You are stupid and unscrupulous and want to earn a lot of money on the internet with little work? Google kindly gives you a relatively easy way to do this.
You simply open 30, 40 or maybe even 50 different Google user accounts, each with a different email address. Don’t worry, Google doesn’t verify your identity.
They also set up a mailbox company abroad, for example in Malta or Cyprus. Services that offer such a service for manageable sums of money are a dime a dozen. Then they pick the Google profile of any company with 30, 40 or 50 reviews and devastate it by placing an equal number of negative fake reviews.
This is unproblematic on Google. Because they don’t have to be a customer to be able to rate a business. Google sets no limits to your imagination.
Now your company in Malta becomes active and approaches the German company with a generous offer: They specialise in reputation management and can achieve a deletion of fake reviews with the help of specialist lawyers, they inform. This would normally cost EUR 149.90 per review. But as an exception, they grant a volume discount for the removal of 30, 40 or 50 fake reviews and do the job for EUR 99.90 – not in total, but per review, of course, and only in case of success.
They can easily guarantee that. If an entrepreneur falls for them and signs their contract, their fake profiles simply withdraw the fake evaluations. Problem solved, contract fulfilled, and a four-digit sum of money flows into your account in the tax haven. Then they wait three months and repeat the rip-off.
Possibly there is a connection at least between some online malefactors who illegally chunk volume licences for Microsoft products and certain operators of this business model. Because after we warned off quite a few dubious software dealers in the late summer of 2021, several dozen fake reviews appeared on our Google profile. Shortly afterwards, we received a very friendly eMail with a reassuring message:
Dear Mr. Weber,
my name is Peter Bojack from LVR Reputation. LVR Reputation deletes negative reviews on Google & Co. in cooperation with specialised lawyers.
I have just come across your Google profile and saw that you have received 5 negative reviews, which has unfortunately had a negative effect on your very important rating cut. In the final analysis, this means: fewer new customers, nervous regular customers and unsuccessful word-of-mouth advertising.
The good news is that these reviews violate Google’s guidelines and you therefore have a claim for deletion under §§ 823 para. 1, 1004 para. 1 BGB.
Our team has already helped more than 5,000 businesses delete their negative reviews on Google in recent years. We would be happy to assist you as well.
The costs are quite manageable (109 € plus VAT per deletion) and you only pay if the deletion is successful. My team and I will get to work for you immediately and only charge you for our services once the negative reviews have been successfully deleted.
If you are interested, you can simply reply to this e-mail with a short confirmation of the order. Or call me directly at the following number: +49 30 311 965 71.
You are also welcome to visit our website at the following address: LVR-Reputation.de.
I remain with kind regards,
Peter Bojack
Such a friendly address deserves an equally polite reply:
Dear Mr Bojack,
we will not pay any money for the deletion of fake reviews. The basic problem is similar to that of an encryption Trojan: Once the first fake reviews are gone and the case is settled, new ones will soon come. A bottomless pit.
Instead, we will tackle the issue head-on and publish an article on this shortly.
With best regards
Michael Weber
By the way, the publisher of lvr-reputation.de is (as of November 2021) a company NNC Pro Trading Ltd. in Cyprus.
Google would do better to no longer allow anonymous ratings in order to remove the basis for this business model.