Hello there,
I have a problem with a certain restaurant owner.
In the past, I made lots of reviews - most of them very positive, since I especially like to share, when I liked something.
In rare moments, however, I only award one or two stars, when I wasn't satisfied at all.
Now, in a special case, I visited a restaurant for the first time, and it was just awful:
Lack of compliance with covid protection laws, poor service, poor quality of food - nothing was right.
In a relatively short review, I then wrote that I was not satisfied, without going into too much detail.
Now, a couple of weeks later, I got an e-mail from removal@google.com, stating that a lawyer wanted proof from me showing that I was a real customer.
Since I live in Germany / Europe, there is apparently a court ruling that only people who have/had a genuine business relationship with the reviewed company may write a review - or otherwise the review must be removed.
Since I paid by credit card, I was able to provide Google with proof so my review was not removed.
Had I paid cash, I probably would not have had an invoice so many weeks after the visit and my honest review would have been deleted.
Looking at the other reviews of the restaurant, I noticed that the restaurant seems to systematically report every negative review to Google by lawyer.
Some reviewers even add to their review that they were contacted by this lawyer!
It seems to me, that this restaurant is doing this systematically in the hope that customers have no proof of their customer-relationship, so the bad review is removed.
This works like positive fake reviews, just the other way around.
Is such a manipulation of the ratings on Google permissible?
Can I somehow report the company to Google?
I appreciate your opinion and advice.
Cheers,
Sascha
2022
