| ▲ | nicbou 3 days ago |
| In Germany, businesses routinely bully reviewers into deleting negative reviews, so the scores are meaningless. I only trust what friends recommend. |
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| ▲ | patrickmay 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Serious question: How do they bully online reviewers? |
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| ▲ | bay_baobab_ii 3 days ago | parent [-] | | This happened to me a few times for my reviews in Germany. My 1-star reviews were flagged by the business as "defamation" although it contained only facts and personal opinions. I provided additional proof like screenshot of their documents (one of them was a language school), but they deleted my review at the end.
I was so frustrated, I even considered deleting all of my two hundred something reviews from Google Maps. | | |
| ▲ | immibis 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You just made me check a business where I left a negative review and was threatened with a lawsuit. I didn't remove it, but Google did automatically. Looks like I'm still algo-banned from leaving a review there (I even tried a 5-star review with no text, and was told their AI found it a violation of content policy, lol) but now above most of the obviously bought 5-star reviews with generic test is a 6-month-old negative review with a lot of "likes", stating the owner files criminal complaints against negative reviewers, they appealed to Google twice, they defended themselves in court, and they saw other negative reviews had been reviewed. (possibly mine) Of course, it also has a reply from the owner, stating this review that says he files criminal complaints against reviewers is a complete lie, and therefore, he's filing a criminal complaint against this reviewer. | |
| ▲ | vintermann 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I already deleted all my reviews from Google Maps. Spent all that money and effort installing a wheelchair elevator in a listed building, then when updating the info to say basically, "it's still not exactly wheelchair-friendly as a 120 year old building, but there is a wheelchair elevator and a HC toilet now", Google algorithmically accused me of lying. |
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| ▲ | chamomeal 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’ve almost moved on from online reviews. So many are fake, so many these days are slop. Half the time a 3.5 place is rated so low because people pick the most random ass reasons to slap it with 1 star. Also I’ve decided I don’t want to live my life by following what Google says I should do as a default. Sometimes I go to a place that sucks. But that happened when I checked Google reviews anyway!! |
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| ▲ | wat10000 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I mostly ignore the ratings and spot-check some reviews with good and bad ratings. If the good reviews actually describe something concrete and the bad reviews are nonsense, I take both of those as a good sign. If the good reviews are vague and the bad reviews are actually justified, then the place is probably not so good. Similar with online shopping. If all the one-star reviews are complaining about the shipment being lost in the mail or other irrelevant nonsense, the product is probably pretty good. | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 3 days ago | parent [-] | | About the only reviews worth reading are 4-2 stars out of 5. 5s are overblown or fake. 1s quite often are about something dumb. A 3 for for example is apt to at least be thoughtful |
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| ▲ | tailsdog 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I've had this happen to me, posted a factual restaurant review 12 months later threatened with defamation and it's auto removed by Google. It seems there are agencies that use legal framework to do bulk removal requests to Google for any low reviews no matter the content. The in-authentic Korean restaurant in Cologne went from a 1.9 to a 4.6. It's impossible to trust reviews in Germany due to these corrupt bully tactics. |
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| ▲ | alpineman 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Yeah, reviews are useless in Germany as a result. If anyone from Google is reading this, PLEASE add a tag to establishments that remove reviews by legal means! |
