Before you contract with Stonebriar Moving Services in Texas, you need to know that Tyler Edwards confessed to me on two separate occasions that he had fake reviews. I first meet Tyler Edwards when I work at another company. He contacted us because his Google Business Profiles (GBP) were suspended. Tyler had set up business profiles at locations that he was not authorized to use. He had at least private residences that A. didn’t have signage and that we did not reside at. Before having my meeting with Tyler, I looked at his reviews. I immediately raised these concerns with the salesperson. The salesperson and I both attended the meeting with Tyler to discuss the reinstatement process. Upon confronting Tyler about the fake Google reviews, we admitted to it. He stated that he had been contacted by a spammer that threaten to post negative reviews if we didn’t pay him. Tyler ended up paying the person money to ensure that the reviews were positive. I told Tyler to stop this practice as it violated the FTC review guidelines.
I am no longer at that company and do consulting work. The company I assist got a new client this past week that was getting hit with fake negative Google and Facebook reviews. After I mapped out the fake Google reviews, I started mapping out the fake Facebook reviews. One of the fake profiles left a positive review for Stonebriar Moving Services. As I started to look at the negative complaints on Stonebriar Moving Services’ Facebook page, I noticed that somebody with access to the business page replied to a negative review claiming that the reviewer texted the mover asking to buy weed from them.
What is interesting is that Stonebrairbriar responded to the BBB complaint from the same couple and said that the couple was “Zelling drugs for a living.” Yes, Stonebriarm misspelled selling. I am not sure if that was by accident or on purpose. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that A. Stonebriar contradicted themselves between the Facebook reply and the answer posted to the BBB complaint and B. this is a classic intimidation tactic. People shame the reviewer in an attempt to scare them into removing the review. Stonebriar has used this same tactic on Google as well. In one review they replied, “you are obviously a very small, petty, and bitter man, and I know why sir you are divorced.” Other replies are calling the reviewer’s character into question.
As it turns out, Tyler Edward’s wife Ashley Edwards left Facebook reviews for 3 of the Facebook pages for Stonebriar. Ashley lists herself as the CEO and marketing director at Stonebriar Moving Services. Ashley lists that she has four other jobs outside of Stonebriar. On one of the Facebook pages, Michael Stewart left her a glowing review. Micheal is the Logistics Operations Manager at Stonebriar.
I reached out to Stonebriar to address my concerns about the reviews. I received a text message and two missed calls from Stonebriar. I called back and spoke with an employee who didn’t understand what I was saying to him. He kept trying to defend the company instead of listening to me, which seems to be par for the course. He thought I was accusing them of leaving negative reviews from either my old company or one of their competitors. I finally was able to explain how one of the fake Facebook reviewers had left them a positive review. I was told that the employee joined the company and had been there for a year. He advised me that the practice of fake reviews was stopped. I asked him about the nasty review replies and he advised me that Tyler Edwards has a temper and lashes out. Our call quickly got out of control as the employee was unwilling to hear me when I stated these replies were an intimidation tactic. He didn’t agree and felt that the reply stated that they would trash the client if they didn’t remove the review which would be a clear sign of intimidation. I went back to the Facebook fake profile and that is we began talking over each other. I told him repeatedly to “have that chickenshit Tyler call me.” The call ended. Shortly after that, Tyler called me and he again talked about he was being extorted to pay this spammer $200 a month to never post another fake review for his businesses. We reiterated the story of how he had to pay this guy, in the beginning, to post fake positive reviews to avoid getting trashed with negative reviews.
It doesn’t matter if the story is true or not. What matters is that consumers can be misled into hiring Stonebriar Moving Services because of the fake positive reviews. When things go sour, Stonebriar Movers also plays the victim or goes into victim shaming. I see several themes in the negative reviews, the crew either shows up late, is a complete no-show, or is rude and unprofessional. If you are going to hire a moving company, you should look elsewhere than Stonebriar Moving Services.
On June 29th, 2022 I saw a post from a non-former friend of mine on Facebook. Brian Reagan is an independent consultant salesperson for the BBB. Brian and I have known each August 2018. He and have talked about protecting consumers, battling fake reviews, and baseball. On October 7th, 2020 I asked him about the BBB alerts for Stonebriar Moving Services. Brian advised me that Stonebriar had been conducting business while being unlicensed for 5 years. Stonebriar was denied BBB accreditation. Brian was actively promoting the fact that Stonebriar was hiring with the following text in his post, “Another one of my BBB Accredited Business hiring..”
Before writing this post, I had just asked Brian what it would take for a business to lose its accreditation. I shared a link to Stonebriar’s BBB profile. I was shocked when 5 days later, Brian is promoting Stonebriar. Brian and I had a back and forth where I called him out as this is a conflict of interest and that this looks like an endorsement. Most people don’t know that Brian is not an actual BBB employee, but I do. Brian has known me well enough to know that when I ask him about a business it’s because I am investigating them. After our entire back-forth, Brian blocked me everywhere on social media.
I believe in redemption and that a company can clean up its act. Tyler Edwards is not one of those people. The way he replies to the hs negative reviews, and BBB complaints, and refuses to take any responsibility continues to affirm this. The BBB accreditation process is a pay-to-play system, and Brian makes a commission for each company that he signs up for. Brian’s actions yesterday and my waking up to a message from Twitter about how one of my tweets flagged as advocating violence is what led me to download and save all my private conversations with Brian and led me to the October conversation where Brian also shared with me that Stonebriar’s marketing company also sells fake reviews. Thank you, Brian, for the reminder.
