Addressing a Fake Negative Review on our Google Business Profile

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Recently, I received a 1-star negative review on my company's Google Business profile from someone named Latif Kaafarani. Upon analysis, I found that the review contained the names of other companies, such as "Southern Cross Security" and "Symetrix security," which are separate entities but were mentioned in connection with our "Southern Cross Group Services" business.

To address this issue, I drafted an email to the HR department and cc'd the marketing team, asking them to check whether this person is associated with our sister company, a sub-contractor, client, or employee. They confirmed that Latif Kaafarani is not connected to our "Southern Cross Group Services" business. We also reached out to "Symetrix security" to verify the person's identity, and they confirmed that Latif Kaafarani is their former employee who had a similar issue, but he is not directly connected to our business.

Since the reviewer had no affiliation with our company, I did not respond to the review. Instead, I reported it to Google under the "Off Topic" category, as it mentioned unrelated companies. However, Google did not find a policy violation and the review remained visible.

I believe the review violates Google Business Profile guidelines, particularly the Off-topic, Spam (AI-generated content), and Conflict of interest policies. I submitted an appeal (case ID 9-8660000034098) but have not yet received a response.

As the flagging process did not work, I decided to escalate the issue by seeking help from the GBP community product experts. I created a thread in the Google Business Profile community forum (https://support.google.com/business/thread/215271636?hl=en&msgid=215707784). However, I was not satisfied with the response from the silver product expert.

I also posted in the Reddit forum under the "GoogleMyBusiness" subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMyBusiness/comments/13f9dei/how_to_remove_fake_negative_review_from_google/), where I received various replies. One user, "Keyserholiday," provided assistance and helped me escalate the issue with Google through their friend who has the privilege of escalation within Google's review workflow.

Eventually, the "Platinum product expert" and "Keyserholiday" assisted me in my GBP community forum thread. The platinum product expert mentioned that I should keep an eye on the situation because Google does not send alerts regarding the actions taken.

 

Although I did not receive an alert email from Google, the fake review has been removed (it is no longer available) from our GBP listing after three days.

 

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