COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — A new extortion scam is targeting Colorado Springs business owners, threatening their online reputations with fake one-star reviews unless they pay hundreds of dollars to make them disappear.
The scheme begins with a flood of negative reviews appearing on businesses' Google pages. The reviews look authentic at first glance, complete with detailed complaints about poor service.
"Hired Thayer mechanical Services, they were terribly unprofessional, no show, no call. Did a terrible job on my HVAC repair. Still broken, now have extra charges," read one fake review targeting Thayer Mechanical.
Another fraudulent review claimed: "Incline landscaping and lawn maintenance did a subpar job. My garden beds are a mess and their customer service is unhelpful. Wouldn't recommend find a better lawn care."
Grant Willemarck, managing partner for Thayer Mechanical, immediately knew something was wrong when the reviews started appearing.
"I looked at it immediately, called my dispatcher, said, hey, I don't recognize these names. Have we done any work there? She said, no, we've never been to work on any of these people's houses. They're not in our system," Willemarck said.
That's when the text message arrived, revealing the true nature of the attack. The scammer demanded $500 in exchange for removing the fake reviews and adding 500 positive reviews to the business's profile.
The extortion amounts vary by business, with some owners reporting demands ranging from $200 to $1,000.
Multiple Colorado Springs businesses have fallen victim to this scheme, particularly those in the trades industry. However, none have paid the fee, but instead go to Google to ask for the reviews to be taken down.
"I've had at least three business owners reach out to me and saying like, hey, we dealt with the same thing," said Justin Sturgill, owner of Incline Landscaping.
For trade businesses, online reputation is crucial to success.
"Word of mouth is huge, especially in the trades industry, and so your reputation is everything," Sturgill said.
The fake reviews pose a serious threat to businesses' online visibility and customer acquisition.
"If you have 10 or 20 five-star reviews and you just get one-stars, it'll dramatically drop your ranking from a five star to possibly like a three star, four star, and you no longer show up on the front page of Google," Sturgill said, "So it is detrimental to a business to get a one star review, especially if Google doesn't take it down."
Business owners say they don't believe the fake reviews are coming from competitors, but rather from organized scammers looking to make quick money.
"I didn't believe that. No, not for a second," Willemarck said when asked if he thought a competitor was behind the scheme.
The scammers' offer to provide hundreds of positive reviews could actually backfire on businesses that accept the deal.
"If you get 500 five-star reviews like back to back to back because they'll search the IP addresses and if they come up like all over the world like they'll flag those and block them and then shut down your account which would be even worse," Sturgill said.
For affected business owners, this represents a new challenge in an increasingly digital marketplace.
"It was a big surprise that morning and I'm like, I guess this is the new scam we have to deal with now," Willemarck said.
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