How can hospitality deal with blackmail threats over fake reviews?

A significant proportion of the hospitality industry is made up of small, independent businesses that are reliant on online reviews. But due to limited protections, the sector can become a vulnerable target to blackmailers who are prepared to exploit review sites such as Google and TripAdvisor.

Last week, Sam Morgan (pictured above) and chef Andrew Sheridan of Open Restaurant Group (ORG), which includes Black and Green in Worcestershire and Restaurant OXA in the Wirral, revealed they were targeted by criminals who demanded payment of £2,000 to stop them posting fake one-star reviews of ORG’s restaurants online.

Morgan applied his ten years’ experience in law enforcement to gather information on the blackmailers. He alerted the press, who subsequently passed on the evidence of the fake reviews to Google. However, it took a week for Google to delete the posts.

But it was not an isolated incident and Morgan believes other restaurants are still being threatened with fake reviews.

“This is a wider problem,” Morgan says. “There is also a bigger emphasis now on reviews.

“The expansion of the market is definitely going to be a reason why [blackmail threats] continue to happen. Until Google and TripAdvisor start to clamp down on such matters, our businesses will always be a victim.”

Morgan spoke to The Caterer about his experience dealing with the scammers and shared his tips for fellow restaurateurs and hospitality operators facing the same threat.

1. You are not alone

Morgan urged other restaurateurs in the same situation to speak out. “The reason that we wanted to expose [the threats] to the press is that we feel that there needs to be significant change in order to support our industry,” he says.

“Organisations such as Google and TripAdvisor have a duty of care in order to protect their customer, because that’s what we are, but I’m not too sure that those organisations fully understand that or respect our position.”

2. Whatever you do, don’t pay them

Morgan says operators should not pay the blackmailers. “These extortionists can operate in the way that they do because they have a powerful weapon which can be abused and misused.

“If you do pay, it definitely will not go away. The threat will continue to be there, and it will be there every single week.”

Not only will those who pay feel trapped in a constant cycle of relief and despair, they might also feel fear or shame for having made the transaction in the first place.