Comments on: 4 Star Negative review attacks

By: Galyn Metcalf

Galyn Metcalf — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 17:17:26 +0000

This is happening to us. We have found the original reviews (5* Yelp reviews copied and pasted from a similar business in another city), and have reported and are waiting for a response.

You approach the “why” in your very helpful article, but it still remains unanswered. In pondering the situation these last few days I have come up with the hypothesis that this is not an attack on our small businesses, but rather a global attack on Google and its reputation among small businesses. Someone internationally is working to bring Google down.

Sadly, this has shown us how much control Google has over us as a small business. They completely control what it published. We cannot delete the information they choose to broadcast about our business. The state of the world is becoming dismal.

By: Computer repair

Computer repair — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 00:41:14 +0000

After reading about plagiarist reviewer “Kimberly Brackett” on your website, I made the connection to a “Kimborly Brackett” that left the only sub-5-star rating on my google listing. Her 4-star review claimed that a “David” from my company fixed her computer. First red flag, it was the only rating below 5 stars. Second red flag, I am the sole employee. Third red flag, I have no Brackett clients.

It took a couple failed attempts via Twitter private messages to Google My Business to finally get them to agree to pull the review. Initially, they said it was not a breach of their terms of service. I argued to the contrary. Not until I provided photo evidence, did they hear my argument. I sent a screen capture of the fake review on my google listing with shot of the very same review published on yelp! in 2012 by a different contributor about a different tech company in a different state.

A week later the review was pulled from my listing, and my overall score returned to a solid 5 stars. I am already receiving more callers than had been. I’ll be interested in seeing the actual stats at the end of the month to see the impact the fraudulent review on business.

I cited your website as a source for info about a previous run-in with “Kimberly Brackett” and malicious reviews.

Thank you.

By: Chris Leeds

Chris Leeds — Sat, 13 Jul 2019 01:34:37 +0000

Please help. This review remains on my Googlemybusiness.com page. Neither is Kimborly Bracket one of my customers, we do not have an employee here named Dan. This is the lone 4-star review I have ever received, and it’s dropped my rating down to 4.9 and public standing. Lastly, I see reference to “Kimberly Bracket” in your article about 4-Star Review Scam.

I have a popular Mac repair shop. Apparently, haters gonna hate. I’m eager to remedy this. Please help.

I have found two other business the subject of Ms. Bracket’s 4-star reviews. Both are in the Metroplex.

Please help. This is the actual review.

Kimborly Bracket
 22 weeks ago
Dan is the computer whisperer, plain and simple. Honest, quick, and communicative…he’s now my go to guy for all computer repairs after my experience with him resurrecting my beat up lil netbook. Ditch the Geek Squad and their ilk. Dan’s what you need!

By: Review Fraud

Review Fraud — Fri, 17 May 2019 13:52:04 +0000

In reply to Justin Elledge. You are welcome. I am the Top Contributor/ Product Expert that assisted you on the GMB forum. I sent the fake review over to the Google Spam team for removal. Your report helped us to identify the pattern of fake review attacks.

By: Justin Elledge

Justin Elledge — Thu, 16 May 2019 21:50:24 +0000

I’m the owner of the first business you mention in the article. I had no idea what a can of worms this ended up being! Bizarre and fascinating. Thanks for any hand you played in getting the fake review(s) taken down.

By: Peter Rabanus

Peter Rabanus — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 23:02:57 +0000

I have had the same experience: 5.0-star average. Annual congratulatory postcards from Google for it. Now destroyed by three fake 4-star reviews.
I contacted the Google MB team. They decided not to do anything. I am seeking legal action. Anyone else?

By: Ana

Ana — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 16:06:46 +0000

We got a 4 star review on google for services we don’t even do. I responded to the review but they didn’t take it down or respond back. It’s so annoying. I checked the persons name in our system and we don’t have a client by that name.

By: Massage San Diego

Massage San Diego — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 16:52:43 +0000

I cannot thank you enough for doing this!! I just got hit with a few 4Star reviews — wonderfully positive, yet obviously fake, dropping my rankings. This has helped me start researching and following leads to try and uncover what is going on. I worked so hard for my reputation; my livelihood really depends on it. Thank yoU!

By: Proche

Proche — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 10:52:42 +0000

Thank you for such informative article.

By: James

James — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 22:37:38 +0000

I’m pretty sure we’re in heavy on these fake reviews… I posted this on Moz just now:

https://goo.gl/maps/8XzCLcenM3r

Long story short… we own several self-storage facilities and reviews are very important. This particular one, I-17 Thunderbird Self Storage, in Phoenix shares the parking lot with a Home Depot and is a stone’s throw from Wendy’s, Jiffy Lube, and a Walgreens. We may, in fact, share the same parcel as Home Depot which makes things even more confusing.

Anyway… we constantly get 1 star – 4 star reviews with no comments and often get reviews saying things like “never been”. Google, via Twitter DM, did communicate with me and remove a couple of the reviews with comments indicating they had never been to our facility or done business with us.

Given our location, it seems pretty obvious that Google is somehow crossing us with Home Depot because I flag a dozen or so photos a month of pallets of pavers, flowers, and fertilizer from Home Depot. Those generally get removed only after flagging 3+ times followed by a Twitter DM to Google. However, the real issue is the 1 star reviews with NO commentary. I currently handle them by replying with the following… trying to publicly establish that they are not nor have they ever been a customer and guess what, they NEVER respond to my reply just proving my point but Google will not remove them:

“Hi Stanley, we don’t have record of you as a current or past tenant or of doing business with you in general. We take reviews and ratings from our self-storage tenants very seriously and know that the public counts on honest reviews from those that do or have done business with us to make educated decisions. Can you please call or come by our office and let us know what unit # you have with us so we can address your concerns? Otherwise, if you reviewed us by mistake, we understand and would appreciate it if you’d give us a higher review. Thank you so much!”

How can I remedy this? Does this happen to others who share close proximity to big box stores? While I’d love to think our self-storage facility somehow has 361 legitimate reviews… I know better.

James