Urgent: Fake Reviews Scam Affecting Vincci Hotels

[Lluc]

Hi,

One of our clients, Vincci Hotels, is experiencing a fraudulent review scheme similar to an issue we reported last year for another client.

Situation Overview:​

Scammers, impersonating the hotel’s marketing agency, are contacting random users via a Telegram channel (none of whom have stayed at the hotel). They offer users payment in exchange for leaving a 5-star Google review for the hotel.

• Users accept the offer, post 5-star reviews, and then wait for payment.
• Scammers do not pay, leading frustrated users to edit their reviews to 1-star, exposing the scam and undermining the hotel’s reputation.
• The hotel then contacts Google Support to remove these fraudulent reviews.
• Unfortunately, Google has not taken action despite multiple requests.

Affected Hotels & Dates:​

• Vincci Palace – Fake reviews posted on February 10, 2025 - 132 fake reviews identified.
• Vincci Capitol – Fake reviews posted on March 6, 2025

Support Ticket IDs:​

• Vincci Palace: 5-1998000037872
• Vincci Capitol: 7-9200000038177

Could someone assist in resolving this issue? The reputation management team has identified the fake reviews and can provide additional information if needed.

Additionally, has anyone else encountered a similar scam? If so, how were you able to have the fraudulent reviews removed?

Thank you in advance for your support.

Lluc

 

[Nafiz]

A lot of this scams are happening lately. have anyone contacted you from the support team?

 

[Lluc]

Hi Nafiz, indeed, another client reported yesterday the same situation for a hotel in Morocco. Reviews are mostly in Arabic.

We have contacted Google Support and created a ticket for each hotel affected by this. As an example, one hotel had 250 5 star fake reviews come in on the same day. They were all reported to Google, and after about 2 weeks the fake reviews were removed except for 9 (working on removing them at the moment). In no case Google removed all the fake reviews we reported in one go, we are still pending the removal of many.

We are also concerned about the possibility that it will trigger the new warning messages or even a suspension.

We are most successful when we involve the Paid teams, Google Ads and Google Hotel Ads, and the clients Google account manager can contact internally for a solution.


https://support.google.com/maps/thread/259234141/paid-review-scam?hl=en

 

[fisicx]

There is huge industry out there creating fake reviews, listings, content, links and generally behaving badly. There is very little you can do except keep reporting. It is however unlikely the flood will be stemmed, there is just so much of it and it can be very lucrative for the fraudsters.

 

[Nafiz]

Hi Nafiz, indeed, another client reported yesterday the same situation for a hotel in Morocco. Reviews are mostly in Arabic.

We have contacted Google Support and created a ticket for each hotel affected by this. As an example, one hotel had 250 5 star fake reviews come in on the same day. They were all reported to Google, and after about 2 weeks the fake reviews were removed except for 9 (working on removing them at the moment). In no case Google removed all the fake reviews we reported in one go, we are still pending the removal of many.

We are also concerned about the possibility that it will trigger the new warning messages or even a suspension.

We are most successful when we involve the Paid teams, Google Ads and Google Hotel Ads, and the clients Google account manager can contact internally for a solution.


https://support.google.com/maps/thread/259234141/paid-review-scam?hl=en

Hello Lluc,

yes, you did the right thing. but unfortunately you cant talk to google employees directly and that is the worst. nowadays their reply time has also increased like they take 4 weeks or more to reply.

how long did they take to remove your fake reviews?