Restaurants in Auckland and Wellington are being bombarded with fake five-star reviews - but it's not as sweet as it sounds.
Paris Butter in Auckland's Herne Bay has stellar reviews, however co-owner Zenn Wijlens said there's something more sinister behind those stars.
"So it's a scam we were kind of aware of that's been happening in Europe and the [US] where they review a whole lot of good reviews and then hit you with twice as many one-star reviews and ask for money to take them down," he said.
"We've done a little bit more digging and it was kind of all of the higher-end restaurants in the city and a couple in Wellington as well."
Around 30 businesses have been targeted, all with exceptional reviews and reputations that can be quickly torn down if numerous fake Google reviewers switch their five-star reviews to one-star.
Japanese restaurant Masu in the Auckland CBD is a victim to the scam, co-owner Nic Watt describing to 1News the difficulty in getting bogus one-star reviews removed.
"The hard part is that Google is this Goliath and we're just a few little restaurants making a noise with our pots and pans down here. So the response is really minimal," he said.
In a statement, Google said fake reviews were prohibited on its platform and that it quickly removed them and put protections in place to prevent further abuse.
1News asked people on the street how Google reviews impact their judgement in picking a business to visit, many saying they would avoid restaurants with negative reviews.
Watt said these review attacks were "really punishing" for his business, but in case of extortion threats, he pushes patrons to trust reputations over star-based rankings.
"When you see all these unusual reviews all of a sudden, a sequence of one-stars [towards] a business like Masu [with] 10 years of solid reputation, trust a business' reputation."
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