Are Fake Reviews Damaging Your Business?

Tripadvisor, Google and various social media give people the opportunity to post reviews about products and services. In general, this can be positive, pushing up standards and people have the right to post views containing their honest opinion. However, the system is open to abuse.

Earlier this year, a chef was sacked from the cafe he worked at, after he was found to have posted fake reviews about local competitors on Tripadvisor. He has apologised, but the damage had already been done.

If fake reviews have been posted about your business, your first port of call should be to complain to the website hosting the reviews. However, this can be time consuming and does not always achieve the results you want.

More and more people are turning to traditional legal routes to try to tackle the problems of fake online reviews. If a review is untrue, and has caused significant harm to your business, you could have a claim for defamation against the original poster. If the review was posted by someone with a grudge against you, you could have a claim for damages for malicious falsehood.

If you want to take action to deal with fake reviews, you need to act fast. You only have one year from the date of the posting to start a court claim.

We understand that it can be difficult to fund a case, particularly if your business has suffered from the knock-on effects of fake reviews. We are committed to assisting clients with strong cases, with our flexible funding arrangements, which can include conditional (no win no fee) agreements.

Contact us today for a free no obligation discussion about how we can help.