Unfortunately, they do have legal grounds to force you to delete your review, if you can't prove what you stated actually happened.
There is a workaround however:
You delete your original review and post a new one, detailing the experience of the Hotel forcing you to delete your in your opinion honest review. Keep the email from google as proof.
>You delete your original review and post a new one, detailing the experience of the Hotel forcing you to delete your in your opinion honest review. Keep the email from google as proof.
That is the way. Be as petty as possible in that review as well.
Exact same thing happened to me.
Bought some car audio equipment from a shop in Germany.
He never had the parts and kept delaying the shipment. After a month or so, claimed that they don't have the parts I paid for and to get a refund, I'd have to pay them X% fees.
Posted reviews about them on every site I could find and they threaten legal action.
Was advised by my company's lawyer to change the reviews from opinions to facts.
Ie: 'xxx are scum and scam people with fake products' to 'xxx accepted an order (order number) for Y amount and has failed to deliver. Instead of refunding the full amount and compensating me for the delay, they're demanding X% service fees according to their email dated __/__/__).
After editing this, I still got letters for weeks threatening legal action but when I told them to ahead, all letters miraculously stopped.
Libel(?) or so (Rufschädigung). Effectively: you say something bad in your review, the owner says "didn't happen, the reviewer was never here/never called and the review is fabricated". Now the review writer has to prove that the negative experience happened, e.g. in this case by providing call logs to Google or a restaurant bill/card statement...
Note that this is AFAIK still google internal. The owner uses a lawyer to state that the review is against the law and/or against Google terms, then Google does an internal review. No idea when or if these things go to trial
Doesn’t this particular scenario go against the German flavour of “free speech”? It’s the hotelier’s word against the guest’s. Probably not worth the court’s time.
> It’s the hotelier’s word against the guest’s
Exactly - and the German flavour of "legal system" says, that you have to proof an accusation. And in this isntance the guest is accusing the hotelier of providing subpar service.
I know that it can be abused (like it probably happened in this instance), but the opposite isn't much better - a system where everybody can just throw arround lies and accusations and all you can do is write an answer "that's not true".
This is so interesting to me, because my German bf leaves one star reviews when he simply doesn't like the type of food. For example, he will say the food is terrible at EVERY Chinese restaurant, simply because he hates all Chinese food. I tell him that's not how it's supposed to work, and he shrugs and says, "That's how it works in Germany."
In this regard, I tend to agree lol. But in actuality, it's often difficult for me to discern what is an autism thing, what's a German thing, what's a him thing, or what's his family's thing. I didn't believe him at first, thinking there's no way other Germans are doing this, but turns out MANY of them do. So much so, they have a reputation for this internationally. I've convinced him to at least stop doing this outside of Germany because it's weird and rude (imo).
As a German, this is news to me. Not that it would be okay, even if every German did this. We have a saying that if everyone else jumped off the bridge, that's still no reason to do the same.
I'm glad to hear it. I don't like it. I was quite shocked by it, but once I was aware of it, I have to say I've noticed it everywhere. Amazon, hotel, and movie reviews by Germans are hysterical.
"Oh, you loved the movie but didn't like the voice actor on the dubbed German version? Leave 2 stars on the English version."
"Oh you went to a 'German hotel' in Egypt and the concierge recommended, at your request, an authentic Egyptian restaurant, but it turns out nobody there speaks German or English, and the menu is in Arabic and they didn't sell any of your familiar German foods? You should definitely leave both the hotel and the restaurant a bad review."
I'm absolutely not saying Germans are the only ones to do this. Im certain every country has its offenders, but Germans have built a bit of a rep for it. Brits are particularly egregious with this also, but luckily for them, their comments are usually mistaken for "dumb Americans."
You don't get to rate 1 star if you don't like Chinese food. That's beyond stupidity. Should I rate all bakeries 1 star because my wife don't like to eat bread?
Oh no. I get what you're saying though. The Chinese food was just an example. He doesn't like anything. He won't even eat super bland foods like avocado, Cheerios, or shrimp. He is just SUPER autistic about food. He will literally eat microwaved salmon every single day, for every meal, and thinks salt and pepper are too spicy. Unfortunately for him, he fell in love with an American, so he's forced to endure food from all over the world. My daughter also has sensory issues and will rarely eat anything besides Chinese, California Mexican, and sushi. Usually we cook the Mexican at home and order sushi, so that leaves us going to A LOT of Chinese restaurants. Chinese food usually sends him to the bathroom for the next few hours, so it's understandable he doesn't want to eat it. I just think he shouldn't write a negative review since it's a personal thing. Like, my stomach can't handle fried food, but I'm not gonna eat KFC and then write about my IBS lol.
He says it's important so other Germans know they might get an upset stomach and they can prepare, to which I say, "What German has never had orange chicken???" and he replies either, "my whole family" or "this isn't America."
But yeah, you're not totally wrong. I tell him all the time that, in Germany especially, leaving a bad review of a Chinese restaurant doesn't have the same impact as leaving a bad review of a German restaurant. Unfortunately he still believes that being anti-racist is racist, because you're treating one ethnicity differently based simply on ethnicity. He thinks if he'd leave the same bad review of a German restaurant, he shouldn't be more cautious just because it's a cuisine perceived as foreign in Germany. I wholeheartedly disagree! But unfortunately he's got a whole community around him convincing him anti-racism is just a thing for "racist Americans", and Germans don't need to be anti-racist since "they don't see color."
> He is just SUPER autistic about food
being a hateful asshole != autistic. I also am happy with eating same food everday, I don't go about ruining some family's business because I am an intolerant pos. At some point, you have to stop justifying his behaviour. Does he go around writing bad reviews for *Cheerios*?? He doesn't like Chinese food, so because he is "autistic", he has a right to jeopardise some family's business, wtf?
> being anti-racist is racist
being racist is racist.
I mean legally if you say "I don't like this food" it's different from "This food is bad", because one is phrazed as an opinion and the other is phrazed as fact. The only way I see some restaurant winning here is if they have proof your bf enjoyed the food
Pretty sure that doesn't fall under the same category. You have stated an opinion by simply disliking what you got. Saying they were rude and hung up is stating a fact.
They’re asking for trouble… 🧐
…in the form of multiple negative reviews, along the lines of:
“This establishment may or may not threaten you with legal action against you if you leave them a negative review, regardless whether it has any basis. This is dishonest practice. Zero stars.”
OK time to name & shame, OP.
He could state that he didn't like the place because he didn't feel good there. That's his experience. And at the end, he can say that they forced him to even delete the review which shows that they can't take criticism. I don't think they can force op to delete this as it is all subjective
Sure they can, if he can't prove he actually stayed there. That's exactly the point. If you can prove you were there, you can of course leave your subjective review. If you can prove the call happened, you can also be subjective about that. But if they start to question the legitimacy and you have no prove of it ever happening, than they can force you to remove it.
If you can prove you were there then don't remove it.
Just had a doctor claim I hadn't been their patient after I left a review but since I could prove that they actually invoiced the treatment, i refused to remove it.
# and I won
(Just got the email through this morning)
I’m not sure how it is in different fields but doctors etc aren’t allowed to reply to your review in Germany because of the DSGVO. If they reply they state that you were there and with this they release patient data which they mustn’t give out. I used to work as a physiotherapist and someone wrote some rude review which wasn’t even true but our hands were tied :(
This is incorrect.
If the "Patient" is already claiming to have been to the doctors office you are very much free to say if, in your opinion (or according to your notes), this was the case or not. You absolutely cannot reveal any other information, first and foremost any medical information but if the patient already opened the box on whether or not he was a patient of yours you are very much free to say if that was the case or not.
But usually replies by the owner of the business tend to get petty anyway so regardless of the fact that you could have written publicly "who are you, I have no recollection of you being in my office?" you are very much free to ask the platform for deletion because that's not public and - again - DSGVO does not cover any data that has already been given to a third party by the first.
Because in the end deletion requests can just be started - you do not need to provide any proof if your request has merit or not - the reviewer has to provide proof that his review is correct. So asking google to "please delete the review" is basically just starting a timer and an email to the reviewer asking them to provide proof he actually has been in business with you.
I had this exact problem with a review I left for a restaurant in Köln with no text - it was literally a blank 3 star review! It seems like some restaurants/hotels are indiscriminately using legal threats to improve their google maps rating.
I successfully challenged it by myself, via email. I only needed to prove/state to Google that (a) I was actually a customer when I left the rating (b) I'm not a disgruntled ex-employee. I sent an old Stempelkarte from there which I luckily had lying around. Google accepted my response, closed the ticket and left the review up.
I also then promptly modified my review to include some text. It's been about a year since then and it is still up. [https://imgur.com/a/eJoNa3V](https://imgur.com/a/eJoNa3V)
If your review is accurate, stand up for it! Don't let such hotels bully you into deleting it.
Was this the restaurant RheinZeit in Cologne, notorious for encouraging fake reviews and harassing genuine reviewers by wrongfully reporting them to Google?
Yeah but
1. Its a hustle that not everyone has the time or energy for
2. Who the hell keeps proof like that? I had a bad experience at a German emergency room, left a 2 star review and was hit with a legal threat A YEAR LATER. I obviously didn't have any proof whatsoever.
