Business owner threatens me after negative review and uses mails, phone, Facebook aggressively

Google Maps tips & tricks
1

Hi, my first post here.

After giving a negative review on Google Maps, the owner of the business + their associated business(es) are threatening me.

Situation: I booked a guided tour, but because of private reasons we had to cancel or whole trip (hotel, flight, tour). I gave the owner a one-day heads-up by email, explained the private event and asked for a refund.

After ignoring my mail + follow-up mails, the communication got aggressive. The owner was also not interested in other options (party payback, postponing the event).

After I wrote my review (which only discussed the facts + warning for other travellers), their campaign started. The emails they were sending got more and more aggressive and threaths followed: fines, advocates, social denigration, …

I explained my point again, and the campaign went on. Now they also published on Facebook reel the situation and denigrated me, also announce my private situation (which only they new). In their emails, they declared war and wished me luck.

Next, a telephone campaign has started and a third company got involved. Yesterday they called more than 20 times.

I contacted the GDPR authorities regarding my GDPR violation, and they said I have to contact them again: they have 1 month to answer or they will step in. But to be honest, I’m sure that will make it worse.

Today I have asked help from Google Support (Maps / My Company) with this issue.

It shouldn’t be that I cannot leave my opinion in a review without getting threatened.

Can anybody help me with some tips or insights?

How to deal with the behaviour?

If I would just remove the review, the malicious owner wins and other users are not protected, that’s against the whole point of the system.

Thanks.

2

I’s sorry to hear about your experiences, @Twijgje .

As a fellow Local Guide there is not much I can do. And reaching out to your local GDPR authorities is the right thing to do.

That said, I would like to add:

It might be worth considering further legal actions like:

  • Documenting their actions as well as you can (save screenshots and record messages)
  • Reaching out to your local police (the GDPR folks will probably be able to advise you if this is relevant in your country)
  • Engaging a lawyer to consider civil legal actions.

But this is not something I have experience with or can recommend. It might entail further risks for you.

As an inexperienced Local Guide, I first thought that Google would have our backs in these cases. This is not the case. Your local authorities are your allies.

You can consider this trick: Remove your review on Google Maps (copy the text first). This will immediately also remove their reply to your review. Then you can post your review again. And they will need to reply again.

You can also edit your review to respond to them publicly on Google Maps.

If they make serious threats we might be able to request Google to take action. But this will need a lot of evidence that is not appropriate to share publicly.

You could try this path: https://support.google.com/business/gethelp?hl=en They can apply sanctions like removing the listing on Google Maps, but it happens only in extreme cases.

Best of luck

Morten

3

@Twijgje

I just found and read your review. Sometimes Local Guides can lose their head and write aggressive and inappropriate reviews. I find your text to be very controlled and factual. I doubt you have violated any guidelines, and hence the business has not so far been able to get Google to remove your review. Normally, a request from a business to get a review removed takes 2-3 days.

Best of luck

Morten

4

Update: after 2 days of calls with about 30min in between them, I went to the local police station with a transcript of all messages, posts and calls.

They have taken note, but can’t do anything, and referred me to a lawyer to start up a case.

From Google Support I only got a referral to another forum.

I have removed the reviews for Google and TripAdvisor this morning.

I am a fan of the free speech principle, but my own safety and mental health means more to me.

For me, the Google Maps review system has failed.