When Leo's Pizza got 'review bombed,' Byron stepped up
CBC
When the one-star reviews first began to appear on his restaurant's Google page, owner Damon Ataei swung into action, trying to contact each reviewer.
His goal wasn't to convince them to take down the reviews of Leo's Pizza, a business that's been operating in Byron for six years. Ataei wanted to speak with what he assumed were paying customers with complaints about Leo's food or service.
But when the number of one-star reviews hit nine in a single day, Ataei began to believe these weren't written by unhappy customers, but instead part of a coordinated series of posts he calls a "review bomb" campaign against his business. While Ataei was trying to fix the problem, Byron came to the owner's aid, bombing back with their own positive reviews.
There were clues the posts weren't legit. The accounts linked to them hadn't reviewed any other business or service and there was no other record of activity. They used common first names with no clear identifiable surname, such as "Bob Mike" "Michelle V" and "Mike Time."
"The fact that the reviews were all posted within one to two hours from each other makes me suspicious that it was one person creating multiple fake accounts," said Ataei.
Although Leo's Pizza has been operating for six years, his family has run other take-out pizza businesses in London for more than 30 years.
Ataei has an established clientele but said Google reviews are an essential way for new customers to connect with his business. Ataei calls Google reviews a "double-edged sword" with immense power to drive new business with good reviews and but also just as able to turn customers away with poor ones.
"It can affect your business quite dramatically," he said. "They can easily ruin a five-year reputation in five to 10 minutes by making multiple fake reviews."
It's not the first time CBC News has reported about businesses dealing with a suspicious rash of rapidly posted negative reviews.
In 2024 two local gutter repair companies, faced the same issue. A CBC News investigation in 2021 uncovered a shady industry surrounding reviews of businesses.
With no response from the accounts posting the reviews about Leo's Pizza, Ataei reached out to Google. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get human help either.
"It's purely an automated service," said Ataei of Google's customer response. "So even if you have an urgent matter, it all goes through automated responses and you have a very difficult time reaching an actual person. I tried multiple times."
In response to questions from CBC News, a spokesperson from Google said the reviews flagged by Ataei now appear to have been taken down, although it's not clear if they were removed in response to his complaints.
The spokesperson pointed to the company's content policies which require reviews to be "based on real experiences."
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