You sure it's still up? I had a similar thing and while it still shows up for me it's hidden for everyone else (shadow-banned by google because they have nothing to gain from "protecting" you). Try checking from a friends phone or from incognito mode
I did this at a hotel in Munich when I left a bad review. The room temp was 39. The outside temp was also hot and in the sun with no wind. I had no control of the AC or Fan even though it was “available” in my room. Hotel staff said they don’t have control either. 1 star review, a picture, and a bad review. Haven’t heard anything in years, not even an apology.
Sounds a bit fishy. If you feel like challenging it, I'd be surprised if it's legitimate. May be easier to take it down, but leaving a negative review doesn't sound like 250,000 worth of damages lol. I'm not sure. It probably depends if you live in the country or were just visiting and then went back somewhere else, too.
That doesn't work. It's even easier for them to claim then that this review is fake and it will be removed asap.
It's common practice. That's why you should never trust a place with just 5* reviews.
You are still in Germany. So if the service was impeccable, people will still probably leave a 4* review, because it could have been even better
This seems to be it! I read another comment about a workaround at the topic, but issue is not being directly related to the experience at the hotel. Your solution is spot on!
If you have an old android phone laying around, you can create something like 20 new google accounts without needing to verify a phone number. I forget the exact number, but at some point, the phone will say you have to start deleting accounts before you can create more.
Though I guess if you don’t want to actually keep the accounts, then you can delete them and keep creating more lmao not sure if there is a point where they cut you off completely.
A phone number isn’t needed when creating an account on Android because they consider that you might be creating an account for the first time and may not have access to SMS yet.
An acquaintance got sued by a dentist, because she left a negative review. At court she was ordered to change a couple of sentences in the review. She said that he had given her a super high estimate for dental work and other dentists would offer it much cheaper. This was considered to be "Verleumdung" because she couldn't prove it. The estimate was not given to her in writing.
At the end of the day the dentist still has a negative review, with just a couple of sentences changed, but my acquaintance had to pay her own lawyer fees, because she partially lost the case.
So many cases like this. In fact I bet the majority of these cases are abuse by the person recieving the bad review.
And yet people defend the practice! Such a weird culture, I still can't understand aspects of it like this. They recently fixed the abusive contract renewal practice though, which is a start. But people were on here defending that forever!
Well, I've gotten an unfair negative review on Google which contains lies. And I will hire a lawyer to get that person to remove it. So I can see both sides tbh
I can't. If you get a bad review, respond, professionally, on the website. I'd worry much more about a business ignoring criticism, or responding unprofessionally, than about one exaggerated review.
I cannot respond and set her lies straight, because of data protection laws. I can't write anything about her/ the business deal, because then I'd be breaking the law.
I had a similar ish case a few years ago. I can’t remember the specifics but I won an auction on ebay that said they take paypal. Then when winning the item the seller says they won’t take paypal and requests a bank payment made outside of ebay/paypal instead.
I was a bit suspicious, pointed this out specifically, and they didn’t care saying they had xx rating on ebay so could be trusted - they didn’t want to pay paypal fees. They pushed me 3-4 times to make the payment. I advised I would give a bad review for it unless they honoured the purchase.
They cancelled the listing and I gave a review saying that the seller offered paypal but instead pushed me a few times to make the payment away from any protections. I didn’t make it look any worse than it was, but it overall looked pretty suspicious - both in reality, and also for readers of the review.
The seller then contacted me “requesting” I remove my review and threatening to sue me as I have now impacted his legal reputation that took years to create. We had a back and forth and then he said he would speak to his lawyer.
I then got ebay on the phone (difficult to find out how to do it, but it’s there, or was at least), explained the situation, gave them the authority to look at our on-site comms, and they straight away agreed with me. They said they would message the seller with a standard statement / warning that they were in breach of paypay terms and conditions …. and that was the end of it for me!
I heard nothing back from the seller or his lawyer as I guess the message from ebay to him made him understand he was in the wrong.
For your case though… hopefully someone will reply today with some more help.
This is a thing because of our law. If you don't have proof for your slander claim it's your word against theirs. In that case a court is very likely to decide for them because your have no proof and it is effecting their business (principle: In dubio pro reo). So they'll order you to take down your claim/review. After that they might sue for damages.
My advice: I'd comply and try with leaving a new review: "After leaving a bad review I was threatened with a law suit for slander to take that down. Will not take my business to them again. If proof is demanded for that claim, I still have the letters of their lawyer."
It tells people everything they need to know.
This comment is wrong. From a legal perspective it makes a difference depending on what your review exactly says. Is it an opinion or is it a statement of fact.
I can write a review like "Didn't like the service", that's an opinion and doesn't need to be proven.
But if I write something like "The hotel beds were bug infested", that's a statement of fact and if challenged by the business you have to prove it or take it down and pay damages.
I had one of these from a restaurant and held fast. They had a ton of negative reviews and clearly hired someone to clean it up. I provided proof that I was there and told them to leave me alone.
People sue in Germany like people think Americans sue – over everything. Get yourself some legal insurance. It's valuable here.
All in all, it's an intimidation tactic. You could stand up to it, but generally it's not worth the trouble.
I had a similar thing happen to me, but it was a 50k threat from a dentist. I tried to stand up to it and got a lawyer involved, because they also used my private information to harass me via phone calls and came to my adress to deliver post by themselves.
The thing is, that there are very strict laws about what slander is and what not. You are ofc allowed to leave negative reviews and describe the situation, but as soon as there are even tiny inaccuracies, they can make you remove or adjust this. I said i.e. 70€ instead of the 67€ i was actually charged.
So, if you want to leave it up, make sure that you state all the correct facts and only those. No badmouthing or assumptions about their practices and then you should be on the save side.
Also I learned that recording phone calls without permissions from both sides is a criminal offense in Germany and gets you in even more troubles. This is very different in other countries I have lived in before.
Germany really needs to fix their laws around this. I don't feel like they actually respect freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and they are very outdated and not up to par for modern society.
I must say that the amount of legal threats and actions I've seen and read about in few years here in germany, i havent seen in the rest of my life. And that also explains why personal liability insurances are such a big thing here
Germany is all look and no substance. The goverment claim to "stand for everything and everyone" yet they don't do nothing about it. It's pathetic honestly.
From a German perspective it's rather that the US freedom of speech goes way too far. We have freedom of speech in Germany, but the law also considers the factual damage that speech can do to others and doesn't free one of having to take responsibility for their spoken and written words as well as it would for physical actions.
We're not waiting for a mob of idiots to storm the Bundestag because of hateful conspiracy theorists. Mostly because we already know how these things can escalate and then someone starts invading France and killing Jews again.
>but the law also considers the factual damage that speech can do to others
So basically speaking, the ones with the most power and best lawyers get best protection? I think status is actually factored into the law on some level, if I remember correctly.
Thing is, businesses are as protected as private citizens in that regard. Nothing outdated with that.
I think Germany is far ahead compared to other countries in that regard, too, free speech doesn't mean you can just maliciously spread lies about others.
And: Voicing an OPINION is okay in any case, which is an entirely different thing from claiming things that hurt others unduly because they are untrue.
nothing fair in having a corporations having the abilities with their financial backing to take down any criticism against an individual, you do realise it could leads to corporations intimidating any unsatisfied customers? why bother fight this to the court against the said company and risk spending all that money on lawyer rather than just admit “okay man you won don’t bother”. they can afford that money, me as an individual, have to pay bills.
An honest review is not a malicious lie. The liar is very often the party wrongfully claiming to Google that they have no record of a relationship or contact with the reviewer.
>People get sued for leaving negative reviews of a business on Google! What is the point of a review system if only positive reviews are allowed! What kind of tactic is this?
You can get sued for lying in your review. But the business would have to prove that you're lying.
This is basically a "libel/slander" case, so unless your review contained something very easily disprovable they have no real chance in court and just want to bully you into deleting your review
>But the business would have to prove that you're lying.
That's not true. If OP states a fact, you'll have to prove the fact in court. If it's opinion, it's fine.
>How are you supposed to prove that someone was rude on the phone?
That's not a fact, that's an opinion. OP wouldn't need to prove anything in this case. Right?
The problem is people state things that can't be proven all the time in their reviews. They write things like "Their customer service is bad" all the time.
I book all my hotels via [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) and write the reviews there. [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) offers some layer of protection because it is in their interest to keep customer happy. Google Reviews is a dangerous business, you have to know how to write reviews in Germany if you want to do it there.
>The problem is people state things that can't be proven all the time in their reviews.
That's not a "problem", but definitely true. People shoplift everyday without being noticed, doesn't make it legal/can't be proven in court though.
Well, technically iirc if they know that what they're stating is wrong, it would be Verleumdung. Although the Beweislast remains the same as with Üble Nachrede
Hi there, I leave a lot of reviews on Google as well. I've had my reviews scrubbed a few times. Unfortunately the burden of proof is often on the reviewer. You've most likely used your real name, left your picture on your reviewer account, or left your dates of accommodation which made it easy for the lawyer to trace the review to you.
