A small-town shakedown, two reviews at a time
This account was submitted by a healthcare provider and de-identified before publication. Details that could identify a patient or practice have been removed, and it is shared with the provider’s consent.
It began with a thin one star review that had no real content, just a low score and a curt dismissal, and then came a message offering to make it "disappear" in exchange for payment.
When I declined, a second vague negative review appeared within days, calibrated to look like an independent unhappy patient. It was a shakedown, but because each post individually read as an ordinary opinion, reporting them to Google accomplished nothing.
In a small Maine town where much of my practice comes from word of mouth and long standing relationships, even two bad reviews carry outsized weight and get noticed quickly. I felt a real pull toward just paying to make it stop, which is precisely the leverage the scheme relies on, and I resented being put in that position.
I kept the messages as a record and consulted quietly with a colleague who had faced something similar, then chose not to engage. It is a strange thing to run an honest small practice and find yourself the target of what amounts to digital extortion.