Online scammers are flooding Miami area restaurants with bad reviews, demanding cash

A string of one-star Google reviews began to pepper Little Haiti restaurant Boia De’s profile last week, before an ominous email pinged owner Luciana Giangrandi’s phone.

“Negative feedback about your establishment has been left by us. And will appear in the future, one review a day,” it read in part. “We sincerely apologize for our actions, and would not want to harm your business, but we have no other choice.”

Send us a $75 gift card, it demanded, “and we will immediately stop.” Do nothing, and the negative reviews would continue.

“I think we’re actually being blackmailed!” Giangrandi yelled as she read the note while she and her partner, Alex Meyer, drove to the restaurant.

Restaurants around the country are being extorted for money by online trolls who leave blocks of one-star Google reviews, mainly without any comments, and request payment through gift cards to remove them. The focus seems to be on high profile restaurants, including most of the 11 Miami-area restaurants that were recently awarded their first stars in the international Michelin dining guide. Eater and the New York Times recently reported on the phenomenon ranging from San Francisco to Chicago and New York.

“It’s pure online trolling, bullying, and it’s frustrating,” Meyer said.

Meyer said he has read the emails sent to other restaurants around the country and found the wording verbatim. He provided copies to the Miami Herald.

The emails begin with a conciliatory, apologetic tone, claiming to come from an extortionist in India who can “see no other way to survive. We are begging you to send us google play gift card worth $75,” it reads.

“We hope that this amount will not be critical for you. After selling this gift card we can earn approximately $50, which is three weeks of income for one family.”

Meyer ignored the emails. They soon became more aggressive. The negative reviews kept coming.

“We can keep doing this indefinitely,” a third email read. “Is $75 worth more to you than a loss to the business? We realize that what we are doing is illegal and unfair. But we have no other choice. Let’s just close this matter positively and forget about each other.”

Meyer, like many other restaurant owners, struggled to find a contact for Google to complain. Clicking through the website and marking the reviews as spam or harassment led to an automated response from Google, saying the reviews did not violate its rules.

“We have the evidence!” he said, frustrated. “We have the emails from these guys. It’s so crazy!”

Google has begun investigating and removing the illegitimate one-star reviews, a Google Maps spokesperson wrote the Miami Herald. But many of the one-star reviews of top Miami restaurants remained as of Tuesday afternoon.

“Our policies clearly state reviews must be based on real experiences, and when we find policy violations, we take swift action ranging from content removal to account suspension and even litigation,” the spokesperson wrote. “We encourage users and business owners to flag suspicious activity to us, which helps us keep the information on Maps accurate and reliable.”

Miami Assistant Police Chief Armando Aguilar Jr. said Tuesday his agency hadn’t received any calls from restaurant owners, but urged them to come forward if they feel threatened in any way.

“We encourage anyone who has been a victim to contact us so we can hold those people responsible,” he said. “Nothing has been reported to us. But any time somebody demands money or anything of value (while threatening harm to a business or person), it’s extortion. And that’s something we take very seriously.”

Ariete, like Boia De, was celebrating a different kind of star — its first Michelin star, awarded in June — when the restaurant started getting bombarded with the anonymous one-star reviews from accounts that had recently been created.

“Google can’t just wash its hands of this,” chef-owner Michael Beltran said. “This is a scam.”

Beltran’s communications director has been struggling to reach an actual person at Google. Reporting the reviews online led to the automated message, saying the reviews don’t violate their standards. Beltran, for one, has no plans to pay the ransom.

“Oh, I know I’m not going to pay them. That’s for damn sure,” he said.

It’s the latest setbacks for restaurant owners, who are just returning to normal after two years weathering the financial challenges of operating through the coronavirus pandemic.

High-profile restaurants can weather the negative reviews because they are featured in other publications, Meyer said. But fledgling restaurants and those that rely on positive Google reviews could be sunk by the online blackmail.

“It’s just annoying, man. It could really affect a small restaurant,” he said.

Miami Herald reporter Charles Rabin contributed to this report.