Living or dying by review: Online extortionists flood businesses with fake appraisals on Google Maps

An online scammer who goes by the name “Dr. Shaan” extorts U.S. businesses by leaving negative reviews on Google Maps to drive away customers and then compels the companies to pay to delete the harmful testimonies.

The “doctor” is just one of many who are getting away with such scams in an online underworld of nefarious activity that often originates overseas, outside the reach of U.S. authorities.

Maureen Martin, who works in the financial services industry in California, said she felt nauseated when she realized she was a victim of review extortion.

Reviews calling her out by name appeared online, claiming specific negative incidents involving fake customers. A few days later, she received a WhatsApp message from a Pakistani number claiming that someone had ordered harmful reviews for her business.

She immediately called a Google product expert, blocked the Pakistani number and rounded up people to report the reviewer. Still, she is terrified of being a victim all over again.

“Who’s going to trust me if I’m a target of extortion?” she said. She described the incident as a ransom that could take down a business.

The anonymous messenger later changed the profile, claimed to be a “bad reviews removal service” and included what appears to be an AI-generated image.

Google Maps is popular with a variety of consumers. Restaurant connoisseurs, tourists, museum enthusiasts and others rely on its rating system, which ranges from one star (poor) to five stars (excellent).

The scams typically begin by spamming fake one-star reviews on a Google Business Profile. The business owner is then coaxed into contacting the scammer through a third-party messaging app, where the scammer demands money in exchange for removing the negative reviews.

The scammer may warn that the negative reviews will escalate if the business fails to pay.

It’s unclear who many of these scammers are. All that is known is the trail of negative reviews left in the wake of these fraudulent plots.

Review extortion has a distortionary impact on the marketplace, said Kay Dean, a former federal criminal investigator who runs the consumer watchdog Fake Review Watch. When phony one-star reviews flood a business, consumers look elsewhere.

“Businesses live and die by their reviews,” Ms. Dean said in an interview with The Washington Times.

Google says it has no tolerance for such scammers, although some say the company’s policing efforts are inadequate.

Google recommends that businesses not engage with scammers, refuse to pay a ransom, gather all available evidence and report the attack.

Scammers can start all over again when one of their reviews is taken down. Ms. Dean characterizes Google’s approach to the problem as whack-a-mole, which she said is a “poor solution from a multibillion-dollar company.”

When Google fails to do its part, many victims of review extortion come to Ms. Dean for help. She said some businesses’ phones have stopped ringing, and they are struggling to stay afloat and are frustrated with Google. Some paid the company for ads but dealt with fake reviews for months without help.

Although multiple parties are to blame for these scams — tech companies, inadequate federal laws and third-party messaging apps — Ms. Dean places most of the blame on tech companies. She said their policies create a permissive environment for review extortion to flourish.

For example, Google allows reviewers to include descriptions in their profiles or make profiles private, meaning no one else can see whether they have reviewed other businesses. Scammers take full advantage. Some add “Contact me to remove negative reviews,” along with a Gmail or WhatsApp number.

Ms. Dean said review platforms carry an inherent conflict of interest because they profit whether the reviews are real or fake.

“They really don’t have an incentive to self-police or call attention to fraud on their platforms,” she said. “So they turn a blind eye to it and just do enough to give the public the impression that they’re doing things.”

At the platform level in the U.S., reviews are under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects Google. Under the statute, companies are not obligated to remove reviews related to extortion but can do so in “good faith.”

Reviews also fall under the Federal Trade Commission’s Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, which says it is illegal for businesses to engage in fake review generation. Because the agency does not have substantial enforcement resources, it is essentially “no man’s land,” said Mike Blumenthal, co-founder of market research agency Near Media.

This enforcement vacuum basically gives tech companies a free pass, as it fails to hold them accountable for what happens on their platforms.

Google says more than 85% of fake and policy-violating reviews are blocked or removed before anyone sees them.

A report by the Transparency Co. said “the prevalence of fake reviews will lead to an erosion of trust in online reviews and related information, which imposes additional costs on consumers and businesses.”

With all Google’s prowess, the tech giant should be able to easily identify such fake reviews using artificial intelligence or an automated system, said Darren Shaw, founder of Whitespark, which helps businesses improve their Google rankings.

Google said it has clear policies prohibiting fake engagement, harassment, extortion and other harmful content. Google uses advanced machine learning models that “excel” at detecting content that violates its policies, having blocked or removed more than 240 million policy-violating reviews in 2024.

Google said Nov. 6 that it was rolling out “a new way for merchants to directly report extortion attempts.”

Courtney Welch, the office manager for HomeShield Roofing in Orlando, Florida, had no idea the form existed.

She called The Times when her company was hit with a second extortion scam: detailed, fake reviews that spammed her Google Maps business in waves of 10. She said her company was distraught the first time as it watched its ratings slowly tank.

Even though the first attack was resolved relatively quickly, she could not talk to a real person at Google. She did not know about the form until The Times asked whether she planned to use it.

Although Google swiftly removed the reviews, the profiles remain active and continue attacking other businesses, according to Ms. Dean’s tracking analysis.

Ben Fisher, founder of Steady Demand, a company with a strong focus on Google Business Profiles, found 49 extortion complaints on the Google Business Profile Help community in 2024. That number more than doubled from January to September last year.

Despite the increase, Mr. Fisher applauded Google’s efforts to combat fraud. He said the company has implemented a “lightning-fast solution to a complex problem.” He has been a Google product specialist for a decade and one of the forward-facing people in the Google Business Profile Help community with the credentials to elevate problems up the Google chain of command.

Although not a Google spokesperson, he said Google is doing the best it can. Others disagree.

When asked about creating an automated system to identify and remove fake reviews, Google did not reply. In previous questions, a company spokesperson pointed to news releases.

The Transparency Co. tracks fake online reviews by identifying patterns, such as profiles that review the same businesses or reviews spammed within hours. Over the past few months, it has tracked 6,769 Google reviews related to extortion, said Curtis Boyd, the company’s founder.

Victims “have to be a very squeaky wheel” to get Google to take down the reviews, Mr. Boyd said.

Mr. Boyd said he talked with Google’s Trust and Safety Team about his algorithm that detects fake reviews on Google Maps. He said they weren’t receptive.

Patrick Meister’s moving company in Illinois was targeted this summer. It received about three dozen one-star reviews from fake customers in just four hours. After the reviews were flagged, they disappeared after four days.

Although he thinks Google’s reaction was good, he said the attack presents an interesting opportunity for Google to do a better job of monitoring when a business becomes a victim.

Mr. Shaw thinks Google’s motivation for not cracking down harder on review extortion is that it wants to be the dominant site for local business reviews on the internet. He believes Google does not want to tighten its filters because that could hurt its market position.

For example, Yelp has an automated review filtering system to weed out fake reviews. Still, Ms. Dean found that Yelp’s algorithm recommended a fake Yelp reviewer using a stolen image. The profile was removed only after The Times contacted Yelp.

In the long term, Mr. Shaw said, cracking down on fraud hurts Yelp’s business because Google has much more robust information.

Industry specialists say loopholes still need to be addressed.

Although review extortion remains morally and ethically offensive, no U.S. laws prevent it, said Mr. Blumenthal, the co-founder of Near Media.

Germany has strict regulations. If a business claims that someone who left a review wasn’t a client, then Google will remove the review.

“We know that Google can do it when required by law to do it; they’ve just chosen not to do it,” Mr. Blumenthal said.