There’s a café in Munich, Germany, that continuously removes all negative reviews by claiming “defamation.” When a review gets removed, the reviewer is required to prove to Google that they were actually at the café on the date in question. This has happened to me three times now. Each time, I’ve successfully reactivated my review by providing proof—but in the meantime, many other negative reviews disappear, likely because those customers paid in cash and have no way to prove they were there.
Only two other reviewers and I seem to be consistently reinstating our reviews and updating them to mention that the café keeps removing negative feedback.
I believe this is deeply unfair and dishonest. Is there any end to this? Can Google place limits on how many times a business owner can challenge or remove reviews? What’s the purpose of reviews if a business can manipulate them at will?
At this point, I have zero trust in Google Reviews, because I now see that business owners can effectively erase criticism if the reviewer doesn’t have a receipt or hard evidence of their visit.
Can Google do anything about this? Is there a system in place to prevent this kind of abuse from the business side?