Fake Review on behalf of a "friend"

[Chad Horany]

We have a client that just received a negative review that we believe is a fake review and likely associated with a competitor. The business owner is unaware of any customer complaint where this was an accusation that was ever made (See review left below).

These guys are crooks! They redid a friends roof and charged him $500 for decking that was never used. He called them out And they said the foreman gave them the wrong information. Lol. Also called them out on boards that were not used and the owner said he wasn’t gonna argue about pennies. It may be pennies to them but it was also $300 that He paid for in materials that were never used. So not pennies to him. Be warned that they will rob you without you knowing, I’m sure they’ve done this 100 times and got away with it.

The person who left the review, only has posted one public review ever, and its this one.

I know that it is a violation of policy for a competitor to post a negative review to undermine a business, but that is often very difficult to prove. My question is:

1. Is it a violation of Google's policy for reviewers to post a negative review that is not associated with their own customer experience? In this case, this person says that this happened to "a friend".

If so, my hope is that we can point out this technicality to Google and get it removed easily. If not, do you have any other suggestions on how we might go about putting together a case to get it removed?

 

[keyserholiday]

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