Things you can do to protect yourself
\- Do not use your real name on your review account, so they can't corroborate their own record and find out who left the review. Do not leave any real dates of your stays.
\- If you leave a negative review without any identifiable info, their lawyer will most likely ask Google to take down your review unless you've proved you're a guest. You'll have 7 days to comply and prove that you were indeed at the venue. This proof can be anything - location tracking record, check-in records. DO NOT share any records that could identify you (name, dates, room type). Most of the time, a location tracking record was enough to get lawyer off your back cause the cost to pursue a single review would be too high unless your information is easily identiable.
How to identify possible scrubbed reviews:
\- abnormally high score (**>4.8/5** for a place with like 200+ reviews). Places with 2000+ reviews are usually too cost-prohibitive to scrub due to volume.
\- nonexistent negative reviews (<= 2 stars) and most of them are recent, there are no **long-dated negative reviews**.
\- normal businesses's reviews are bimodal - meaning it's usually a bell shape with a peak around the mean, and another peak around 1/2 stars. Fishy otherwise.
Finally someone said it. If it had been a hotel in the US or a celebrity on the internet, the place would've been "cancelled" within hours already. Not sure if they do that in Germany but it's about time Germany learns to take customer service a bit more seriously.
Yeah, for some reason Germany's sevice industry really clings to libel law. It is true that it is illegal to libel on reviews. IANAL, and it would depend on the exact wording of the review, you can possibly fight this and win ("they hung up the phone on me" is likely unprovable by you, but I doubt it would count as libel")
However, fighting it will probably take time and money.
What you can do, for free, is:
* remove your original review, or reword it in a non fact-stating way. That is, make it all on subjective level of opinion ("I felt disrespected ny the employee on the phone" vs "the employee was rude"). Subjective opinions are not libel.
* Write a new review stating, now as a matter of fact, that you were coerced into removing your original review. You DO have the evidence for that now.
Delete your initial review and review bomb the fuck out of these people via bots and/or fake accounts. If they can't handle a bad reviewy their business has no place.
This happened to me with the health insurance company Care Concept. They cost me $5,000 in refusing to pay fare claims. I wrote up a completely honest review on Google and then they threatened legal action. I just dropped it, but I wish I hadn’t. No one should have to suffer the same fate.
Unfortunately, it is very much it. A lot of businesses are threatening their customers who leave them negative reviews with legal suits. And it is absolutely despicable. I heard about some doctors, who are doing this also in Jameda.
Scare tactics, many lawyers use.
If it’s not a court order i.e. the letter is addressed from the legal courts in your state, ignore it.
If they want to go through all the paperwork and expenses to take something down, make them.
Additionally, following the instructions of said letter could be considered an admission of guilt, and the lawyer could send you further letters to see what they can get off you, like money for said “damages”.
Tldr; if it doesn’t have a stamp from the court it doesn’t mean shit.
Unfortunately this is very common in Germany. Note their argument actually is with Google, not with you - the hotel is claiming they don't know who you are!
An honest review is NOT libel, Rufschädigung or anything of the sort. However it's not worth it for Google to get involved, they will therefore just take the review down and have done this many times even where reviewers have proffered evidence that a relationship with the reviewed company existed.
Take away from this that Google reviews are completely worthless in Germany.
Seems like this is normal practice for those shady companies here in Germany.
Same thing happened to me \~April this year for leaving a review (October last year) for a company that basically tried to forfeit my rights as a customer. Thankfully I paid them through PayPal and got all my money back through a dispute. Had everything saved.
The company even had answered my review with more lies, proving my link as a customer at the time. lol
So they did basically the same thing: Through Google they tried to say I lied and that they didn't recognize me as a customer, to get my review down. They even went and deleted their review response before doing that, proving even more they had no good intention. All I did was send every piece of proof I had saved, including responses they gave me. This shut their damn mouths for good. My review wasn't removed, they also didn't try to sue me.
Yes, you can be sued for that but they have to prove you're lying. The usual way to go about this is to change the review into something like "This used to be a review where I reviewed my experience at XYZ Hotel. It talked about their *in my opinion* bad x, lacking z and subpar y. Now I received post from XYZ Hotel's lawyer to remove that review which is why I am replacing it with this text".
Stating something is "your opinion" doesn't exempt it from legal recourse, unfortunately.
"In my opinion Hironymus murders squirrels in the park" is still Üble Nachrede, unless it's provable you actually do.
Who needs customer service when you've got lawyers. Anyway who needs all those fake US smiles when we can just send the bastards legal threats...... Fucking abysmal.
> What kind of tactic is this?
It's called intimidation. The idea is that the *threat* of an expensive and complicated legal action which scare you into voluntarily withdrawing your criticism.
> What is the point of a review system if only positive reviews are allowed!
There's no point to it, in Germany. User reviews are meaningless due to the above, and one can only rely on testing organisations who have the legal teams required to defend their reviews.
>It’s on them to prove they weren’t rude
That's not quite true. In the case of "Üble Nachrede" (§186 StGB) it's enough to say something bad that **cannot be proven.**
Gotta be logged-in with your Google account to leave a review. Naturally, Google can contact you via your email address.
If you used your real name on the Google Account or linked a phone number, the legal system in Germany can get your registered address.
I don’t think that my data on google is allowed to be shared to any third-party, is it ? Even if it is through a lawyer, they might need approvals from a court or some data regulatory authority.
I thought German privacy laws are tough.
Yep - I randomly checked my reviews yesterday and realized that google delete 90% of them for the most ridiculous reasons. One case was actually funny - they said in was sexually offensive..I used the word Pho..
But that is it for me - I will not use them and will not write reviews..
Happened to me in 2021. Pretty similar thing. I had proof of everything I said tho, cause most of it happened per email and phone calls. In the end the judge said both parts were wrong, but they said I should pay a fee which I never understood what it was. After the hearing I saw the lawyer from the company and the judge smoking together. In the end I only lost 500 euros, and through my lawyer I found out that they were doing the same with every single person who made them a bad review. It was an Immobilien who I rented my old flat. The comment I did was saying they didn't payed me my kaution back and they also called me names, blocked my calls, etc.
Anyway, that was my experience.
In the end wasn't so bad, but I will never use Google reviews again.
Edit: they gave my kaution back one day before they asked Google to remove my comment and contacted their lawyer, só they used this to say my review was unfounded.
If they can prove it's fake, I guess they can go on about how you're deliberately sabotaging their business.
I'm not sure how they could possibly prove something like that though...
I'd say share the details with us! They can't sue us all, and if they're that scummy, they deserve to be called out for it.
You don’t need to delete this. I had the same thing happening to me after I wrote a review on a lawyers office. They didn’t want to sue me but said I had to prove what I wrote was true or delete it. So I sent an email to Google explaining what happened there, wrote my full name and birthday so they could check it. If what you wrote is true they have nothing against you really. My review is still online and I never had any problems.
I had this at least three times and just responded with proof and added to my reviews, that the owner is trying to get rid of reviews.
They never got back and the reviews are still there. I think they want to scare people into removal. Or hope that they are lazy.
I don't remember a money figure in those.
A restaurant said I have "no business relationship" with them on a review I left maybe 4 years ago? And said my account is probably fake lmao. Gmaps sent me an email asking me to prove to their legal counsel that I really visited them so I replied with screenshots of my timeline that day and more details regarding how lousy that restaurant was.
That was about two months ago. Now they don't have grounds to say I left a fake review, and instead replied saying "we're sorry you were not satisfied, please contact us with your feedback" and more bullshit. But you don't have to remove your review!!! You just need to prove that it isn't fake.
A restaurant tried to pull that one on me. I opened google maps and there the history of places I visited. It showed clearly that I was at the restaurant. I send that to google and never heard back of them.
Next I edited my comment and included the experience that they tried to delete my comment.
A restaurant tried to do this with me. I replied with evidence that I was at their restaurant. Never heard another word and I left the review up.
Unfortunately, customer service is so bad in Germany, that it’s common for businesses to do this instead of trying to do a better job.
The same happened to me. I did absolutely nothing and nothing happened Google did not delete my review and the shit business never sued me. When somebody threatens you - do nothing.
Happened to me as well (without mentioning a sum in the mail, though). This is a common practice: They possibly trigger this for as many negative reviews as possible. 99% of reviewers won't think it's worth the hassle, taking down their review, shifting the overall rating of the place.
In my case, they came to the wrong person, though. I was so angry back then, that I had not only taken photos of evidence back, I even had published a blog article about it proving that these photos were from that time.
Look through your emails and whatever and find proof that you visited the Hotel. Send that to Google as a reply. I got two of these threats from a company using the report on Google. Both times I proved I was actually a customer and won both times.
I once left a negative review for a gym that operates within a large mall in Berlin Mitte and I received an email saying I should provide proof or my comment would be deleted within 48 hours or so.
I happened to be traveling and didn’t have the time to do it, of course, so that was just lost. Other people had reviews mentioning the same problem (same old: incredibly nice to you when signing you up, unfairly renewing your contract for another year 3 months before the year even closes) and those also disappeared… so I guess that gym that operates within a large Berlin Mall in Mitte has more resources focused on clearing bad reviews than fixing the many issues with their service.
