the email exchange, the full texts of the emails will be posted as a blog post on our entertainment law blog at https://www.pfeifferlaw.com/entertainment-law-blog.

‍Jon Pfeiffer

And this minisode is our next step in our full response to the troll. We want to explain our strategy, our thinking and our takeaway lessons.

Because the cardinal rule is to always respond to set the record straight or to call out the lack of any true business relationship, we did so in our immediate Yelp response. We called out the real nature of the interaction, but did so without revealing unnecessary personal details (only those identifying the person in order to refute the details, and removing the anonymity from the trolling).

Our final step will be to post the full email interaction to our Entertainment Law Blog in the coming weeks.

Although we initially hoped that the trolling review would be removed, that is no longer likely. As this plays out, we will also explore some of the options that we help our clients navigate: specifically, whether the review violates the Yelp.com Terms of Service and whether there may be other alternative channels to respond to the troll. We will discuss this more on in a separate minisode and blog post if we do need to eventually report the review to Yelp along with our takeaways from how things play out next.

It is also worth noting that we are dealing with a one-off trolling, and not a barrage of coordinated attacks, which can happen in more extreme cases. That means we have the luxury to make a measured and planned response, rather than dealing with an immediate customer relations fallout.

This story is a work in progress. We will keep you updated along the way, and we hope that this is helpful to some of you that have dealt with similar situations.

Which brings us to a question to our listeners that we would love your feedback on: how did you respond to an online troll that was attacking your online persona or business? Share your stories by emailing us either your thoughts or an audio recording to pfeiffer@pfeifferlaw.com. We look forward to sharing this journey with you.