Negative review keeps getting renewed/bumped and tagged as "new"

[Brian - TGL]

I have a business owner with almost 800 reviews and a 5-star average who is in the middle of legal proceedings with a customer.

Somehow that customer is able to refresh/bump his negative & aggressive review daily for several months so that it is tagged with "new" every day.

I compared the text of the review yesterday to the bumped version today and both are identical.

It could likely be flagged as harassment against an individual based on the content of the review, but if they are THAT motivated to renew this review every day, I doubt that will be the end of the situation. Unless removing the review still shows it as valid at the customer end even though Google is not showing it to the public?

Does anyone have any idea how the review keeps getting renewed?

 

[JS Girard]

I think it was @JoyHawkins who reported this tactic a while ago as well as Google's total and complete refusal to do anything about it.

 

[Brian - TGL]

I think it was @JoyHawkins who reported this tactic a while ago as well as Google's total and complete refusal to do anything about it.

@JoyHawkins I would be interested to hear about your experience. Do we think it's as simple as deleting a character and updating the review, then adding the character back in and updating again?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yep, all they need to do is edit something simple. I sent this case to Google and literally the guy had updated his review 8 or more times in 2 years just adjusting a letter or a period.

Google said it didn't violate their guidelines, which I found insane. I hope legal action gets you further.

 

[Brian - TGL]

Yep, all they need to do is edit something simple. I sent this case to Google and literally the guy had updated his review 8 or more times in 2 years just adjusting a letter or a period.

Google said it didn't violate their guidelines, which I found insane. I hope legal action gets you further.

I wonder if they would come to the same conclusion if customers were bumping their 5-star reviews every day. . . even having a couple that bumped every week might show an uptick in review velocity for a newer GBP trying to get some traction early on.

 

[Brian - TGL]

Today it seems the negative reviewer has created another account and has duplicated the same review (word for word & photos) as the other review, also under the exact same name.

I recommended to the business owner to reach out to GBP support and see if anything can be addressed . . . what a pain.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Now this time you should get somewhere with support. They should remove the other review.

 

[Brian - TGL]

I had the business owner reach out to support and point out the duplicates . . . they actually removed both today.

 

[JoyHawkins]

That's awesome. I've found they sometimes do remove both!

 

[Brian - TGL]

This is interesting, I did double-check the day I posted this and the reviews were both removed from the GBP.

I just checked again today and both reviews are back up after the customer made a couple of changes as mentioned before.

So it looks like Google just hides reviews in a case like this and they are still able to be refreshed and republished.

I bet the customer didn't even realize the reviews were even hidden for a day.

 

[JS Girard]

Have you tried poking support again? Something tells me that Google frowns on accounts that get around moderation actions (even though I consider this not to BE a moderation action on Google's part!)

 

[Brian - TGL]

Have you tried poking support again? Something tells me that Google frowns on accounts that get around moderation actions (even though I consider this not to BE a moderation action on Google's part!)

Not yet, I don't have access to the GBP directly and the business owner gets frustrated jumping through the hoops.

Just curious, why wouldn't you consider the review removals to be a moderation action?

 

[JS Girard]

Oh, I mean, as far as google is concerned, they did what they consider to be correct, except clearly the reviews were not ACTUALLY deleted, and can just be returned to active status by the reviewer without support intervention. That is NOT proper moderation to me!

I.e. Google calls that moderation, I think it's a lie to do so!

 

[Brian - TGL]

Oh, I mean, as far as google is concerned, they did what they consider to be correct, except clearly the reviews were not ACTUALLY deleted, and can just be returned to active status by the reviewer without support intervention. That is NOT proper moderation to me!

I.e. Google calls that moderation, I think it's a lie to do so!

I agree there 100% . . . I wonder if that is the normal way that reviews get "removed"?

It would be interesting for the professional "Negative Review Removal" companies that can charge $1,000's to put all that time and effort in just to have the original poster change a comma to a semicolon and republish the review.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yes, that's normal. The review doesn't get deleted, it just gets hidden from public view.

 

[Brian - TGL]

Not yet, I don't have access to the GBP directly and the business owner gets frustrated jumping through the hoops.

I reached out to the BO to see if he can add me as a user.

I want to check out the "Manage your Google Business reviews" self-help portal once I am added:

https://support.google.com/business/workflow/9945796

There is supposed to be an option to check the status of previously reported reviews:

2023-09-18_09-27-28

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app.screencast.com

There may be obvious actions to take in that interface, I will update the thread.

 

[Brian - TGL]

Eventually, Google did actually delete the review in question, but this customer has an exact duplicate of the text and keeps pasting it into a new review.

The guy literally has made this a part of his daily routine and bumps the review every day with aggressive language about the owner.

I have no suggestions for him at this point.

 

[JS Girard]

Eventually, Google did actually delete the review in question, but this customer has an exact duplicate of the text and keeps pasting it into a new review.

The guy literally has made this a part of his daily routine and bumps the review every day with aggressive language about the owner.

I have no suggestions for him at this point.

legal action?

 

[Brian - TGL]

legal action?

They are in the middle of that currently.

Good on this guy for putting time into his hobbies I guess?