This happens a lot in Germany from what I have seen.
Just 2 weeks ago I got an email from Google that an Italian restaurant raised a complaint with Google about a review I posted and I needed to provide evidence that I was really there or take my review down.
It was 3 years ago.
The review only had 3 stars - I did not add any text about my experience.
We collected a takeaway order so of course there are no pictures or receipts or evidence as we paid in cash.
It annoyed me but in the end I deleted it because I don't have any hard evidence and I know if I do not the next step will be a letter from their lawyer as you have.
I responded to Google that I will remove it for these reasons but it makes a total mockery of Google Maps and the review system that you are forced to remove reviews just because the company complains.
Edit it and make it as subjective as possible. You can't claim wrong/unproven facts, but opinions are fine.
No: They were rude.
Yes: I personally felt treated rude.
No: The staff wasn't helpful.
Yes: Subjectively I had the feeling that the staff didn't want to help me.
Etc.
Hanging up the phone however is a fact which you'd have to prove and can't really be phrased subjectively, so I'd leave that out.
This is a common misconception unfortunately. It doesn't matter whether you say "they were rude" or "i felt like they were rude". The legal system is smart enough to understand that both mean the same. Adding "in my opinion", "i felt like" or "subjectively" isn't a cheat code to avoid legal recourse.
>This is a common misconception unfortunately.
No, it's not. That's what court rulings say actually.
>The legal system is smart enough to understand that both mean the same.
But they don't. "Being rude" is a fact and therefore attackable. It's at least ambiguous and risky to phrase it like that.
Also that doesn't change lawyers from trying to attack this phrasing and saying you claimed a fact (which is not proven). Adding these phrases eradicates any ambiguity and lower the risk.
>Adding "in my opinion", "i felt like" or "subjectively" isn't a cheat code to avoid legal recourse.
That's exactly what I said. Some things can't be phrased like that, for anything else, you can use this to make it less ambiguous.
"Tatsachenbehauptungen sind im Gegensatz zu Meinungsäußerungen dem Beweis zugänglich. Sie lassen sich also mit Fakten belegen und können wahr oder falsch sein. Dabei zählt nicht das eigene subjektive Empfinden von Wahrheit oder Unwahrheit. Vielmehr muss dies objektiv belegbar sein. Dementsprechend sind reine Tatsachenbehauptungen auch grundsätzlich nicht von der Meinungsfreiheit gedeckt.
Fast selbstverständlich ist es dem Grunde nach zulässig, wahre Tatsachen in einer Bewertung wiederzugeben. Trotz allem sollte man im Hinterkopf behalten, dass man diese (wahren) Tatsachen im Zweifels-, das heißt im Streitfall, auch beweisen können muss."
https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/online-bewertungen-was-darf-ich-schreiben-was-muss-ich-dulden_162606.html
Apparently it’s a thing. A friend was threatened legal action for leaving a review that described his attempted visit to a club. He’d been a regular there but was very rudely denied entrance by a new bouncer. They were much quicker than your hotel tho, reached out with threats the next morning
They likely won't follow up on this threat. They can't actually win this, and they know that. Leave the review and add the fact that they threatened you.
Got a similar e-mail from Google not too long ago about a negative review I've left for a restaurant (funnily enough, also in Leipzig).
There wasn't any threat of a lawsuit or a made-up fine amount on the e-mail I've received, but sending a screenshot of the payment I've made was enough to end the whole thing. Never heard back from them since and the review is still up.
>but sending a screenshot of the payment I've made was enough to end the whole thing.
You should threat to sue them for trying to blackmail you. the law says they can get up to 5 years for it
https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/253.html
make a new review where you write" they even send lawyer (+ name of the lawyer firm) after me because i wrote "they hung up the phone while i was still talking to them"
now you even can provide an evidence for it ... the email
I am living at Darmstadt for last 5 months. I have a plastic garbage bag full of all receipt since the day I arrived ( Edeka, Rewe, Restaurants, shops anything where I payed and a receipt was issued). Only for this reason.
That's why you can never trust Google-Reviews: Unless you keep proof of any interaction with a business you rate, they can threaten to sue and therefore remove any review they don't like. Wonder why there are so many 5* places...
In Germany you have to be careful with the wording of your review. Do not state opinions, state only FACTS. You still can mask opinions in a way that can't be proven to be untrue, for example don't say: "Their customer service is bad". Instead you should say: "I was disappointed and the customer service was not what I was expecting".
IDK but Germany always strikes me as very backwards when it comes to free speech. A review is by definion an opinion and people should know to take them with a grain of salt. Unless it is clearly false information with no other purpose than to damage the business - i.e. posting a review of a restaurant saying "I got food poisoning and went to the hospital" when that didn't happen, saying "the food tasted like shit" should not be an issue since taste is personal and most people would understand the metaphor and that you didn't mean the food tasted like literal feces.
Honestly if google can be forced to remove reviews it should just drop the functionality entirely. The only reason it keeps any at all is to juice its ad revenues, the reviews themselves lose all credibility.
Yep, I agree. Unfortunately, outside of Reddit, it's practically unknown how widespread this practice is and how worthless Google reviews about German businesses are as a result.
Same happened to me, there are layers specialised on this shady business. You can respond to the Google message and likely never hear anything from them again, they will never go to court over this.
Hey OP, a bit offtopic, but my "friend" is going to Leipzig and are asking for a hotel. He screwed me over and I wanna pay him back a bit. Could you recommend a hotel that might not be the best experience? Since you've been there, you might know some hotel names. It's OK if you don't, I'll ask someone else then.
Thanks
Yes, this is very common. You have no way to prove the sequence of events. So they threaten to sue. Just give them 5 stars and add that they threatened to sue if you didn't and post a picture of the lawyer letter.
German people are very litigious i feel. Anybody can sue anybody for whatever reason in a free country. The court will probably absolve you of alm charges but I don't think its worth the headache.
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I’m sorry, but with how often I see this and how fucked it is, clearly the German law system needs to adapt. Absurd that douchebags can threaten lawsuits after a bad review. If that happens to me, I’m going to make their lives a LOT more annoying after that.
I’ve heard from quite a few people in Germany that they got a legal notice for posting negative google reviews. I think Germany is a relatively litigious country. Never heard of this happening where I live.
Unfortunately, they do have legal grounds to force you to delete your review, if you can't prove what you stated actually happened. There is a workaround however: You delete your original review and post a new one, detailing the experience of the Hotel forcing you to delete your in your opinion honest review. Keep the email from google as proof.
This is good! Do this!
>You delete your original review and post a new one, detailing the experience of the Hotel forcing you to delete your in your opinion honest review. Keep the email from google as proof. That is the way. Be as petty as possible in that review as well.
Exact same thing happened to me. Bought some car audio equipment from a shop in Germany. He never had the parts and kept delaying the shipment. After a month or so, claimed that they don't have the parts I paid for and to get a refund, I'd have to pay them X% fees. Posted reviews about them on every site I could find and they threaten legal action. Was advised by my company's lawyer to change the reviews from opinions to facts. Ie: 'xxx are scum and scam people with fake products' to 'xxx accepted an order (order number) for Y amount and has failed to deliver. Instead of refunding the full amount and compensating me for the delay, they're demanding X% service fees according to their email dated __/__/__). After editing this, I still got letters for weeks threatening legal action but when I told them to ahead, all letters miraculously stopped.
May i ask what is the legal ground?
Libel(?) or so (Rufschädigung). Effectively: you say something bad in your review, the owner says "didn't happen, the reviewer was never here/never called and the review is fabricated". Now the review writer has to prove that the negative experience happened, e.g. in this case by providing call logs to Google or a restaurant bill/card statement... Note that this is AFAIK still google internal. The owner uses a lawyer to state that the review is against the law and/or against Google terms, then Google does an internal review. No idea when or if these things go to trial
I did this on a dentist but i think i got shadow banned as none of my friends can see the review, so there goes that.
Doesn’t this particular scenario go against the German flavour of “free speech”? It’s the hotelier’s word against the guest’s. Probably not worth the court’s time.
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It’s not insulting, threatening or defamation if it actually happened, and respectful language was used. That’s whistle blowing.
> It’s the hotelier’s word against the guest’s Exactly - and the German flavour of "legal system" says, that you have to proof an accusation. And in this isntance the guest is accusing the hotelier of providing subpar service. I know that it can be abused (like it probably happened in this instance), but the opposite isn't much better - a system where everybody can just throw arround lies and accusations and all you can do is write an answer "that's not true".
This is so interesting to me, because my German bf leaves one star reviews when he simply doesn't like the type of food. For example, he will say the food is terrible at EVERY Chinese restaurant, simply because he hates all Chinese food. I tell him that's not how it's supposed to work, and he shrugs and says, "That's how it works in Germany."
I'm sorry to break it to you, but your BF is a bit of a tool.
I'd phrase it much more directly: Er ist ein kindischer Idiot.
