How to report fake Google reviews in the UK, and what the law now expects

To report a fake Google review, open your Business Profile, select Read reviews, choose Report next to the review, pick the reason and send it; then track the decision in Google's Reviews Management Tool, which also gives you one appeal. In the UK, writing or commissioning a fake review has been a banned practice since 6 April 2025, and the same law puts duties on any business that shows reviews on its own website.

Google only removes reviews that break its policies, so the work is in showing that a review is fake rather than just unwelcome. For a group with many branches there is a second job: spotting an attack on one site before it drags that branch under four stars.

What Google treats as fake

Google's prohibited and restricted content policy says a review "should reflect an actual experience with a business, and be genuine and unbiased." Under fake engagement and rating manipulation it lists, among other things:

• Content not based on a real experience of the place.
• Reviews or ratings paid for, directly or in kind.
• Content posted from multiple accounts by, or at the request of, one person.
• Content posted on a competitor's business to undermine its reputation.
• Reviews based on a conflict of interest, which Google says may include "current or former employment".

That last point is easy to miss. A one-star review from a former employee, or from someone at the rival across the road, is a conflict of interest under Google's wording even if every sentence in it is polite.

Google is just as clear about what it will not do. Its page on reporting inappropriate reviews says: "Do not report a review just because you disagree with it or dislike it." A harsh review from a real customer stays up, and the answer to it is a good reply.

Check the review before you flag it

Before reporting, look for evidence you can describe in a sentence. Search your booking system and till records for anyone matching the reviewer's name and the visit they describe. Check whether the review mentions a service that branch does not offer, staff who do not work there, or a date when the site was closed. Look at the reviewer's other contributions on Maps: a profile that has reviewed your three nearest competitors with five stars in the same week is worth noting.

Write down what you found. You will want it if the first report is turned down.

Report it from your Business Profile

The steps on Google's help page are short:

1. Go to your Business Profile and select Read reviews.
2. Next to the review, select Report.
3. Choose the reason that fits, for example Spam.
4. Select Send report.

Google says "Review evaluation typically takes several days." Google also requires a verified profile before you can reply to reviews, so a branch that has slipped out of verification needs fixing before you can answer the review in public.

Track the decision and appeal once

The Reviews Management Tool is where a report goes after you send it. It shows each flagged review with one of three statuses:

• Decision pending: flagged but not yet evaluated.
• Report reviewed, no policy violation: Google looked and kept the review.
• Escalated, check your email for updates: an appeal is under way.

If Google keeps a review you are sure is fake, you get a one-time appeal from the same tool, and you can select up to 10 reviews in a single appeal. Google emails the result. A review that breaks policy is removed; one that complies stays live. Use the appeal for the reviews where your evidence is strongest, since you do not get a second go.

A wave of one-star reviews with a demand attached

Some attacks come with a ransom note. Google describes negative review extortion scams as "a sudden increase in 1-star and 2-star reviews on your Google Business Profile, followed by someone demanding money, goods or services" to remove them. Its instructions are blunt: do not engage with or pay the people involved, gather evidence straight away, and use the merchant extortion report form.

The evidence Google asks for includes screenshots of every demand showing the date, time and sender, direct links to each suspicious review, any names or contact details for the people involved, and the time you first noticed the spike and first received a demand. Give branch managers that list in advance, because a manager who deletes a threatening WhatsApp message has deleted your best evidence.

What UK law adds

Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists commercial practices that are unfair in all circumstances. Paragraph 13 covers submitting or commissioning a fake consumer review, or one that conceals it was incentivised, and it came into force on 6 April 2025. The Act defines a fake review as one that "purports to be, but is not, based on a person's genuine experience."

Google has made its own commitments to the regulator. In January 2025 the Competition and Markets Authority announced undertakings from Google under which UK businesses found boosting their ratings with fake reviews get a warning alert on their profile and have new reviews switched off, and repeat offenders have all their reviews deleted for six months or more. People who repeatedly post fake reviews about UK businesses, positive or negative, have their reviews deleted and are banned from posting. The same notice says the Act lets the CMA fine firms up to 10% of global turnover.

The duty most multi-site businesses miss

The law also covers anyone who publishes reviews, and on the CMA's guidance that includes you if your website shows a Google star rating or a review carousel. The CMA's short guide for businesses publishing consumer reviews says it applies to traders who publish reviews "from any source", including reviews "originally collated by someone else", and it names websites and social media as formats you are responsible for. It expects a published policy that prohibits fake reviews, plus a risk assessment that you repeat regularly.

The Act's own examples of publishing reviews in a misleading way include "giving greater prominence to positive consumer reviews over negative ones". A homepage that shows only hand-picked five-star reviews from each branch is worth checking against the full CMA208 fake reviews guidance, and if in doubt, against advice from a solicitor. This post is a practical summary, not legal advice.

Your own review requests sit under the same rules. Offering a discount for a review breaks Google's policy, and a review written in return for a reward that does not say so is the concealed incentivised review the Act bans. Our post on Google's rule on staff-name review requests covers what counter scripts can and cannot ask for.

Spotting an attack across branches

A fake-review attack is easiest to see as a change in rate. A branch that normally gets two or three reviews a week and suddenly gets eleven one-star reviews in two days stands out on a per-branch count, while the group average shifts by a fraction of a star. Watch new reviews per branch per day, and the share of them that are negative; reading each branch on its own is the core of our guide to managing Google reviews for multiple locations. If reviews from an attack later vanish without your report, Google's filter may have caught them; our guide to why Google reviews disappear covers the other reasons reviews go missing.

While a report is pending, a short, calm public reply does no harm: say you cannot find a record of the visit and give a contact route. Readers see your reply alongside the review for the days Google takes to decide.

Watching every branch with Loculens

Loculens puts every branch's Google reviews in one workspace, with counts, averages and sentiment filters for each location, and a nightly sync that fetches only what is new. A cluster of negative reviews at one site shows up on that branch's tile the next morning. Loculens does not decide whether a review is fake; a person does that, with the review in front of them. Filter to the branch and the dates, export the list to CSV with each review's text, rating, date and link, and your evidence for Google's form is already in one file.

Start a 14-day Loculens trial with no card and run the first sync on your own locations, or book the 20-minute demo and send your location list ahead of the call.