"Pablo Sanchez, a manager of the moving company ServiMoving , noticed something strange online: a one-star review on their Google Maps page. We checked with the team to find out what had happened, which customer was unhappy, he explained to EL PAIS. A little while later, another one appeared, then another we started to get alarmed, he added. They quickly realized that the reviews weren't being written by real customers. We were baffled, he sighed. Shortly after, they found out what was really going on."
"Sanchez hesitated. He even spoke to the attackers on the phone: It seemed organized, like a call center where many people were making calls, he explained. In the end, he didn't pay. The company dealt with the campaign by reporting the profiles to Google and responding to each review with an explanation. Within a few weeks, the reviews disappeared, but for many days, ServiMoving's rating dropped to just over four stars, with all recent reviews showing just one star."
A Barcelona moving company received multiple one-star Google Maps reviews that were not written by real customers. The company was later contacted and told that an organization had paid people to post the reviews and offered to delete them for a fee. The manager refused to pay and instead reported the fake profiles to Google and replied to each review. Within weeks the fraudulent reviews disappeared, but the company’s rating remained depressed for days. Similar targeted campaigns affected other Spanish businesses that serve international clients or have English-language sites, with reviews written in Spanish and tailored to each sector.
Read at english.elpais.com
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