How to defend against fake reviews on Amazon, Instagram and Google My Business.
In the digital age, your company’s reputation can be its most valuable asset or its greatest vulnerability. With the rise of social media and online review platforms, fake reviews can spread quickly and affect the perception of your brand significantly, so it is very important that we are clear on how to defend against fake reviews.
In this post, you will dive into the exciting world of online reputation management. We will explore strategies on how to defend against fake reviews on the Internet that can damage your company. From identifying the difference between legitimate criticism and defamation to actions you can take to remove damaging comments, we’re here to guide you through the process.
Don’t let fake reviews ruin your company’s reputation. Discover how to take control of your online presence and defend your brand image on Amzon, Instagram and Google Business. Let’s get started!
Amazon
As a seller on Amazon you do not have the ability to remove a review that has been written about your product.
The first thing to do when faced with a suspicious review is to examine it closely, looking for patterns of behavior, such as multiple negative reviews of newly created accounts, compare the review with the actual shopping experience and other reviews from other users. If the review does not match the actual experience, it is most likely fake, so let’s see how to defend yourself against fake reviews.
To begin to act, we must resort to the “report abuse” function on the same Amazon platform, in it we must provide specific details of why we consider the review false, the more means we provide more will tip the balance in our favor, it can be with screenshots and emails.
We can also give a professional and courteous response, always thanking the user for their opinion, even if it is false, and explain that it does not match the typical experience of our consumers.
If the automatic complaints have not worked, you should contact Amazon support directly. We will need to provide you with all the necessary information and highlight the negative impact on our business.
In any case, the best way to reduce the value of a negative review is that our product is full of positive reviews, if the vast majority of the reviews are positive, the falsity of the review will be evidenced. So we will have to encourage satisfied customers to interact in our product reviews.
Amazon has an option where it allows you to evaluate the usefulness of a review, if a review is rated numerous times as not useful, it is much more likely that the review will be removed by the platform.
If the situation worsens, we should consider taking legal action. For this purpose, we have specialized lawyers at LegaleGo Abogados.
To know how to defend against fake reviews on Instagram, we will have to proceed in a very similar way as we have discussed on Amazon. As sellers we do not have the possibility to remove another user’s review, which would be the ideal scenario.
As mentioned above, the first thing to do is to identify the fake review. A tip to detect it is that fake reviews are usually lacking in knowledge, this means that a fake review, whether good or bad, is very general, does not dig into the details of the product, simply speaks good or bad in a generic and exaggerated way.
Instagram offers a “report” option to report fake reviews, we will need to provide specific details as to why we believe it is a fake review.
While Instagram evaluates the authenticity of the review, it is appropriate for us to provide a direct response to the review, in a professional and polite manner requesting more information about your experience or clarifying any misunderstandings. Asking for details about the experience may expose the false review, since as we have mentioned before, these are usually very general with the sole purpose of doing harm.
As with Amazon, the best way to combat a negative review is an abundance of positive reviews, as these will discredit the fake review, so it is advisable to encourage satisfied customers to express their satisfaction with the product.
In the event that the product we market is a food product, it is advisable that we have our backs covered, for this we can use the services of a food consultancy, they will take care of many other aspects such as the review of the labeling or HACCP system.
If the review has a negative impact on the business and we have not obtained help from the technical service we will have to take legal action, we will consult with a lawyer who will inform us about the legal actions we can consider.
Google My Business
Deleting negative reviews from Google is not as simple as going to your profile and deleting them. All feedback, both positive and negative, helps to maintain the authenticity of the application. It is only possible to delete reviews from Google if they are false or wrong.
To delete these reviews, follow the steps below:
- Log in to your Google My Business profile account.
- Select Reviews from the menu on the left.
- Select the fake review.
- Click on the three-dot bar in the right corner.
- Click on Mark as inappropriate.
Google will not remove the review if it is an authentic experience from a real user. However, if it is a genuine review that was not intended for your company, and Google does not remove it, you can appeal to have it removed.
As in the previous cases, it is recommended to respond professionally and politely while the customer service evaluates the incident, ask for more details about the dissatisfaction in order to prove if it is a false review.
Civil lawsuit against a fake online review
If we have not been able to solve the situation and the only thing we have done is to make it worse, we have to resort to legal action because the person who issues, publishes, exposes or discloses a false opinion or iew may face lawsuits for defamation, by putting at risk the honor, personal image and online reputation of a person, business, professional, company or trade. So let’s see how to defend yourself from fake reviews legally.
The Constitution itself regulates the fundamental right to honor and self-image, in Article 18.1. Infringement of these constitutional rights may lead to recourse to the courts and tribunals.
The affected party may request the reestablishment of its right, i.e., that the damage be repaired by removing and eliminating the notice. In addition, the author of the false opinion must compensate the damages caused to the company. These can be material damages (what has been lost), as well as moral damages.
If the author of the false review is identified, prior to initiating a lawsuit, he/she may be summoned to a conciliation meeting, in order to reach an amicable solution and agreement that allows the removal of the false review. The resolution obtained from the conciliation proceedings, if it regulates agreements between the parties, shall be judicially enforceable.