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A Sydney restaurant owner claims companies invented to leave fake bad online reviews are targeting small businesses struggling to stay afloat during lockdown.   

Over the past 11 months Kevin Bowen's Rozelle eatery Alegrias Spanish Tapas has been bombarded with more than a dozen one star Google reviews from obscure accounts.     

The accounts always have abnormal review histories, with one scoring 20 restaurants across Sydney the day it was created while another claiming to have tried several different sushi shops within just a few hours. 

While authentic negative feedback is constructive, Mr Bowen said each fake click can have a devastating toll on venues reliant on their reputation to keep business flowing. 

Sydney business owner Kevin Bowen (pictured) says companies are being paid by businesses to give competitors fake bad Google reviews 

He said poor scores can result in booking cancellations or deter prospective customers - potentially slashing businesses' yearly revenue by tens of thousands of dollars.

'This sort of thing is like death by 1000 cuts,' Mr Bowen told Daily Mail Australia. 

'At first you might not notice, but it adds up. Around 80 per cent of people check reviews before going to a restaurant.

'For us, one table of four pays roughly $300. If I lose one table a week, that is $15,600 a year.'   

The restauranteur said he first became aware of the unethical practice last September after noticing suspicious accounts while probing five unexplained reviews. 

After copping a new one star rating on Tuesday, Mr Bowen examined the reviewer's details to determine whether they were a genuine customer.  

He discovered the person had apparently visited 109 locations across Greater Sydney over the past three weeks - despite the region being under a strict lockdown. 

'We've been closed except for a small number of takeaway orders on the last couple of weekends with almost all of our orders coming from our supporters,' he said.

Mr Bowen, who owns Rozelle restaurant Alegrias Spanish Tapas (pictured), said his business has been hit with more than a dozen fake reviews over the past 11 months 

'We have their contact details, and we have never had a record of anyone with their [the reviewer's] name even in prior bookings.' 

Mr Bowen, who has a degree in marketing, believes the attacks are the work of offshore IT companies hired by other restaurants to boost their ratings while tarnishing competitors.  

The service, he said, involves fake accounts propping up their employer's business with positive reviews, while dishing out negative stars to similar vendors. 

As positive engagement with a web listing dictates how it is ranked in a search engine, this can subsequently change its visibility on Google. 

'Businesses are paying companies to drag others down and push them up. It is not sustainable, it is not ethical, and it is cheating,' he said.  

Businesses owners can lodge a request to Google to have fake reviews removed, but Mr Bowen said it is a lengthy process. 

While he has managed to get the majority deleted, Mr Bowen said he should not have to spend his time identifying rogue posters.

Mr Bowen said the reviews (one pictured) are often unexplained, but some use information about businesses available online, such as their dishes, to legitimise the reviews

One account that rated Mr Bowen's restaurant has made 109 reviews in the past three weeks since it was created. The businesses are spread across Sydney and extend into the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and Wollongong - despite all regions being in lockdown since June

Mr Bowen said the online attacks are pushing Covid-impacted businesses to the brink of financial ruin and and the tech giant is not taking enough action to stop it.

'Google does not police it. I have had to submit requests to have them removed, but that has taken hours,' he said.  

'It is so much effort when I am barely surviving this lockdown. I am not getting government payments. We are a family owned business; we struggled just as much as anyone before Covid.

'Every time we get a negative review it emotionally hurts. I have put my blood, sweat, and tears into my restaurant. And some companies are going out of their way to write disparaging reviews. It is just not fair.'  

Mr Bowen is calling for Google to implement a higher barrier of entry for individuals to make accounts and better policing measures to eradicate fake ones. 

A Google spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia, under their review policy, all contributions must be based on real experiences and information. 

Mr Bowen said fake reviews can result in tens of thousands of dollars in losses, devastating small businesses already struggling to survive Covid lockdowns. Pictured: Mr Bowen with his team of staff 

They said the company has automated and manual systems to detect issues, in addition to user flags, which provide a way for anyone to flag inappropriate content and misleading places for removal. 

'Google considers deliberately inauthentic content, off-topic reviews, paid reviews, and unnecessary or incorrect content all in violation of our policies,' the spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson said Google blocked 55million reviews and almost three million fake business profiles in 2020, with their teams and technology also disabling 610,000 user accounts after deemed to have violated their policy.  

But Mr Bowen believes some are still slipping through the cracks. 

He is now warning fellow business owners to scrutinise suspicious reviews and said there are several tell-tale signs an account is fake.

'The common denominator is they will give a glowing review for the business that is paying, while all the others will be negative,' he said. 

Mr Bowen said the attacks are pushing already-struggling businesses over the edge by deterring potential patrons

'And well established businesses with good reputations get attacked because they [the companies] figure with almost 1000 reviews, a business like mine won't notice or look too far into it.' 

'They make the fake reviews seem genuine by including researched information about the restaurant and adding photos already available online,' he said. 

Although some businesses may brush off poor scores, Mr Bowen said businesses should not be complacent.  

'Every day a fake review is up, it causes damage. It is the first thing people see when they look on Google that will inform their dining decisions,' he said. 

'It’s not just me this is happening to, and right now, everyone in the hospitality industry is barely holding it together. 

'Something as small as this could send a business over the edge.'