The dark side of having a reputable online presence

Trying to hold it together while seething about the recent realization that SEVEN fake 1-star reviews came through for us today. This morning we had just received another 5-star review from a real customer that rounded out many other 5-star reviews to give us a 4.8 average on Google. To then see our average go all the way down to 4.0 in a matter of hours from fake accounts claiming that we botched roof repairs (we aren’t a roofing company) was really disappointing and infuriating.

We are not immune to receiving reviews like this (we have dealt with a company in SW Ontario with a similar name to ours that is apparently a horrible and dangerous driver) but these ones are an all-out attack at our online reputation and it has really pissed us off.

We have reported all of them to Google as spam but we wanted to write this because it is plain to see that one of our competitors noticed us online and are doing everything in their power to try and tarnish our reputation. I guess we should be excited that someone spent money to try and knock us down online, but it is also crazy that someone would stoop that low to tear down another company (especially one that has worked really hard to create the reputation we have in an industry that isn’t known for it).

Has anyone else dealt with this sort of thing before? I want to know if there is anything else we can do besides reporting these reviews to Google to get rid of them and find out who was behind the attack. I would love to know which low-life company took the time to coordinate this.