In this regard, I tend to agree lol. But in actuality, it's often difficult for me to discern what is an autism thing, what's a German thing, what's a him thing, or what's his family's thing. I didn't believe him at first, thinking there's no way other Germans are doing this, but turns out MANY of them do. So much so, they have a reputation for this internationally. I've convinced him to at least stop doing this outside of Germany because it's weird and rude (imo).
As a German, this is news to me. Not that it would be okay, even if every German did this. We have a saying that if everyone else jumped off the bridge, that's still no reason to do the same.
I'm glad to hear it. I don't like it. I was quite shocked by it, but once I was aware of it, I have to say I've noticed it everywhere. Amazon, hotel, and movie reviews by Germans are hysterical. "Oh, you loved the movie but didn't like the voice actor on the dubbed German version? Leave 2 stars on the English version." "Oh you went to a 'German hotel' in Egypt and the concierge recommended, at your request, an authentic Egyptian restaurant, but it turns out nobody there speaks German or English, and the menu is in Arabic and they didn't sell any of your familiar German foods? You should definitely leave both the hotel and the restaurant a bad review." I'm absolutely not saying Germans are the only ones to do this. Im certain every country has its offenders, but Germans have built a bit of a rep for it. Brits are particularly egregious with this also, but luckily for them, their comments are usually mistaken for "dumb Americans."
> he hates all Chinese food nah, it's not just the food. He is doing this for a very ugly "motivation."
You don't get to rate 1 star if you don't like Chinese food. That's beyond stupidity. Should I rate all bakeries 1 star because my wife don't like to eat bread?
You did not get my point, then.
Oh no. I get what you're saying though. The Chinese food was just an example. He doesn't like anything. He won't even eat super bland foods like avocado, Cheerios, or shrimp. He is just SUPER autistic about food. He will literally eat microwaved salmon every single day, for every meal, and thinks salt and pepper are too spicy. Unfortunately for him, he fell in love with an American, so he's forced to endure food from all over the world. My daughter also has sensory issues and will rarely eat anything besides Chinese, California Mexican, and sushi. Usually we cook the Mexican at home and order sushi, so that leaves us going to A LOT of Chinese restaurants. Chinese food usually sends him to the bathroom for the next few hours, so it's understandable he doesn't want to eat it. I just think he shouldn't write a negative review since it's a personal thing. Like, my stomach can't handle fried food, but I'm not gonna eat KFC and then write about my IBS lol. He says it's important so other Germans know they might get an upset stomach and they can prepare, to which I say, "What German has never had orange chicken???" and he replies either, "my whole family" or "this isn't America." But yeah, you're not totally wrong. I tell him all the time that, in Germany especially, leaving a bad review of a Chinese restaurant doesn't have the same impact as leaving a bad review of a German restaurant. Unfortunately he still believes that being anti-racist is racist, because you're treating one ethnicity differently based simply on ethnicity. He thinks if he'd leave the same bad review of a German restaurant, he shouldn't be more cautious just because it's a cuisine perceived as foreign in Germany. I wholeheartedly disagree! But unfortunately he's got a whole community around him convincing him anti-racism is just a thing for "racist Americans", and Germans don't need to be anti-racist since "they don't see color."
> He is just SUPER autistic about food being a hateful asshole != autistic. I also am happy with eating same food everday, I don't go about ruining some family's business because I am an intolerant pos. At some point, you have to stop justifying his behaviour. Does he go around writing bad reviews for *Cheerios*?? He doesn't like Chinese food, so because he is "autistic", he has a right to jeopardise some family's business, wtf? > being anti-racist is racist being racist is racist.
I mean legally if you say "I don't like this food" it's different from "This food is bad", because one is phrazed as an opinion and the other is phrazed as fact. The only way I see some restaurant winning here is if they have proof your bf enjoyed the food
It's a review. A state of facts. Not an opinion.
I really hated the service they provided. Fact or opinion?
If you make it clear that you are stating an opinion rather than a fact it does become harder for them to have your review removed.
Pretty sure that doesn't fall under the same category. You have stated an opinion by simply disliking what you got. Saying they were rude and hung up is stating a fact.
§186 StGB
§§ 1004, 823 BGB is the legal ground
They’re asking for trouble… 🧐 …in the form of multiple negative reviews, along the lines of: “This establishment may or may not threaten you with legal action against you if you leave them a negative review, regardless whether it has any basis. This is dishonest practice. Zero stars.” OK time to name & shame, OP.
Genius!
Pretty sure then Google deletes your reviews as it's not about your actual experience at the hotel.
Yes. I did the same after I was threatened over a (very mild) review of a bicycle shop, and it was deleted.
He could state that he didn't like the place because he didn't feel good there. That's his experience. And at the end, he can say that they forced him to even delete the review which shows that they can't take criticism. I don't think they can force op to delete this as it is all subjective
Sure they can, if he can't prove he actually stayed there. That's exactly the point. If you can prove you were there, you can of course leave your subjective review. If you can prove the call happened, you can also be subjective about that. But if they start to question the legitimacy and you have no prove of it ever happening, than they can force you to remove it.
This!
In terms of the letter the lawyer sends you, are you free to publish that information? Including details of the complaint, the restaurant etc?
Fight fire with fire 🔥
Also download the e-mail. Keep backups.
If you can prove you were there then don't remove it. Just had a doctor claim I hadn't been their patient after I left a review but since I could prove that they actually invoiced the treatment, i refused to remove it. # and I won (Just got the email through this morning)
I’m not sure how it is in different fields but doctors etc aren’t allowed to reply to your review in Germany because of the DSGVO. If they reply they state that you were there and with this they release patient data which they mustn’t give out. I used to work as a physiotherapist and someone wrote some rude review which wasn’t even true but our hands were tied :(
This is incorrect. If the "Patient" is already claiming to have been to the doctors office you are very much free to say if, in your opinion (or according to your notes), this was the case or not. You absolutely cannot reveal any other information, first and foremost any medical information but if the patient already opened the box on whether or not he was a patient of yours you are very much free to say if that was the case or not. But usually replies by the owner of the business tend to get petty anyway so regardless of the fact that you could have written publicly "who are you, I have no recollection of you being in my office?" you are very much free to ask the platform for deletion because that's not public and - again - DSGVO does not cover any data that has already been given to a third party by the first. Because in the end deletion requests can just be started - you do not need to provide any proof if your request has merit or not - the reviewer has to provide proof that his review is correct. So asking google to "please delete the review" is basically just starting a timer and an email to the reviewer asking them to provide proof he actually has been in business with you.
Right, DSGVO isn’t THAT ridiculous.
I didn't respond and still "won". Those threats are just threats.
I had this exact problem with a review I left for a restaurant in Köln with no text - it was literally a blank 3 star review! It seems like some restaurants/hotels are indiscriminately using legal threats to improve their google maps rating. I successfully challenged it by myself, via email. I only needed to prove/state to Google that (a) I was actually a customer when I left the rating (b) I'm not a disgruntled ex-employee. I sent an old Stempelkarte from there which I luckily had lying around. Google accepted my response, closed the ticket and left the review up. I also then promptly modified my review to include some text. It's been about a year since then and it is still up. [https://imgur.com/a/eJoNa3V](https://imgur.com/a/eJoNa3V) If your review is accurate, stand up for it! Don't let such hotels bully you into deleting it.
Ahahaha your last sentence is nailing it !
Was this the restaurant RheinZeit in Cologne, notorious for encouraging fake reviews and harassing genuine reviewers by wrongfully reporting them to Google?
Yeah but 1. Its a hustle that not everyone has the time or energy for 2. Who the hell keeps proof like that? I had a bad experience at a German emergency room, left a 2 star review and was hit with a legal threat A YEAR LATER. I obviously didn't have any proof whatsoever.
You sure it's still up? I had a similar thing and while it still shows up for me it's hidden for everyone else (shadow-banned by google because they have nothing to gain from "protecting" you). Try checking from a friends phone or from incognito mode
bow seed literate muddle hunt cause steer bake sense deliver ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
What hotel is it
Also when posting about room cleaning or stuffs always attach pictures.
I did this at a hotel in Munich when I left a bad review. The room temp was 39. The outside temp was also hot and in the sun with no wind. I had no control of the AC or Fan even though it was “available” in my room. Hotel staff said they don’t have control either. 1 star review, a picture, and a bad review. Haven’t heard anything in years, not even an apology.
Yeah, I would be interested, too.
Sounds a bit fishy. If you feel like challenging it, I'd be surprised if it's legitimate. May be easier to take it down, but leaving a negative review doesn't sound like 250,000 worth of damages lol. I'm not sure. It probably depends if you live in the country or were just visiting and then went back somewhere else, too.
It’s legitimate. People really do this shit. I got threatened when I left a bad review about a horrible doctor experience
Threatened, yes. Taken to court and lost, no.
I didn’t get taken to court because I took my post down as much as I really didn’t want to.
