Davis: We never get less than four-star reviews
A conveyancer has described how she refused to give in to a scammer who threatened to post more fake one-star reviews of her law firm unless she gave him her phone number.
Rose Davis, founder and director of Davis & Co Property Lawyers in Nottingham, said she was “absolutely gutted” when she saw the first one-star Google review go up on her firm’s website last month.
“I knew straight away that it was fake. We don’t get one-star reviews. The lowest we get is four stars.”
Ms Davis, a licensed conveyancer who launched her firm in 2018, posted a reply to the review, saying that since the person was not a client, they were not entitled to post a review.
“The next day I got another one, again from a person with a weird-sounding name who I knew was not a client.”
After that, she received an email from the scammer, threatening that if she did not give him her WhatsApp number, he would put another fake review up the same day, which he did. The three one-star reviews reduced her firm’s Google review rating from 4.9 to 4.7.
“I felt absolutely gutted because all the hard work of the team was being disregarded. A lot of our work is based on the strength of our reviews. People say they are calling us because of our good reviews.”
Ms Davis said her conveyancing team consisted of another licensed conveyancer and a solicitor, supported by four non-legal staff.
“We couldn’t talk to Google. I rang them and was put on hold for 47 minutes before I got through to customer services. When I did get through, they said it was not an issue they could deal with, and told me to flag it on our Google page.”
Ms Davis flagged the false reviews and the first two were taken down after about a week. She had to flag the third one a second time before it disappeared a couple of days later.
She shared her experiences with other lawyers on LinkedIn, where she posted a link to emails sent by the scammer, so they could see the kind of threat she was faced with.
In one of them the scammer demands: “Give your WhatsApp number.” In another he says: “If you don’t response me I will put more negative on your business profile (sic).”
Ms Davis said: “Everybody was very supportive on LinkedIn.” She called the police, who told her to post an online fraud report, which she did. She has had no contact with the police since.
“We’re told that we need to have transparency and get these reviews so the public can make an informed decisions about us, but you can get into trouble.
“If I had got 30 one-star reviews, it would have sent my ranking right down. What can you do? They want your money.
“What if you’re the usual managing partner, just trying to keep your law firm going? You won’t have your eyes on something like this.
“Unfortunately it’s the world we live in. You’re under such an enormous amount of stress. You don’t know whether the one-star reviews will keep coming.”
Ms Davis added that her firm did not pay referral fees to estate agents but competed on service, and in that it had done “tremendously well”.
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