‘AI mafia’ gang bombs London restaurant with scathing fake Google reviews to extort £10,000

A helpless London restaurant was bombarded with fake negative reviews from an ‘AI mafia’ gang to extort £10,000 – and experts are warning ‘pray you’re not next’.

Nikolas Lemmel says his online reputation agency, Maximatic Media, was called in by the eatery – which declined to be named – when it discovered his company was being targeted by online gangsters.

He claims a shocked owner woke up to find that a barrage of one-star reviews had dragged her Google rating from 4.9 to 2.3 virtually overnight.

Nikolas says the scathing reviews accused the independent eatery of being racist, giving diners food poisoning and generally providing poor service.

The owner then received an anonymous email from the ‘review-bombing mafia’ claiming responsibility and demanding £10,000 worth of cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Nikolas explains that the attackers around the world used AI-powered bot farms to trick Google into thinking they were legitimate customers writing reviews from London on a smartphone.

Maximatic Media said it worked with Google to remove the fake reviews and develop a digital strategy that encouraged loyal customers to write positive reviews.

It is claimed that they restored the restaurant’s Google profile to a 4.8 star rating within a month, and the restaurant has not been contacted since.

Nikolas says the “AI mafia” continued to flood the restaurant with negative reviews while working with Google to remove them, but the numbers dwindled over time.

The owner was encouraged to post a statement on social media detailing what happened and to contact loyal customers with incentives to support her during the difficult time.

New positive reviews helped turn the tide against the attackers and restore the restaurant’s reputation as a ‘grateful’ owner.

Nikolas says he’s witnessing a “frightening” increase in automated attacks that are “throwing livelihoods into limbo.”

However, he warned that “there’s not much you can do” to stop these types of attacks.

Nikolas continues, “Usually we see competitors trying to lower a company’s reputation in the eyes of a local customer base, but this was a third party.

“They tried to extort money to remove these reviews. They were like a mafia bombing reviews.

“They used bot farms to mask the accounts’ IP address and emulate a mobile device located near the restaurant.

‘If someone leaves a review from another country it’s normally easy to get it removed, but in this case it was a lot more difficult.

‘The owner was extremely grateful that we received all those reviews and that she did not succumb to the extortion attempt.

“There weren’t many precautions she could have taken to prevent the review-bombing mafia from destroying her rating.

Nikolas Lemmel (above) says his online reputation agency, Maximatic Media, was called in by the eatery

‘There’s not much you can do other than pray that you don’t fall victim to these kinds of attempts. It’s scary.

‘Unless your company is in the IT sector, this is above the salary levels of many people and therefore it is difficult to find out where it comes from or how to stop it.

‘It is important that people contact specialists in these types of situations, because it is tailor-made, depending on what is happening.

“If you see a company getting hundreds of reviews in a matter of seconds, that’s a very clear sign that it is likely the target of an automated attack.”

Maximatic Media was founded in 2020 to help small businesses manage their online reputation through targeted PR strategies.

Nikolas says it has recently stepped up its crisis management work to combat online villains who are abusing modern technology to target companies.

He added: “We have seen an increase in these types of situations where businesses are repeatedly at risk of their livelihoods being pushed into this limbo zone.

“It’s something that many websites and platforms are working to improve, but unfortunately the attacks are also becoming more complex and sophisticated, so it’s a never-ending game of catch-up.”

A Google spokesperson said: ‘Our policies clearly state that reviews should be based on real experience and information, and we use a combination of technology, expert analysts and community reporting to check for fraudulent content.

“When we discover scammers are trying to deceive people, we take action ranging from removing content to suspending accounts and even filing lawsuits.”

More information at maximaticmedia.com.