Feb 25, 2019

Fake 4-Star Reviews that don't violate Google Policy!

 have been having problems with my GMB account for almost half year now. 

The first problem can be read on this link. Basically, my old reviews got reported to be removed and I lost five or six 5-star legitimate reviews. 

The second problem is, someone reported my business as "closed", although I am always active. But for this one Google called me to confirm, and I told them I am active, so they didn't remove my account. 

The third one I am having right now, is that I got two fake 4-star reviews (Robbe Mēlissa and
Helen Lamoureux). I reported them as spam, called GMB team, GMB agent escalated this issue to their specialist team, but they just decided not remove them because they don't violate their policy. 

I think that's the whole point of why they left "good" (but fake) 4-star reviews. Google won't remove them because they are good reviews!! But until they left the 4-star reviews, I had all 5-star reviews. So these "good" fake 4-stars made my rating down to 4.9 stars. GMB agent said it's still good status but that's not really the point. It really does not make sense that I cannot remove fake reviews! 
And I just came to this forum to ask this question and there is another photographer having exactly the same issue

Is there anything else I can do to remove the fake reviews from my account?
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Feb 25, 2019
 I got both of my 4-star fake reviews removed now, so I wanted to share what I did so far, although you might have done the same thing already. Honestly I don't know exactly how they got removed. It could be because GMB team re-considered my case or it could be because the reviewers removed them or it could be because reported it to Google or it could be all of them. 

- Called the GMB team and told them about this and got some advice 
- Responded to those fake reviews in a polite way but tried to tell them that I have all the record with me but this reviewer is not my client. And asked the reviewer to "remove it if you have mistaken me with another photographer".  
- Flagged the fake reviews BOTH from my GMB dashboard and the Google Map. These are 2 different things although the processes are similar. When you open the reviews on Google Map, it'll say "maps" on the URL. 
- I didn't have to do this, but I heard it could be good if multiple people flag them so you could ask your family and friends to flag them, too. Just don't flag the same review from the same account twice. 
- After I did above, GMB agent escalated it to their specialist team. They declined my request to remove them but on the next day, they were somehow gone. 

Crossing my figures for the removal of your fake reviews, too. We worked so hard for the 5 stars!!
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Recommended Answer
Feb 25, 2019
 I got both of my 4-star fake reviews removed now, so I wanted to share what I did so far, although you might have done the same thing already. Honestly I don't know exactly how they got removed. It could be because GMB team re-considered my case or it could be because the reviewers removed them or it could be because reported it to Google or it could be all of them. 

- Called the GMB team and told them about this and got some advice 
- Responded to those fake reviews in a polite way but tried to tell them that I have all the record with me but this reviewer is not my client. And asked the reviewer to "remove it if you have mistaken me with another photographer".  
- Flagged the fake reviews BOTH from my GMB dashboard and the Google Map. These are 2 different things although the processes are similar. When you open the reviews on Google Map, it'll say "maps" on the URL. 
- I didn't have to do this, but I heard it could be good if multiple people flag them so you could ask your family and friends to flag them, too. Just don't flag the same review from the same account twice. 
- After I did above, GMB agent escalated it to their specialist team. They declined my request to remove them but on the next day, they were somehow gone. 

Crossing my figures for the removal of your fake reviews, too. We worked so hard for the 5 stars!!
Original Poster Community Specialist marked this as an answer
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