A chain of leading restaurants has been blackmailed by criminals who threatened to flood them with fake one-star reviews.
Chef Andy Sheridan and his business partner Sam Morgan, whose businesses range from Michelin-featured fine dining to gastropubs, were targeted by conmen who said they would post the reviews online unless they were paid £2,000.
Mr Morgan said he initially ignored the demands but decided to fight back when those behind the blackmail shared a one-star review.
The businessman, whose seven restaurants employ 109 staff across the north west, Midlands, and Wales, said he then decided to find out as much as he could from those behind the scam.
“That’s why I got bank details from them. I got personal information from them, which is probably fake but I did everything I could,” he told The Telegraph.
“I had to engage with them for six days, sometimes messages at half past 11 at night, to be able to gather this information and as much information as possible.
“I felt that by doing that, it would empower all those other small businesses that might be suffering with this to not pay, don’t pay, there is support out there.
“And as soon as you cut the head off the snake, it stops, they’ll probably move on to something else.”
Mr Sheridan and Mr Morgan’s flagship restaurant is 8 by Andy Sheridan in Liverpool, which features in the Michelin Guide, and was named Best Restaurant in the UK at the British Restaurant Awards last September. Mr Sheridan has appeared on the BBC’s Great British Menu.
But one fake review of 8 posted on Tripadvisor read: “Wine list is very poor and totally overpriced.
“Our chef Jake was fantastic but the lack of drink choice and excessive price really lets this venue down. How can anyone warrant £90 for Prosecco?”
Meanwhile, the pair’s highly rated lakeside pubThe Bracebridge, in Sutton Park, Birmingham, was also targeted by the conmen.
One Google review which is suspected to be fake criticised its “lacklustre service and mediocre food quality”.
Another suspected scam review added: ”The previous owner … took a lot of fake 5 star reviews on this business profile to show good rating, Don’t trust their rating. This restaurant is just a scam. Be aware.”
Because of the delay caused as Mr Morgan worked to obtain the scammer’s bank details and a copy of a passport, the conmen then raised their demand from £2,000 to £2,500.
But Mr Morgan held firm, and after intervention from Google and others, the wave of fake one-star reviews slowed.
“It’s stress. When that review hit for the first time and they’re threatening to post thousands with verified accounts, it made me worry, it did concern me,” Mr Morgan added.
“I also know how fickle Joe Public is, they take it for verbatim and why not? And it’s just not something that I could allow to happen to our business.”
He added that it was unacceptable that tech giants took so long to intervene.
“Finally they [Google] acted. The press has to get involved for them to act and that’s a pretty poor situation,” he said.
“And that’s just not good enough in today’s day and age, when you’re a multi-billion pound organisation, making money out of small business. It’s just not good enough, and not acceptable.”
In 2021, Amazon and Google faced an investigation over concerns that fake five-star reviews on their websites were misleading shoppers.
‘Don’t engage’, says Tripadvisor
A Tripadvisor spokesman said: “Tripadvisor is one of the only online review platforms with robust processes and policies in place to protect the businesses listed on our platform from blackmail and threatening behaviour. This kind of activity contravenes Tripadvisor’s guidelines and is illegal in many locations.
“With regards to this incident, while Tripadvisor’s standard reporting processes were not initially engaged with by the business, our trust and safety team has been in contact with the owner and the review in question is no longer published to their listing page.
“More broadly our message to business owners is simple. If you are threatened with blackmail – by a customer or anyone else – do not engage directly with that individual.
“Report the incident to the police then contact Tripadvisor directly via the dedicated “report blackmail threat” feature on our platform. We will diligently investigate each and every report.”
Google was contacted for comment.
