SCOTTSDALE, AZ (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 There\u2019s an ongoing scam targeting small businesses here in Phoenix and around the nation.<\/p>\n
The scammers are raiding the internet with negative reviews and it\u2019s causing small businesses a lot of problems.<\/p>\n
Kim Coates and Isaac Navias say their company is being unfairly targeted with negative, fake reviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one says, \u2018Product broke in just one day, asked for help. They walked away, worst experience I\u2019ve ever had, this company is truly bad,\u2019\u201d Navias said.<\/p>\n
The couple runs a digital marketing company in Scottsdale called LocalFi<\/a>. It specializes in helping business promote their products and services online, so they know how important it is to have positive reviews on Google.<\/p>\n So when they woke up one day to a series of fake reviews about their business, they knew they had a problem on their hands.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were in broken English,\u201d Navias said. \u201cThey were talking about products. We don\u2019t even sell products. And it was just like, oh my God, what\u2019s happening right now? And then they kept coming in as I was searching.\u201d<\/p>\n They got 17 one-star reviews in a matter of just a few hours, all from different profiles, but written with similar language.<\/p>\n As a result, their company\u2019s Google rating dropped from 4.9 to 4.3 by lunchtime.<\/p>\n \u201cSince we help clients with online reputation for years now, I understood, like, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re being attacked,\u2019\u201d Navias said. <\/p>\n The last few reviews included a phone number that appears to be in Pakistan, and a message.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the final reviews left for us, it literally said \u2018Hey, brother, you need to contact me. And if you contact me on the number in my profile picture, we\u2019ll take down all of these reviews,\u2019\u201d Navias said.<\/p>\n All those negative, fake reviews were posted by overseas scammers demanding hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to take down the negative reviews.<\/p>\n Navias and Coates didn\u2019t contact the scammer but they documented everything and sent the evidence to Google. Friends also reported the reviews as fakes and Google took them down.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really amazing,\u201d Navias said. \u201cThe community came together to support us. But no, I would think the average business owner, if Google doesn\u2019t see that there\u2019s an issue with these reviews, it can be a really hard battle.\u201d <\/p>\n Navias wants Google to ban accounts that leave these kinds of fake reviews but so far, that doesn\u2019t seem to be happening.<\/p>\n And as big companies like Google depend more and more on AI to monitor these things, he believes fakes will be harder to remove.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom all my research, this is becoming a larger and larger problem,\u201d Navias said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s something that, unfortunately, Google really doesn\u2019t have a good solution for.\u201d <\/p>\n Navias says if this happens to your business, document everything and submit it to Google. Contact your local police. Extortion is a felony. Report the reviews to Google and have your friends do it too.<\/p>\n And submit a legal claim to Google, letting them know someone is using their platform to commit a crime.<\/p>\n We did reach out to Google for this story, but they did not get back to us.<\/p>\n See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n