Pay up, or the one-star reviews stay

It started with six one-star reviews in about two days.

A removals company in Sydney had built its rating the slow way, job by job. Then, in a rush, came a run of one-star reviews from people who had never booked a move. Shortly afterwards a message arrived on the business’s messaging account, offering to get the reviews taken down. For a price.

The owner didn’t pay. She kept screenshots, and the sender grew more insistent. In the weeks around the attack, the share of enquiries that turned into bookings fell by about a quarter.

“The people that are looking at our reviews,” she said, “they don’t know that it’s spam.”

It wasn’t a one-off

A kitchen business in South Australia was hit with 24 or 25 one-star reviews. Its rating fell from close to five stars to about 4.3. The person behind it asked for US$200 per review to remove them — around US$4,000 to undo the damage. The owner refused. The rating has since recovered to 4.9, but it took time.

Both stories were reported in Australian business press last month. The same pattern has been described by small businesses elsewhere: plumbers, dentists, removalists, trades. A sudden pile of one-star reviews, then the offer.

The bigger signal is the number of small businesses who have ended up asking for official help. Australia’s small business ombudsman says disputes with digital platforms went from 12% of its new cases in mid-2025 to 48% in mid-2026. Not all of those are reviews. But a lot of small businesses are clearly struggling to get a platform to listen.

Why this lands where it does

Reviews are the most powerful thing most small businesses have online, and the one they control least.

A big chain with thousands of reviews barely notices twenty fake ones. A local business with sixty genuine reviews built over five years can lose a star overnight. And as more people ask AI assistants to suggest a local business and then go and check the reviews before choosing — something we wrote about earlier this month — the reviews have only become more important.

Faking text is also cheaper than it has ever been. As one academic put it this summer, generative tools have “lowered the cost of producing a convincing fake.” We don’t know whether the reviews in these particular cases were machine-written. We do know that writing twenty varied, plausible complaints no longer takes anyone much effort.

What doesn’t work

Paying. Both owners refused, and the advice from everyone who deals with this is the same. There’s no guarantee the reviews come down, and every reason to think the attacker comes back. One owner also worried, reasonably, that handing over payment details would expose the business to something worse.

Arguing with the fake reviews in public. It is tempting to reply to each one. Some people who handle these attacks advise against it, because a flurry of angry replies tells the extortionist it’s working, and to readers can look like a business under pressure.

Waiting for the platform to fix it. Platforms do remove fake reviews, but it can be slow. One owner said hers only came down after she contacted the media. And when customers reported the fakes, some genuine five-star reviews were caught and removed too.

What does

Keep evidence, report through the platform’s proper channel, and — this is the bit people forget — make sure your business has a version of its reputation that you control.

That is your own website. Nobody can post fake one-star reviews on it. It’s where you can show, calmly and permanently, what real customers have said about real work, and where a nervous customer can check that you are who you seem to be.

The fair question

devkoi can’t remove reviews from anyone else’s platform, and it can’t stop someone targeting you. Those are fights you have with the platform, and sometimes with a regulator or ombudsman.

What it can do is the part you control: a website with named, specific testimonials from real customers, used with their permission — the kind of thing we argued for in our post on the new review rules — your real contact details, and a dated record of your work that no stranger can edit.

(General information, not legal advice. If you are being extorted, report it to the platform and to the police or relevant authority where you are.)

What to do this week

If it’s happening to you

1. Don’t pay, and don’t hand over payment details. There’s no guarantee it works, and it marks you as someone who pays.

2. Screenshot everything. Every fake review, every message, with dates and times. You’ll need it for the platform, and possibly for the police or a regulator.

3. Report through the platform’s own channels. Use the specific option for fake reviews or extortion if there is one, not just the general “report” button. Be patient, and follow up.

4. Tell your real customers. A short, calm note — in person, in your newsletter, or on your site — saying you’ve been targeted by fake reviews and they’re being dealt with. People are generous when they understand.

5. If it isn’t resolved, escalate. Small business ombudsmen and consumer regulators exist for exactly this. Use them.

Before it happens

6. Put real testimonials on your own website. Named, specific, with permission. Three good ones beat thirty anonymous stars.

“Add a testimonials section with these three quotes from customers — they’ve said we can use their first name and town.”

7. Make it easy for genuine customers to review you. A steady trickle of honest reviews makes a sudden burst of fakes stand out — to readers and to the platform.

“Add a line to the thanks page: if you were happy with the job, we’d be grateful for a review.”

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A review is supposed to be a small favour from a customer to the next one: this place is good, you can trust them. Extortion turns that favour into a lever.

You can’t stop someone pulling it. You can make sure your reputation doesn’t rest on it alone — and that the place people go to check is somewhere only you can write.