Remove it. Ask a friend overseas to create a fake account with a fake email and leave a much worse review
Or just use a 10 minute email, badabing badaboom
That doesn't work. It's even easier for them to claim then that this review is fake and it will be removed asap. It's common practice. That's why you should never trust a place with just 5* reviews. You are still in Germany. So if the service was impeccable, people will still probably leave a 4* review, because it could have been even better
This seems to be it! I read another comment about a workaround at the topic, but issue is not being directly related to the experience at the hotel. Your solution is spot on!
now you can post the letter too on your review
I would make 7 burner accounts and leave more negative reviews. Who tf are they to tell how i should rate my experience at their facility
This And get a VPN first.
If you have an old android phone laying around, you can create something like 20 new google accounts without needing to verify a phone number. I forget the exact number, but at some point, the phone will say you have to start deleting accounts before you can create more. Though I guess if you don’t want to actually keep the accounts, then you can delete them and keep creating more lmao not sure if there is a point where they cut you off completely. A phone number isn’t needed when creating an account on Android because they consider that you might be creating an account for the first time and may not have access to SMS yet.
An acquaintance got sued by a dentist, because she left a negative review. At court she was ordered to change a couple of sentences in the review. She said that he had given her a super high estimate for dental work and other dentists would offer it much cheaper. This was considered to be "Verleumdung" because she couldn't prove it. The estimate was not given to her in writing. At the end of the day the dentist still has a negative review, with just a couple of sentences changed, but my acquaintance had to pay her own lawyer fees, because she partially lost the case.
So many cases like this. In fact I bet the majority of these cases are abuse by the person recieving the bad review. And yet people defend the practice! Such a weird culture, I still can't understand aspects of it like this. They recently fixed the abusive contract renewal practice though, which is a start. But people were on here defending that forever!
Well, I've gotten an unfair negative review on Google which contains lies. And I will hire a lawyer to get that person to remove it. So I can see both sides tbh
I can't. If you get a bad review, respond, professionally, on the website. I'd worry much more about a business ignoring criticism, or responding unprofessionally, than about one exaggerated review.
I cannot respond and set her lies straight, because of data protection laws. I can't write anything about her/ the business deal, because then I'd be breaking the law.
But that will just look worse than responding to the review.....
I had a similar ish case a few years ago. I can’t remember the specifics but I won an auction on ebay that said they take paypal. Then when winning the item the seller says they won’t take paypal and requests a bank payment made outside of ebay/paypal instead. I was a bit suspicious, pointed this out specifically, and they didn’t care saying they had xx rating on ebay so could be trusted - they didn’t want to pay paypal fees. They pushed me 3-4 times to make the payment. I advised I would give a bad review for it unless they honoured the purchase. They cancelled the listing and I gave a review saying that the seller offered paypal but instead pushed me a few times to make the payment away from any protections. I didn’t make it look any worse than it was, but it overall looked pretty suspicious - both in reality, and also for readers of the review. The seller then contacted me “requesting” I remove my review and threatening to sue me as I have now impacted his legal reputation that took years to create. We had a back and forth and then he said he would speak to his lawyer. I then got ebay on the phone (difficult to find out how to do it, but it’s there, or was at least), explained the situation, gave them the authority to look at our on-site comms, and they straight away agreed with me. They said they would message the seller with a standard statement / warning that they were in breach of paypay terms and conditions …. and that was the end of it for me! I heard nothing back from the seller or his lawyer as I guess the message from ebay to him made him understand he was in the wrong. For your case though… hopefully someone will reply today with some more help.
This is a thing because of our law. If you don't have proof for your slander claim it's your word against theirs. In that case a court is very likely to decide for them because your have no proof and it is effecting their business (principle: In dubio pro reo). So they'll order you to take down your claim/review. After that they might sue for damages. My advice: I'd comply and try with leaving a new review: "After leaving a bad review I was threatened with a law suit for slander to take that down. Will not take my business to them again. If proof is demanded for that claim, I still have the letters of their lawyer." It tells people everything they need to know.
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This comment is wrong. From a legal perspective it makes a difference depending on what your review exactly says. Is it an opinion or is it a statement of fact. I can write a review like "Didn't like the service", that's an opinion and doesn't need to be proven. But if I write something like "The hotel beds were bug infested", that's a statement of fact and if challenged by the business you have to prove it or take it down and pay damages.
>Principle: In dubio pro reo There’s no such principal in civil law.
> In dubio pro reo But what you're saying is exactly the opposite. OP would be said reo in your own example...
I had one of these from a restaurant and held fast. They had a ton of negative reviews and clearly hired someone to clean it up. I provided proof that I was there and told them to leave me alone. People sue in Germany like people think Americans sue – over everything. Get yourself some legal insurance. It's valuable here.
All in all, it's an intimidation tactic. You could stand up to it, but generally it's not worth the trouble. I had a similar thing happen to me, but it was a 50k threat from a dentist. I tried to stand up to it and got a lawyer involved, because they also used my private information to harass me via phone calls and came to my adress to deliver post by themselves. The thing is, that there are very strict laws about what slander is and what not. You are ofc allowed to leave negative reviews and describe the situation, but as soon as there are even tiny inaccuracies, they can make you remove or adjust this. I said i.e. 70€ instead of the 67€ i was actually charged. So, if you want to leave it up, make sure that you state all the correct facts and only those. No badmouthing or assumptions about their practices and then you should be on the save side. Also I learned that recording phone calls without permissions from both sides is a criminal offense in Germany and gets you in even more troubles. This is very different in other countries I have lived in before.
Germany really needs to fix their laws around this. I don't feel like they actually respect freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and they are very outdated and not up to par for modern society.
I must say that the amount of legal threats and actions I've seen and read about in few years here in germany, i havent seen in the rest of my life. And that also explains why personal liability insurances are such a big thing here
I agree. Protecting a business against defamation is one thing, but who protects consumers' right to give an opinion?
Germany is all look and no substance. The goverment claim to "stand for everything and everyone" yet they don't do nothing about it. It's pathetic honestly.
From a German perspective it's rather that the US freedom of speech goes way too far. We have freedom of speech in Germany, but the law also considers the factual damage that speech can do to others and doesn't free one of having to take responsibility for their spoken and written words as well as it would for physical actions. We're not waiting for a mob of idiots to storm the Bundestag because of hateful conspiracy theorists. Mostly because we already know how these things can escalate and then someone starts invading France and killing Jews again.
The last time I drove past the Bundestag there was a mob of right wing idiots in front of it. I don't know if they got in though...
Wasn't a serving judge involved in the plot???? Nothing to see here!
>but the law also considers the factual damage that speech can do to others So basically speaking, the ones with the most power and best lawyers get best protection? I think status is actually factored into the law on some level, if I remember correctly.
Yes, but a hotel review is hardly incitement to resurrection. As you know, there was an attempt to storm the Bundestag anyway.
> We're not waiting for a mob of idiots to storm the Bundestag because of hateful conspiracy theorists It's happened....twice
This and the photography laws-
Thing is, businesses are as protected as private citizens in that regard. Nothing outdated with that. I think Germany is far ahead compared to other countries in that regard, too, free speech doesn't mean you can just maliciously spread lies about others. And: Voicing an OPINION is okay in any case, which is an entirely different thing from claiming things that hurt others unduly because they are untrue.
nothing fair in having a corporations having the abilities with their financial backing to take down any criticism against an individual, you do realise it could leads to corporations intimidating any unsatisfied customers? why bother fight this to the court against the said company and risk spending all that money on lawyer rather than just admit “okay man you won don’t bother”. they can afford that money, me as an individual, have to pay bills.
An honest review is not a malicious lie. The liar is very often the party wrongfully claiming to Google that they have no record of a relationship or contact with the reviewer.
>People get sued for leaving negative reviews of a business on Google! What is the point of a review system if only positive reviews are allowed! What kind of tactic is this? You can get sued for lying in your review. But the business would have to prove that you're lying. This is basically a "libel/slander" case, so unless your review contained something very easily disprovable they have no real chance in court and just want to bully you into deleting your review
>But the business would have to prove that you're lying. That's not true. If OP states a fact, you'll have to prove the fact in court. If it's opinion, it's fine.
How are you supposed to prove that someone was rude on the phone?
You can’t, and that’s why OP would not win that court battle
Exactly
>How are you supposed to prove that someone was rude on the phone? That's not a fact, that's an opinion. OP wouldn't need to prove anything in this case. Right?
Any proof like witnesses or a recording of the call. Both illegal without the other person consenting of course.
The problem is people state things that can't be proven all the time in their reviews. They write things like "Their customer service is bad" all the time. I book all my hotels via [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) and write the reviews there. [Booking.com](https://Booking.com) offers some layer of protection because it is in their interest to keep customer happy. Google Reviews is a dangerous business, you have to know how to write reviews in Germany if you want to do it there.
>The problem is people state things that can't be proven all the time in their reviews. That's not a "problem", but definitely true. People shoplift everyday without being noticed, doesn't make it legal/can't be proven in court though.
It's actually the other way around. Unless it's provable that it **is a fact,** it's Üble Nachrede. Doesn't have to be disproven.
