What to do about a fake or defamatory review in the United Kingdom
By ReputationKiln Editorial · Published
For a genuinely fake or abusive review in the United Kingdom, work the platform routes first, document it, flag it with evidence, respond calmly in public, because they are free and often enough. The legal backstop exists, but it is for the serious cases, and it is narrower and slower than people expect. To sue over a review under the Defamation Act 2013, a business must show the statement is false, was published, and has caused or is likely to cause serious harm, which for a trading company means serious financial loss. Truth and honest opinion are complete defences, so a genuine, honestly-held bad review is protected however much it stings, and there is a strict one-year limit from publication.
The routes, in order
A solicitor's cease-and-desist letter is the cost-effective first legal step and often secures a takedown without court. A full claim is expensive and proportionate only for a seriously harmful, provably false statement, a false allegation of fraud or dangerous work, where a court order can then compel removal. A separate tort, malicious falsehood, covers false statements made maliciously that cause economic loss, which fits a coordinated fake-review attack. For systemic fakery by a competitor, a complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority under the DMCC Act feeds enforcement, though it pursues patterns, not your single review.
Extortion, and the limit
If the reviews come with a demand for money, that is blackmail under the Theft Act 1968, carrying up to fourteen years, and you treat it as a crime: do not pay, document it, use the platform's extortion-report route, and report it to the police or Action Fraud. The honest limit running through all of it: none of this is a fast route to removing one fake review, and trying to use it against an honest bad review will backfire. Before paying any "reputation" firm, read the panic-tax page.
Sources
- A genuinely defamatory false statement can be actionable in the UK, subject to the serious-harm threshold and defences such as truth and honest opinion. — Defamation Act 2013. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/contents · checked 2026-06-04