Today I deleted a review for the first time ever. Why? Because the business owner approached someone I work with and asked them where I work, where do I live, how do I commute each day. This is beyond creepy to the extent that I’m considering taking out a Police order on the person as its clear they’re trying to track me down (not hard mind you, I’m in the phone book) and I’m concerned from a safety perspective.
This is weirdly obsessive behaviour - I thought for a long time about writing the review in the first place because the person has issues of some kind as they’ve clearly been obsessing over the review for a long time.
Since that time they’ve done enough research to claim their business and to know how to do a bit of digging.
Of course my photos are still there but I’ll leave them in place for the moment.
I’ve captured a screenshot for future in case he attempts any kind of legal action.
Normally I would just shrug this off and leave the review in place to help warn other people but in this case I’m creeped out and have removed it.
@PaulPavlinovich In your shoes, I would have done that as well. It’s scary to know this and other cases others have shared in Connect. Keep us updated on this.
Has anyone else encountered similar troubling instances? If so, we might need to consider some privacy measures. But conversely, part of the authenticity of our reviews come from having real user accounts and names.
I’ve left thousands of reviews and only this once have I had any problem. I’ll chock this up to experience @Tula@AustinCO@JulienH
If the guy escalates in any creepy/physical sense he’ll discover I know how the system works :).
He can’t escalate on a legal sense because my review was factual and without emotion and expressed my own personal opinion. There’s nothing he can do about that apart from improve his business :).
Almost my situation dear @PaulPavlinovich , that’s why every now and then I put my profile as private in Google Maps, to prevent it from doing more damage with my other reviews or report all the photos!
Wow - pretty ridiculous measures for that individual to take for an honest, well-written review that is factual. I hope it does not escalate into an even larger issue and annoyance. So sorry to hear that this business owner has taken such measures.
I have heard complaints from multiple stores in Japan that “Google map is scary”. I initially thought it was a problem unique to the Japanese. Perhaps they are in a state of potential tension.
I have heard of the occasional other person having “interesting” experiences, but out of the 1500 reviews, I’ve had one issue so pretty decent record so far. Interestingly since this story broke around work I’ve had other people come to me and say that this particular business owner gave them the same bad feelings so I know that if he does try to escalate anything I know I’ve got plenty to draw on to support my view.