It has recently come to our attention here at ReviewInc that there may be some reputation management companies reaching out to businesses after they have written a fake negative review about them, offering a solution to remove these fake reviews. While we do not want to get into the specifics of who may be involved in such tactics, we just want all of our clients to be aware of this unethical practice and to be careful when dealing with sales calls where they try to pitch something like this to you.
If you are suffering from malicious fake reviews being written about your business, either by your competitors or even by our competitors, it is important to remember that a lot of consumers are able to spot these fake reviews on their own. So there is no need to worry so much about the effect that these negative reviews will have on your business. One thing you can do to combat this is to encourage your happy patrons to share their experience at your business in an effort to drown out these malicious reviews, or at the very least, balance out what is being said about your business. You may also refer to our previous blog posts Why You Need Reviews and Four Key Factors for Business Reviews for more ideas.
If you feel you have been a victim of this, we encourage you to write to the support team of the respective review site where you suspect a fake negative review has been written about your business, and ask them to remove it. They may also be able to provide some insight as to where the review came from, at least geographically, and possibly who wrote it. Perhaps once they have identified the perpetrator, you may then be able to take the next steps to block that person from reviewing your business ever again.
