Hello Local Search Forum community,
I am dealing with a local competitor who is systematically weaponizing Google's review flagging system to artificially inflate their ratings. I have documented everything, but the official Google Community bots have completely blocked my escalation path, so I am hoping a Product Expert here can help.
The Issue: The competitor has been abusing the flagging system since last summer. I started closely monitoring their profile, and on August 24th alone, they successfully removed six 1-star and two 2-star legitimate customer reviews through mass-flagging. What makes this manipulation undeniable is that the business owner actually acknowledges the genuine customer experiences by replying to these 1-star reviews, and
then maliciously flags them to hide the evidence.
Actions Taken: I gathered all the evidence (screenshots of the original reviews with the owner's replies + exact Review IDs) and submitted a formal Business Redressal Form for Fake Engagement/Review Suppression.
The Problem with the Official Forum: I went to the official Google Business Profile Community to provide my Case ID to a Product Expert. However, the automated system marked my thread as a "duplicate" of the standard "Missing Reviews" FAQ and locked it. The bot completely misunderstood the issue—I am not asking about my own missing reviews; I am reporting a competitor's Deceptive Content abuse.
Since the official forum bots have shut me out, is there any Product Expert here who might be able to push this Case ID directly to the Trust & Safety team for a manual review?
Thank you so much for your time and any guidance you can provide.
