Can you actually trust Google reviews?
It seems you cannot
I have been a big fan of Google maps reviews, every time I want to try somewhere new, I check the reviews first, whether it’s a restaurant, barber shop, car mechanic, laundry, coffee shop, or even parks and beaches. One of the factors that make that decision is the reviews on Google maps, if a place has many bad reviews, it means probably it is a bad idea to go.
I even became a local guide myself, back in 2016 I heard about the Google Local Guides program, signed up and ever since, I post reviews for many places that I visit, I became a Level 7 local guide, based on the point system that they have in place to incentivize people to contribute to Google Maps.
Every time I get an email from Google Local Guides, I would feel proud for contributing to this community and in helping others know more about places an businesses they want to go to or deal with. When I got my 5-year anniversary congratulations email, I felt a sense of achievement for the almost 2,000 photos of places I posted to help people, which have almost 7 million views as of the date of writing this article.
I know that one cannot rely 100% on other people reviews, because there are some cases where people just post bad reviews out of boredom or any other irrelevant reason, but I always thought that in general, you can have an expectation if a place worth your business or your time based on it’s rating on Google maps.
All that trust suddenly changed
It all started with a problem I had with a company that builds houses, I had an issue, so I called them, they sent someone, who said it’s not his area of specialty, and that someone else will come and check. And that’s it, 8 more emails and 4 months later, still no one answers or shows up. So I did what I usually do to tell others about my experience, I gave them a 1-star review, and explained in detail what happened. couple of weeks later, I get a phone call from someone in that company, asking me if I have a problem, I said yes, and explained the situation, he started shouting aggressively on how I am not supposed to give them bad review, and that it is not them who sold the house (although they are the ones who built it and when you have a problem you have to call them). I told the guy that if he does not take his tone down I will have to end the call, he kept shouting, so I told him I have to end the call, and hung up.
minutes later, I got an SMS from that guy threatening me to remove the review! I was in shock, I edited my original review and wrote about what just happened, companies should get good reviews by making good impact with customers, not by bullying unsatisfied customers to remove bad ratings!
This was about a month ago. A couple of days ago I was telling my friend about the incident, so he opened Google maps and looked them up, he said he wanted to see that review that got them that upset, to my shock, my review was not there! I opened the business from my account, and I can see the review! So somehow Google hid my review from everybody without informing me, and I can see my review as if nothing happened! I searched on how one can remove a bad review from his business listing and was shocked to find that there are so many paid services that promise that they can remove a bad review from Google maps, basically by creating a case against the person who wrote that bad review and submit it to Google. Am not sure if that what happened here, or how did they actually got Google to remove this bad review, but it happened, and even if Google decides to hide the review for any reason (I never use bad language in my reviews, and I do good reviews as well as bad reviews), they should at least let me know that your review violates a certain policy so it will be removed.
Since this happened, I never trust Google Maps reviews anymore, if any business can get a 5 star review simply by paying someone to have bad reviews removed from Google maps, it defeats the whole purpose, any business can get a great rating, which makes the whole community ratings irrelevant.
DO you trust the ratings you find on Google maps? Do you have an experience of being bullied because of a bad review you’ve posted? Please share your experience / thoughts in the comments.
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