A Sydney entrepreneur, who runs a moving company, has fallen victim to scammers attempting to damage her online reputation to extort money.
The sudden influx of poor reviews caught Gina, the owner of Move It With Gina and a mother of six, completely off guard.
“I launched the business 11 years ago, starting with packing and cleaning services,” she explained.
“Due to high demand from clients for a moving service, I eventually invested in a truck.”
Recently, she noticed an alarming pattern: a series of one-star reviews were posted at half-hour intervals.
“Upon examining the reviews and the reviewers, it was clear we had never provided services to these individuals,” she remarked.
Then Gina started getting suspicious text messages.
“I have received A order for posting thirty bad rewiews (sic) on your business. Now he is ignoring My message please pay my loss. 60$. Otherwise I’m going to More One Star review,” one of the messages said.
Gina said she ignored the messages.
Cybersecurity expert Simon Smith said there were a few tell-tale signs of a fake review.
It could include generic language and a succession of negative reviews in a short period of time.
“The most important thing is to never pay the extortion,” Smith said.
For Gina, it took days for the reviews to be taken down.
9News attempted to get a response from the scammer on their number based overseas but they have since gone quiet.
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