Restaurant owner blackmailed with bad reviews warns of scam

The owner of a restaurant in Worcestershire is speaking out after he was targeted by an online blackmailer.

The scammer posted negative reviews about Sam Morgan’s business after he refused to send a large sum of money.

The reviews have now been removed but Sam is warning other restaurant and café owners about the scam, which is being examined by fraud investigators.

He says the demands for money began earlier this month, with the person threatening to post highly negative reviews - unless he sent them the money.

The request was first proposed as a plea for a loan but soon turned into an outright demand for cash.

“The sum of money was £2000 initially, that figure kept changing as the as time passed", explained Sam. "So the threat was that if we don't pay immediately the figure will continue to increase.”

Sam, who used to work in law enforcement, used a dummy mobile phone to pose as ‘Louise’, the supposed owner of the restaurants.

He exchanged a number of messages over Whatsapp with the fraudster and - after 'Louise' repeatedly refused to pay the money - negative reviews began to appear online.

“What we can see very clearly, what's been identified, is that they were ripping the identification of other people, true people, people that are in America, etc. and trying to create a profile that looked verified or at least credible in some way.”

Sam gathered enough evidence to prove a link and reported it to all of the online platforms involved.

Messages such as "I'll do that until I get the loan from you" and "I'll mention your name on the reviews" were sent to intimidate Sam into handing over the money.

The amount of money in the demand was then increased.

Despite all of this Sam didn't hand over any money - but he says that other restaurant owners might fall into the scammer's trap.

“It's a modern-day extortion protection racket. It's effectively pay us some money or we're going to destroy your business", said Sam. "Ultimately, if they can see that someone like me is quite happy to speak about it publicly then hopefully other restaurants can feel secure by that and reach out as well and not been duped into paying these organisations any money.”

All of the evidence collected by Sam has now been passed to Action Fraud for them to investigate.

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