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Someone has left you a review who was never a customer

Someone left you a fake review: what actually works

There are four real routes. None of them guarantees removal, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. Here are all four, with what they cost, how long they take and what you can reasonably expect from each.

The four routes

  1. Report it to Google

    Cost
    Free
    Timescale
    Days to weeks
    What to expect
    Low to moderate, and entirely dependent on picking the right ground

    It only works if the review breaches a specific policy: fake engagement, conflict of interest, off-topic content, harassment, publication of personal data, hate speech or sexual content. Google spells it out:

    «Do not report a review just because you disagree with it or do not like it. Google does not get involved in disputes between businesses and customers.»

    Google, report inappropriate reviews

    Here is the difference between working and not working: reporting under the correct policy ground rather than with a generic “it is fake”. If you are turned down, the appeals tool takes up to 5 working days, and businesses in the European Economic Area have additional routes.

    Google has no programmatic way of receiving reports. Only its web interface. Anyone selling you “automated takedowns” is deceiving you.

  2. Notice under art. 16 of the Digital Services Act

    Cost
    Free
    Timescale
    Weeks
    What to expect
    It does not guarantee removal, but it obliges Google to give you a reasoned answer

    This route is for when the review is unlawful, not merely negative: an insult, a defamatory allegation, a threat or the publication of personal data. Google Maps is a hosting provider and has to offer a notice mechanism, acknowledge receipt and communicate a reasoned decision.

    If the decision does not convince you, art. 20 gives you six months to complain through the internal system, free of charge, and art. 21 opens out-of-court dispute resolution before certified bodies. In Spain, the digital services coordinator is the CNMC (the national markets and competition authority).

    It is the middle rung between the report button and the courts, and in 2026 it is still the most underused of the four.

  3. Formal demand and the art. 20.4 evidence file

    Cost
    Recorded delivery and, if you want it signed off, solicitor’s fees
    Timescale
    Weeks
    What to expect
    Works well against an identifiable author; against Google, barely

    A solicitor’s letter addressed to Google does not by itself create the “actual knowledge” of art. 16 of the LSSI, which the classic reading reserves for a decision by a competent body. Where it does work is against the author when they can be identified: plenty of reviews come down on their own once a serious demand lands.

    And since December 2025 there is a new and direct lever: art. 20.4 of the Spanish consolidated consumer act entitles you to request the removal of a review that did not come from a real customer, provided you prove it “conclusively”. That means building a genuine evidence file: till records, bookings or takings for the period showing that this person was never there.

    The statute entitles you to request removal. The burden of proof is yours and the decision is still the platform’s.

  4. Going to court

    Cost
    High: solicitor, court agent and time
    Timescale
    Months, sometimes more than a year
    What to expect
    Real, but only worth it with serious damage and an identifiable author

    On the civil side, Ley Orgánica 1/1982 protects reputation: art. 7.7 covers allegations of fact or value judgements that harm dignity or good name, and art. 9 lets you seek an injunction, damages and publication of the judgment. Harm is presumed once the unlawful interference is established, and legal persons have professional standing that the courts protect.

    On the criminal side, the insult and defamation offences of arts. 205 to 216 of the Código Penal (Spain’s criminal code) are private prosecutions: they require a formal complaint and a prior conciliation hearing. They are rarely used and the outcome is uncertain. And if the author is a competitor or a seller of fake reviews, the unfair competition route is open as well.

    For a sense of scale, and with no promise attached: Spanish awards for reviews that damage reputation usually run between €3,000 and €35,000. In 2026 the Audiencia Provincial de Barcelona (Barcelona’s provincial appeal court) set €10,000 in a case about reviews aimed at guests, with an injunction and publication of the ruling.

The obstacle almost nobody mentions

Before you can sue, you have to know who. And that is the problem: the pre-action measures in art. 256.1 of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (Spain’s civil procedure act) only contemplate identifying a user of an internet service in two cases, and both are reserved for holders of industrial or intellectual property rights.

Spain has no standard civil pre-action measure for unmasking the anonymous author of a defamatory review. In practice, identification arrives through the criminal route, when an investigating judge orders Google to hand it over, or through a court order under the Digital Services Act. That stretches the case into months and makes it far more expensive.

This is the underlying reason why nobody can sell “we delete your negative reviews”. Nor can we.

What can be promised and what cannot

The left-hand column is what we do. The right-hand one is what you will hear on the phone this week if you leave your number anywhere.

What can be promised and what cannot
RealisticNobody can promise this
We classify the review and prepare the report under the correct policy ground.We delete your negative reviews.
We build the art. 20.4 evidence file under the Spanish consolidated consumer act.We guarantee removal within X days.
We escalate under art. 16 of the Digital Services Act when the review is unlawful.We have a direct or priority line to Google.
We go through your 1 to 3-star reviews one by one and tell you which are reportable and under which exact ground.We bring your one-star reviews down.
We draft the public reply that limits the damage, and you publish it.We turn one-star reviews into five-star ones.
Where it applies, we tell you that this is where a solicitor’s work begins and ours ends.We get your old rating back.

Which part we do

  • In The X-Ray we go through your 1 to 3-star reviews one by one, flag which ones breach a specific policy and set out the exact ground to report them under.
  • We build the art. 20.4 file for one review that did not come from a real customer, with the letter drafted.
  • And one thing that is usually worth more than all of the above: the best defence against an unfair review is having it buried under the next twenty that came from real customers.

Start by seeing how much that review actually weighs.

If you have four reviews, one unfair review moves your average by half a point. If you have two hundred, it barely shows. The Mirror tells you which of the two you are.

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