![]() Google also recommends, obviously, that restaurants don’t pay the scammers. (The response asked business owners to “consider replying to the customer directly to resolve the issue.”) Despite having proof of extortion in hand, restaurants, stuck in a loop of technological customer service, were left to ignore the fake ratings, or worse, engage their extortionist, hoping they wouldn’t pile up and hurt business. Some restaurant owners, Kim included, reported all the offending reviews and received responses saying that the reviews didn’t violate Google’s policies and would remain on the site. ![]() It’s a fragile system that restaurant owners rely on heavily to succeed, and one that has few checks and balances to ensure they aren’t being taken advantage of or extorted. Weeks after the scam began, it’s revealed just how reliant restaurants are on review platforms like Google, and how little power they have to respond to bad actors. Still, the scammers found an easy target in independent restaurants that faced headaches as they tried, unsuccessfully at first, to have the reviews removed. Now, weeks later, some targeted restaurants, including Parachute, have found the one-star reviews are finally gone. Though Google encourages business owners to report suspicious reviews, the platform was slow to respond to frantic restaurant owners, and in some cases even said that reviews didn’t go against company policy. As of last week many of the fraudulent ratings still appeared in search results and on Google Maps. This was going to be a story about Google’s inaction in response to the organized and widely publicized scam.
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