Millions of consumers depend on online reviews to help them buy with confidence, whereas businesses benefit from authentic consumer feedback to build trust and make improvements. However, this system only works when both sides engage with it honestly. Some businesses want the results without the work, and are taking questionable and, in the case we’ll go into here, fraudulent measures to get there. For consumers, it reveals the risk of real experiences being erased, and for brands, it shows that taking deceptive shortcuts is counter productive. PissedConsumer.com experienced such attempted fraud firsthand when Fortune Closure LLC appeared to use a fake court order letter in an attempt to remove negative consumer reviews about their company. Here’s how that went. What Happened: A Review Removal Demand Based on a Questionable Court Document Fortune Closure LLC requested that we delete two pages of our website hosting customer reviews of their business (DJ Thielen Live and Fortune Foreclosures). The justification for this request was based upon a supposed Glynn County Superior Court-issued permanent injunction against PissedConsumer that mandated the removal of the above web content. What the Court Reportedly Confirmed Upon contacting the Glynn County Superior Court to verify the court order, our suspicions were confirmed. The court stated that the case number did not exist amongst their records and that no case involving the named parties had been filed. Written confirmation of this was provided. The court’s written correspondence also stated that the document appeared to be obviously fraudulent and contacted us to say that they had begun their own investigation. Recurring Attempts to Remove Reviews Through Questionable Means PissedConsumer has received falsified claims before. The Luxsport Motor Group attempted review removal through the use of fake notarized letters that masqueraded as correspondence from the author of a negative review. Despite ample opportunity to clear up the situation, lack of compliance earned the brand a warning at the top of their profile page on our site: “PissedConsumer believes that this company commits fraudulent acts towards our website by providing false information.” Dishonest attempts to remove negative content have been tried with different tactics. The Frankfort Herald website, which didn’t exist until 2016, sent DMCA notices to Google, claiming they had copyright over articles published on PissedConsumer in 2012. This publicly documented attempt at reputation washing remains as a permanent question mark over their legitimacy and credibility. The Fortune Closure LLC case does differ from these previous examples, however, as now the courts are chasing it up and making efforts to deal with these fake orders. This is a very welcome development and a step towards more effective deterrence that will make anyone thinking of using this tactic think twice about it. Consumer Opinions Should Not Disappear Without Verified Proof This situation highlights what we believe is a core principle of trust in the consumer-brand relationship: authenticity. Fundamentally, it is an issue of freedom of speech online. Consumer testimonials should not be erased in response to threats, particularly threats based on fraudulent or unverifiable claims or documentation. The removal of online reviews requires legitimate reasoning, verification, and/or a valid court order. You can read about our Legitimacy Verification Program and requirements for review removal here. Customer Feedback Is Useful! Consumers should be vigilant that genuine reviews may face attempts at removal through dishonest means, so it’s crucial to only use platforms that emphasize trust and transparency. Companies that use fake legal documents and other underhanded tactics to launder their reputations and censor criticism are rarely successful and are likely to become victims of the Streisand effect. Yet, with AI making it easier to produce official-looking documents, such attempts to deceive are likely to continue. This is why verification is so important. Deceptive practices like these undermine the review economy and damage consumer trust; they also inhibit growth and development as legitimate criticism gets whitewashed. So ultimately, the whole industry suffers as a consequence of the dishonest actions of the minority. The alternative is a healthy, win-win approach to online reviews, where brands address customer concerns honestly and fairly, listen to feedback, improve, and use consumer insights to drive genuine growth.