Review extortion is not new but there’s been an uptick in 2025. In October 2025, Google released a new way to have these reviews removed.
What is a negative review extortion scam?
A negative review extortion scam when someone leaves you negative reviews, then offers to remove them for a fee.
The vast majority of scammers are located outside of the US, and targeting US law firms or other types of businesses.
After leaving the negative reviews, scammers will usually contact you via email, or by messaging you from your Google Business Profile, or by leaving a WhatsApp number in their review or in the reviewer’s profile picture.
Here’s a screenshot of a real life example a personal injury attorney received:
Below is the actual screenshot of a law firm who received negative reviews.
In this case, 7 negative reviews were left at the same time:
How to remove these negative reviews:
- Do not engage with or pay the scammers.
- Use Google’s “merchant extortion report form”: https://support.google.com/business/contact/merchant_extortion
- Visit Google’s page about review extortion scams for help filling out the form: https://support.google.com/business/answer/16404809
- Submit the form and wait.
- Google will remove the negative reviews quickly.
Good job Google!
Google has done a good job responding to these negative review scams.
