Another "how would you deal with this" question (new opening, reviewing themselves)

[turbotapeworm]

Seeking some guidance after doing the standard "report" on the basis of a "conflict of interest" and some reviews being left by people associated with the place in question.

A new opening in town, a "Mediterranean restaurant" with Turkish owners that's part of a group of 3 similar places now.

Facebook reviews all very good but reports from people I know suggest they are deleting any that aren't.

Google reviews are mixed with a current score of 4.2 from 42 reviews but this is where it gets interesting...

I know the name of the owner, he's given the restaurant a word-free 5* review. There are multiple other 5* blank reviews from people that have never reviewed anything before but have Turkish names. A glowing review, with words and images appears to have the same photos as a post on their Facebook page that says "here's a photo of the X I had for my lunch today while doing some work..." when they weren't even open yet.

Basically the reviews look suspect and like they're boosting them up. There's even a review, 5* of course, from one of the sister restaurants.

I've done my bit and reported what I can but this is where my Local Guide knowledge beats any AI or remote Google staff member, unfortunately my experience of similar also tells me nothing will be done about any of this and there's no option for me to explain my reports in more detail (something many of us have asked for as an improvement).

So what do you do? Leave it and hope real reviews outweigh the obvious fakes over time to give a true reflection of the place or is it possible to discuss this kind of thing with someone at Google and have it dealt with properly? I'm not *that* invested in this but I like to see things being kept honest and this kind of behaviour annoys me.

[MortenCopenhagen]

@turbotapeworm 

Did you flag the reviews in question and ditto to the profiles posting reviews with conflicts of interest?

Currently there is no more you can do.  Earlier the Google Moderators here on Connect would escalate such cases, but this is no longer possible.

Cheers 

Morten 

[turbotapeworm]

Reviews flagged @MortenCopenhagen but not the accounts yet on the basis I can't tell anyone why and rarely get good results doing this, I can try and hope the dots can be connected though.

I've since noticed the parent of a member of staff and what looks to be the owner's wife have also left 5* reviews, in contrast most that seem to be actual customers are much lower.

All the information is there if you have a few minute to click around and have a bit of local knowledge but it's getting that to Google for them to act on it that's the problem these days 😞

[turbotapeworm]

I've just noticed something - you can't report the users that have left a rating but no review, these don't show up in the app, just in a browser, you can only report users in the app - bit of a catch 22 situation there

[turbotapeworm]

Another 10 ratings just appeared, all 5* from users that haven't reviewed anything else or gave made 1 or other contributions.

This business really seems keen to boost their ratings instead of their customer service, it's immoral.

Reported, I suspect I'm wasting my time here though.

[turbotapeworm]

And once again, some seemingly honest but negative reviews from established LGs are shared and then just after this a number of 5* reviews from accounts with odd names and no other submissions appear to take the score back up.

I'm pretty irritated by this now, all of the other fake reviews are still up, even the ones from the owner, his other restaurant, his wife, staff and others, how can we be expected to help keep the platform honest if Google don't support us when we raise concerns and report these things to them?

I'd gladly sit down with someone at Google for 30 mins and run them through all this and explain my reports but obviously I can't, heck I can't even tell them why I'm reporting things other than via the small number of predefined options available.

[ErmesT]

This is one of the most painful experience for a Local Guide, @turbotapeworm, because we see a suspicious trend in reviews, but it is difficult to have an evidence about the double violation:

• The Local Guide is offering a false (or paid) review
• The business is acting to have reviews that are not "genuine"

I've tried to report a business time ago through a form in GBP, with zero replies by the team. Now, after your post, I've contacted GBP again. Let see if I will receive a real (not generic) answer

[turbotapeworm]

I'm sure there's quite a few of us frustrated with this kind of thing @ErmesT 

They seem to be actively trying to stop people scamming businesses with the threat of a 1* review but then don't seem all that bothered about the businesses themselves using fake reviews, or as per your post actual bribes, to boost their appeal, it's very odd.

In my case the business is being called out on service levels time and time again, instead of faking reviews they just need to train their staff a little and they'll get repeat customers, surely there's only so long you can sustain a business by pretending?

Or maybe I'm wrong and all of a sudden we have people from Russia coming all the way to the UK, to a small market town, to visit a specific restaurant and then deciding this is the day they start (and stop) contributing to Maps? 🤣

The policies are clear:

https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7422880?hl=en

"contributions must be based on real experiences and information" - when it's incredibly obvious this isn't the case, like when an account has no associated GPS data in that particular place, or even that country, it should be an easy one to police.

[turbotapeworm]

My obsession with this particular business continues and while it seems they've addressed some of their earlier service issues and legitimate reviews appear to have improved there are still negatives that they are offsetting with what look like fake reviews and ratings to keep their overall score high.

Google seem reluctant to act on any of the really obvious bot ratings / reviews, won't look at the owner rating himself (or his family doing the same), nor do they seem concerned that other businesses he owns are reviewing each other... which brings me to the most recent reviewer, a level 4 local guide who appears to be Turkish.

6 days ago he gave 5* reviews to all 4 businesses owned by this particular chap... all of which are in the same part of the country, some a few miles from each other. Despite saying he's visited many other Turkish restaurants in the UK he's never felt the need to review any of them, just these 4 that are owned by the same chap that's so obviously using fakery to boost scores that it frustrate the heck out of me.

AI doesn't see this, other LGs won't always see this, only an LG that really knows these places, has been to them, knows who the owners are, knows the staff, their friends etc are would have enough insight to be able to see what's going on here so how do you get Google to notice? Reporting the fake reviews doesn't help, reporting the accounts doesn't help... do we just accept that this is happening and let them sully the integrity of the platform like this?

I presume he's doing this at all 4 locations, I don't have the energy to look into more than one in detail as I know Google couldn't care less and all of this is a waste of my time.