Recent content by chriscc

Do you want to share the number/email that the scammers asked you to contact (and assuming forum mods are fine with that)? I'm curious whether the groups are linked

That's awesome! Did you also flag the reviews individually as spam, or just do the single extortion report form?

Yep, ours all followed a pattern of: no profile pic, local guides, privacy enabled (so you can't see their other reviews). They all had 50-100 reviews to their name

1. I spoke to another UK business owner who'd received 1-star reviews on the day after I did, who said they'd contacted the business mobile directly as soon as she replied to one review saying it was a fake to be ignored! Anecdotal I know, but that's all I've got; I never replied to mine. 2...

No email at all, but they came down in one go. The form also had no way of attaching multiple files so I had to make a mini presentation! Hopefully just teething. Would be great if you could see it as a "pending case" on a dashboard, like when a spam review is reported

Hi all, happy to report that all the fake 1-star reviews have been removed, and the scammer has not been paid. Seems like the new "extortion report" form did the trick, so thanks for the pointer there. A couple of small tips for anyone else facing this: 1. Despite online advice to the...

I couldn't say for sure, but my guess is that these small-ish ones of half a dozen reviews targeting well-rated small businesses are "manual". The review text itself is at least somewhat targeted towards the business it's attacking (so not totally generic "bad customer service" or something)...

Thank you I didn't know that tool existed! I have made a report there too.

Hi all! We have received five 1-star reviews this evening, all fake (see pic 1). The profiles of the reviewers urge us to contact them (see pic 2) by whatsapp and provide a number (+923444837972) or by email (shanowdd@gmail.com). The same number and email appear appear on the profiles of 3 of...

Thanks Jenny! I have a report set to run weekly, but an option to also set the time of day to run it would be perfect (I am still seeing big open/closed fluctuations)!

Ha! Thanks Joy! Nice to know I wasn't going crazy with the open/closed stuff. AFAIK Brightlocal doesn't let me set the time of the report, so when (in the UK) I get the regular email from them, sometimes it arrives after the business is open, and sometimes when it's closed. I guess Brightlocal...

Very similar scale of fluctuation to what I had. Sorry, that's no help to you I know. Out of interest, is the business 'open' at the time of both your tests?

For what it's worth, after a couple of days of wild fluctuations, my rankings seem to have stabilised roughly where they started(!)

Oh that's interesting; I've been going through the businesses that seem to have benefited and they also all have primary categories in common, which were previously lower ranked (but more relevant than 'laboratory' in your case!). Have you experimented with changing primary category? I guess...

Hi Rod, mine too, big fluctuations continuing today (Wednesday). Especially on mobile weirdly, but that's anecdotal. Almost sure to be the core update that Colan/Joy picked up...