What to do when someone threatens you with bad reviews

There are two versions of this. A customer at your counter who says “give me a refund or I will leave you a one star review”. And a stranger who floods your listing with fake one star reviews, then messages demanding money to stop. They need different responses, and neither involves paying.

The customer at the counter

A customer who threatens a bad review usually has a genuine complaint and is using the threat as leverage. Deal with the complaint on its merits. If a refund is fair, give it because it is fair. If it is not, do not give it because of the threat.

What you must not do is offer anything in exchange for them not posting a review, or for posting a good one. That turns the complaint into a review manipulation problem. If they post a negative review anyway, reply calmly. See how to reply to a bad Google review.

Review extortion scams

Google describes these as a sudden increase in one and two star reviews on a Business Profile, followed by someone demanding money, goods or services to remove them. They are organised, they target small businesses, and they are not about any real experience.

What Google says to do

Do not engage or pay. Google warns that paying can encourage further attempts and does not guarantee the reviews are removed.
Do not try to resolve it yourself by offering money or services.
Gather evidence immediately: screenshots of the demands, links to the suspicious reviews, whatever you have on the people involved such as names, emails, phone numbers and profiles, and when you first noticed the spike.
Report it using Google’s merchant extortion report form, with all of that detail.

Google says it will investigate and let you know the outcome, but cannot share the details of the investigation.

Report it outside Google too

Extortion is a crime. If you have been threatened or asked for money, consider reporting it to the police, and scams can be reported to Scamwatch. Keep all the evidence.

Reply to the fake reviews or not?

A short, neutral reply such as “We have no record of this customer and have reported this review to Google” tells genuine readers what is happening. Do not reply with anger or accusations. Then leave it with Google.

The best defence

A listing with a long history of genuine reviews absorbs a burst of fakes far better than one with a handful. See your review count matters more than your star rating.