Your reputation is under attack. Here is what to do.
By ReputationKiln Editorial · Published
If you are here because something is happening right now, the first thing to know is that it is almost always more fixable, and smaller, than it feels in this moment. The second is that this is exactly the moment a whole industry is waiting for, ready to frame it as an emergency only they can fix and charge you accordingly. So before you pay anyone anything, take a breath and find your situation below. Most of what you need to do is free, and you can do it yourself.
The one rule that runs through all of it: act only against what is genuinely fake or abusive, never against honest criticism. Trying to scrub a real bad review backfires, legally and with the next customer who reads how you reacted. With that line held, here is the calm version of each attack.
Find your situation
- Fake negative reviews, or a review-bombing. Document, flag with evidence, respond calmly in public, and when to escalate, with honest odds on each.
- Your Google listing was changed or marked closed. Anyone can suggest an edit to your listing, and the platform often accepts it. How to fix it fast and lock it down.
- Someone is impersonating your business. Copycat profiles, lookalike domains, fake "customer service" accounts, the reporting routes, and getting ahead of it with your real customers.
- A deepfake of you or your business. Fake videos or voice clones used to defraud or smear. Verify, report, and the laws that apply, with the limits stated honestly.
- An AI is saying something wrong about you. When ChatGPT or an AI answer gets your business wrong or worse, and how to correct the sources it actually learns from.
- A "pay or we ruin you" extortion demand. Do not pay, do not engage, document, use the platform's extortion-report route, and report it as the crime it is.
- A complaint or gripe site you cannot remove. Why these are built to be permanent, why "pay to remove" usually is not, and the honest way to bury it.
- A crisis that is going viral. The calm playbook for the fast pile-on, including how to tell a genuine mistake from a manufactured attack.
- Negative SEO, search results poisoned against you. Spammy links, scraped lookalike pages and planted gripe content aimed at your search results, what is real, what is overblown, and what actually clears it.
- "Pay us back or we charge it back," chargeback extortion. When a customer or a scammer weaponises a payment dispute against you, how the dispute process really works, and how to fight a fraudulent one with evidence.
- Your reputation as an employer is under attack. Anonymous ex-staff reviews and glassdoor-style pile-ons, what you can and cannot do, and the honest way to answer them.
If this is taking a real toll on you, you are not imagining it and you are not weak: see the human cost, written plainly, with the support lines for your country.
Before you pay anyone
Whatever you are facing, read the panic tax first. It is the one page that will save you the most money, because it explains exactly how the fear you are feeling gets sold back to you, and what honest help actually looks like.
In this section
- 01
"Refund me or I leave a one-star": where a dispute ends and extortion begins
A customer threatening a bad review or a chargeback unless you give in to a demand you do not owe. Where a genuine complaint ends and extortion begins, what to do, and the line to hold.
- 02
A competitor is attacking your visibility, or stealing your work
Spammy backlinks, scraped content, and stolen job photos. What is a real threat, what is over-sold, and how to defend, including keeping the originals that prove the work is yours.
- 03
A complaint about your business is going viral
The calm playbook for the fast pile-on, for a small operator with no PR team. Acknowledge quickly, work out whether it is a genuine mistake or a manufactured attack, respond like a human, and do not get charged for your panic.
- 04
A complaint site you cannot get removed
Some sites are built to be near-impossible to remove from, then sell you the removal. Why "pay to remove" usually does not work, why you cannot sue the site, and the honest way to bury it instead.
- 05
A deepfake of you or your business
AI can clone a business owner's face and voice from seconds of footage, to defraud your staff or scam your customers. How to verify, what to do, and the laws that apply, with the limits stated honestly.
- 06
An AI is saying something wrong about your business
AI answer tools get businesses wrong a great deal of the time, and can even defame them. You cannot edit the model, but you can change the sources it learns from. How to find and fix what AI says about you.
- 07
Someone changed your Google listing, or marked you "permanently closed"
Anyone, including a competitor, can suggest an edit to your business listing, and the platform often accepts it automatically. How to fix a sabotaged listing fast, and lock it down so it cannot happen again.
- 08
Someone is impersonating your business
Copycat profiles, lookalike web addresses, fake "customer service" accounts that phish your customers. How to report and remove them, get ahead of it with your real customers, and lock it down.
- 09
Someone is threatening bad reviews unless you pay
A flood of fake one-stars followed by a demand for money is extortion, not a negotiation. Do not pay, do not engage, document it, use the platform's extortion-report route, and report it as the crime it is.
- 10
You are getting fake negative reviews
Fake one-star reviews from people who were never your customers, or a coordinated bombing. What actually works to get them removed, the honest odds and timelines, and the public response that often does more than any of it.
Sources
- Anyone can suggest an edit to a business listing and the platform may accept it; report inappropriate or fake content through the platform rather than trying to remove honest criticism. — Google Business Profile, Report inappropriate reviews. https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773 · checked 2026-06-04
- Platforms operate dedicated routes to report extortion demands tied to reviews; confirmed extortion reviews can be removed. — Google Business Profile, report review extortion. https://support.google.com/business/answer/16404809 · checked 2026-06-04