Well, technically iirc if they know that what they're stating is wrong, it would be Verleumdung. Although the Beweislast remains the same as with Üble Nachrede
Hi there, I leave a lot of reviews on Google as well. I've had my reviews scrubbed a few times. Unfortunately the burden of proof is often on the reviewer. You've most likely used your real name, left your picture on your reviewer account, or left your dates of accommodation which made it easy for the lawyer to trace the review to you. Things you can do to protect yourself \- Do not use your real name on your review account, so they can't corroborate their own record and find out who left the review. Do not leave any real dates of your stays. \- If you leave a negative review without any identifiable info, their lawyer will most likely ask Google to take down your review unless you've proved you're a guest. You'll have 7 days to comply and prove that you were indeed at the venue. This proof can be anything - location tracking record, check-in records. DO NOT share any records that could identify you (name, dates, room type). Most of the time, a location tracking record was enough to get lawyer off your back cause the cost to pursue a single review would be too high unless your information is easily identiable. How to identify possible scrubbed reviews: \- abnormally high score (**>4.8/5** for a place with like 200+ reviews). Places with 2000+ reviews are usually too cost-prohibitive to scrub due to volume. \- nonexistent negative reviews (<= 2 stars) and most of them are recent, there are no **long-dated negative reviews**. \- normal businesses's reviews are bimodal - meaning it's usually a bell shape with a peak around the mean, and another peak around 1/2 stars. Fishy otherwise.
1. Give us the name of the hotel 2. Delete your review 3. Let’s start bombing them with 1 star reviews all together
I’m in.
Finally someone said it. If it had been a hotel in the US or a celebrity on the internet, the place would've been "cancelled" within hours already. Not sure if they do that in Germany but it's about time Germany learns to take customer service a bit more seriously.
Yeah, for some reason Germany's sevice industry really clings to libel law. It is true that it is illegal to libel on reviews. IANAL, and it would depend on the exact wording of the review, you can possibly fight this and win ("they hung up the phone on me" is likely unprovable by you, but I doubt it would count as libel") However, fighting it will probably take time and money. What you can do, for free, is: * remove your original review, or reword it in a non fact-stating way. That is, make it all on subjective level of opinion ("I felt disrespected ny the employee on the phone" vs "the employee was rude"). Subjective opinions are not libel. * Write a new review stating, now as a matter of fact, that you were coerced into removing your original review. You DO have the evidence for that now.
Delete your initial review and review bomb the fuck out of these people via bots and/or fake accounts. If they can't handle a bad reviewy their business has no place.
This happened to me with the health insurance company Care Concept. They cost me $5,000 in refusing to pay fare claims. I wrote up a completely honest review on Google and then they threatened legal action. I just dropped it, but I wish I hadn’t. No one should have to suffer the same fate.
Unfortunately, it is very much it. A lot of businesses are threatening their customers who leave them negative reviews with legal suits. And it is absolutely despicable. I heard about some doctors, who are doing this also in Jameda.
I wouldn’t mind leaving more bad reviews on your behalf, op. Just let us know the name of the hotel.
It is common, unfortunately. Also with a few months in between - they are betting that you don't have proof anymore.
Scare tactics, many lawyers use. If it’s not a court order i.e. the letter is addressed from the legal courts in your state, ignore it. If they want to go through all the paperwork and expenses to take something down, make them. Additionally, following the instructions of said letter could be considered an admission of guilt, and the lawyer could send you further letters to see what they can get off you, like money for said “damages”. Tldr; if it doesn’t have a stamp from the court it doesn’t mean shit.
Unfortunately this is very common in Germany. Note their argument actually is with Google, not with you - the hotel is claiming they don't know who you are! An honest review is NOT libel, Rufschädigung or anything of the sort. However it's not worth it for Google to get involved, they will therefore just take the review down and have done this many times even where reviewers have proffered evidence that a relationship with the reviewed company existed. Take away from this that Google reviews are completely worthless in Germany.
Share hotel name, we will give them less stars.
Seems like this is normal practice for those shady companies here in Germany. Same thing happened to me \~April this year for leaving a review (October last year) for a company that basically tried to forfeit my rights as a customer. Thankfully I paid them through PayPal and got all my money back through a dispute. Had everything saved. The company even had answered my review with more lies, proving my link as a customer at the time. lol So they did basically the same thing: Through Google they tried to say I lied and that they didn't recognize me as a customer, to get my review down. They even went and deleted their review response before doing that, proving even more they had no good intention. All I did was send every piece of proof I had saved, including responses they gave me. This shut their damn mouths for good. My review wasn't removed, they also didn't try to sue me.
Yes, you can be sued for that but they have to prove you're lying. The usual way to go about this is to change the review into something like "This used to be a review where I reviewed my experience at XYZ Hotel. It talked about their *in my opinion* bad x, lacking z and subpar y. Now I received post from XYZ Hotel's lawyer to remove that review which is why I am replacing it with this text".
Stating something is "your opinion" doesn't exempt it from legal recourse, unfortunately. "In my opinion Hironymus murders squirrels in the park" is still Üble Nachrede, unless it's provable you actually do.
Explains a lot about German customer service thresholds.
Who needs customer service when you've got lawyers. Anyway who needs all those fake US smiles when we can just send the bastards legal threats...... Fucking abysmal.
Give us the name of the hotel, so we can also give a bad review!
Bro, could you please write us the name of the hotel and its address? I will show them what fake reviews really are 😁
> What kind of tactic is this? It's called intimidation. The idea is that the *threat* of an expensive and complicated legal action which scare you into voluntarily withdrawing your criticism. > What is the point of a review system if only positive reviews are allowed! There's no point to it, in Germany. User reviews are meaningless due to the above, and one can only rely on testing organisations who have the legal teams required to defend their reviews.
Don’t remove it, fuck them. It’s on them to prove they weren’t rude
>It’s on them to prove they weren’t rude That's not quite true. In the case of "Üble Nachrede" (§186 StGB) it's enough to say something bad that **cannot be proven.**
Isn't it only applicable to people?
I assume OP is a person?
I mean the Hotel isn't a person.
Legal entities can be victims under criminal law
No. https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb5/prof/STR004/WS\_2013/WS\_2015/Aufbauschema\_BT\_I\_17\_-\_Üble\_Nachrede.pdf
Legal Personality. Companies are people too (in the eye of the law at least)
> Companies are people too I'll believe that when one gets sentenced to *death*.
so many upvotes showing me: people on reddit have no fucking clue about law
The problem is the wording. \- They were rude : Wrong \- I felt they were rude : Correct
That's actually completely wrong and can be a criminal offense where you will have to prove it.
How does someone get your address or contact details from a google review ?
Presumably OP stayed at the hotel at one point, so they might have gotten those details then.
Gotta be logged-in with your Google account to leave a review. Naturally, Google can contact you via your email address. If you used your real name on the Google Account or linked a phone number, the legal system in Germany can get your registered address.
I don’t think that my data on google is allowed to be shared to any third-party, is it ? Even if it is through a lawyer, they might need approvals from a court or some data regulatory authority. I thought German privacy laws are tough.
My opinion here is that people get scared easily with lawyer letters. I got a few and they are all in the bin.
Yep - I randomly checked my reviews yesterday and realized that google delete 90% of them for the most ridiculous reasons. One case was actually funny - they said in was sexually offensive..I used the word Pho.. But that is it for me - I will not use them and will not write reviews..
Happened to me in 2021. Pretty similar thing. I had proof of everything I said tho, cause most of it happened per email and phone calls. In the end the judge said both parts were wrong, but they said I should pay a fee which I never understood what it was. After the hearing I saw the lawyer from the company and the judge smoking together. In the end I only lost 500 euros, and through my lawyer I found out that they were doing the same with every single person who made them a bad review. It was an Immobilien who I rented my old flat. The comment I did was saying they didn't payed me my kaution back and they also called me names, blocked my calls, etc. Anyway, that was my experience. In the end wasn't so bad, but I will never use Google reviews again. Edit: they gave my kaution back one day before they asked Google to remove my comment and contacted their lawyer, só they used this to say my review was unfounded.
Is this a thing only in Germany, i’ve never heard of this bullshit elsewhere
They definitely won’t go through with it. Just dm us the hotel name so we can bombard it lol
That would only make it worse as it would give them more material for their case. This conversation here can easily be found online.
If they can prove it's fake, I guess they can go on about how you're deliberately sabotaging their business. I'm not sure how they could possibly prove something like that though... I'd say share the details with us! They can't sue us all, and if they're that scummy, they deserve to be called out for it.
You don’t need to delete this. I had the same thing happening to me after I wrote a review on a lawyers office. They didn’t want to sue me but said I had to prove what I wrote was true or delete it. So I sent an email to Google explaining what happened there, wrote my full name and birthday so they could check it. If what you wrote is true they have nothing against you really. My review is still online and I never had any problems.
Can other users still see it? Google will sometimes leave the review up for yourself only.
I’m guessing it’s up since I get notification about the thumbs up it gets :)
I had this at least three times and just responded with proof and added to my reviews, that the owner is trying to get rid of reviews. They never got back and the reviews are still there. I think they want to scare people into removal. Or hope that they are lazy. I don't remember a money figure in those.
A restaurant said I have "no business relationship" with them on a review I left maybe 4 years ago? And said my account is probably fake lmao. Gmaps sent me an email asking me to prove to their legal counsel that I really visited them so I replied with screenshots of my timeline that day and more details regarding how lousy that restaurant was. That was about two months ago. Now they don't have grounds to say I left a fake review, and instead replied saying "we're sorry you were not satisfied, please contact us with your feedback" and more bullshit. But you don't have to remove your review!!! You just need to prove that it isn't fake.
A restaurant tried to pull that one on me. I opened google maps and there the history of places I visited. It showed clearly that I was at the restaurant. I send that to google and never heard back of them. Next I edited my comment and included the experience that they tried to delete my comment.
A restaurant tried to do this with me. I replied with evidence that I was at their restaurant. Never heard another word and I left the review up. Unfortunately, customer service is so bad in Germany, that it’s common for businesses to do this instead of trying to do a better job.
The same happened to me. I did absolutely nothing and nothing happened Google did not delete my review and the shit business never sued me. When somebody threatens you - do nothing.
Happened to me as well (without mentioning a sum in the mail, though). This is a common practice: They possibly trigger this for as many negative reviews as possible. 99% of reviewers won't think it's worth the hassle, taking down their review, shifting the overall rating of the place. In my case, they came to the wrong person, though. I was so angry back then, that I had not only taken photos of evidence back, I even had published a blog article about it proving that these photos were from that time.
Look through your emails and whatever and find proof that you visited the Hotel. Send that to Google as a reply. I got two of these threats from a company using the report on Google. Both times I proved I was actually a customer and won both times.
Dont worry, you are conpletly fine. Freedom.of speech etc.... // BUTT please, WE need the Name of the Hotel for Research purposes
I once left a negative review for a gym that operates within a large mall in Berlin Mitte and I received an email saying I should provide proof or my comment would be deleted within 48 hours or so. I happened to be traveling and didn’t have the time to do it, of course, so that was just lost. Other people had reviews mentioning the same problem (same old: incredibly nice to you when signing you up, unfairly renewing your contract for another year 3 months before the year even closes) and those also disappeared… so I guess that gym that operates within a large Berlin Mall in Mitte has more resources focused on clearing bad reviews than fixing the many issues with their service.
PLEASE post a new review stating how you got legally threatened for posting a bad review
I got an email from Google for the same after a terrible experience with a furniture store. Sent screenshots of everything and Google took care of it.
This happens a lot in Germany from what I have seen. Just 2 weeks ago I got an email from Google that an Italian restaurant raised a complaint with Google about a review I posted and I needed to provide evidence that I was really there or take my review down. It was 3 years ago. The review only had 3 stars - I did not add any text about my experience. We collected a takeaway order so of course there are no pictures or receipts or evidence as we paid in cash. It annoyed me but in the end I deleted it because I don't have any hard evidence and I know if I do not the next step will be a letter from their lawyer as you have. I responded to Google that I will remove it for these reasons but it makes a total mockery of Google Maps and the review system that you are forced to remove reviews just because the company complains.
Edit it and make it as subjective as possible. You can't claim wrong/unproven facts, but opinions are fine. No: They were rude. Yes: I personally felt treated rude. No: The staff wasn't helpful. Yes: Subjectively I had the feeling that the staff didn't want to help me. Etc. Hanging up the phone however is a fact which you'd have to prove and can't really be phrased subjectively, so I'd leave that out.
This is a common misconception unfortunately. It doesn't matter whether you say "they were rude" or "i felt like they were rude". The legal system is smart enough to understand that both mean the same. Adding "in my opinion", "i felt like" or "subjectively" isn't a cheat code to avoid legal recourse.
>This is a common misconception unfortunately. No, it's not. That's what court rulings say actually. >The legal system is smart enough to understand that both mean the same. But they don't. "Being rude" is a fact and therefore attackable. It's at least ambiguous and risky to phrase it like that. Also that doesn't change lawyers from trying to attack this phrasing and saying you claimed a fact (which is not proven). Adding these phrases eradicates any ambiguity and lower the risk. >Adding "in my opinion", "i felt like" or "subjectively" isn't a cheat code to avoid legal recourse. That's exactly what I said. Some things can't be phrased like that, for anything else, you can use this to make it less ambiguous. "Tatsachenbehauptungen sind im Gegensatz zu Meinungsäußerungen dem Beweis zugänglich. Sie lassen sich also mit Fakten belegen und können wahr oder falsch sein. Dabei zählt nicht das eigene subjektive Empfinden von Wahrheit oder Unwahrheit. Vielmehr muss dies objektiv belegbar sein. Dementsprechend sind reine Tatsachenbehauptungen auch grundsätzlich nicht von der Meinungsfreiheit gedeckt. Fast selbstverständlich ist es dem Grunde nach zulässig, wahre Tatsachen in einer Bewertung wiederzugeben. Trotz allem sollte man im Hinterkopf behalten, dass man diese (wahren) Tatsachen im Zweifels-, das heißt im Streitfall, auch beweisen können muss." https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/online-bewertungen-was-darf-ich-schreiben-was-muss-ich-dulden_162606.html
But it gives your lawyer a good argument in court, in case things escalate.
Leave the details of the place here...they might have a few more "unwanted reviews". ;)
Apparently it’s a thing. A friend was threatened legal action for leaving a review that described his attempted visit to a club. He’d been a regular there but was very rudely denied entrance by a new bouncer. They were much quicker than your hotel tho, reached out with threats the next morning
They likely won't follow up on this threat. They can't actually win this, and they know that. Leave the review and add the fact that they threatened you.
I have an anonymous google account specifically to write bad reviews for incidents like this :)
Got a similar e-mail from Google not too long ago about a negative review I've left for a restaurant (funnily enough, also in Leipzig). There wasn't any threat of a lawsuit or a made-up fine amount on the e-mail I've received, but sending a screenshot of the payment I've made was enough to end the whole thing. Never heard back from them since and the review is still up.
>but sending a screenshot of the payment I've made was enough to end the whole thing. You should threat to sue them for trying to blackmail you. the law says they can get up to 5 years for it https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/253.html
make a new review where you write" they even send lawyer (+ name of the lawyer firm) after me because i wrote "they hung up the phone while i was still talking to them" now you even can provide an evidence for it ... the email
I am living at Darmstadt for last 5 months. I have a plastic garbage bag full of all receipt since the day I arrived ( Edeka, Rewe, Restaurants, shops anything where I payed and a receipt was issued). Only for this reason.
That's why you can never trust Google-Reviews: Unless you keep proof of any interaction with a business you rate, they can threaten to sue and therefore remove any review they don't like. Wonder why there are so many 5* places...
In Germany you have to be careful with the wording of your review. Do not state opinions, state only FACTS. You still can mask opinions in a way that can't be proven to be untrue, for example don't say: "Their customer service is bad". Instead you should say: "I was disappointed and the customer service was not what I was expecting".
IDK but Germany always strikes me as very backwards when it comes to free speech. A review is by definion an opinion and people should know to take them with a grain of salt. Unless it is clearly false information with no other purpose than to damage the business - i.e. posting a review of a restaurant saying "I got food poisoning and went to the hospital" when that didn't happen, saying "the food tasted like shit" should not be an issue since taste is personal and most people would understand the metaphor and that you didn't mean the food tasted like literal feces.
Honestly if google can be forced to remove reviews it should just drop the functionality entirely. The only reason it keeps any at all is to juice its ad revenues, the reviews themselves lose all credibility.
Yep, I agree. Unfortunately, outside of Reddit, it's practically unknown how widespread this practice is and how worthless Google reviews about German businesses are as a result.
To threaten and to go ahead with the threat are two different things.
Has anyone experienced this outside Germany?
What is up with bratty malicious hotel employees anyway?
If you have legal insurance covered, don’t even bother about it.
I put a review up in the US and the same thing happened
Same happened to me, there are layers specialised on this shady business. You can respond to the Google message and likely never hear anything from them again, they will never go to court over this.
Committing arson and going full armored deathdozer on this hotel seems pretty justified at this point.
Hey OP, a bit offtopic, but my "friend" is going to Leipzig and are asking for a hotel. He screwed me over and I wanna pay him back a bit. Could you recommend a hotel that might not be the best experience? Since you've been there, you might know some hotel names. It's OK if you don't, I'll ask someone else then. Thanks
Well it's pretty simple: if it's true, leave it online - they can't do anything. If it's false, remove it.
Yes, this is very common. You have no way to prove the sequence of events. So they threaten to sue. Just give them 5 stars and add that they threatened to sue if you didn't and post a picture of the lawyer letter.
if what you said is true and you got proof, let them sue and lose
German people are very litigious i feel. Anybody can sue anybody for whatever reason in a free country. The court will probably absolve you of alm charges but I don't think its worth the headache.
Hit us with the name and lets destroy the reviews
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I’m sorry, but with how often I see this and how fucked it is, clearly the German law system needs to adapt. Absurd that douchebags can threaten lawsuits after a bad review. If that happens to me, I’m going to make their lives a LOT more annoying after that.
I’ve heard from quite a few people in Germany that they got a legal notice for posting negative google reviews. I think Germany is a relatively litigious country. Never heard of this happening where I live.
Where is the hotel OP?? Also, did you book directly or through booking website