The owner of a Sydney removalist business has been targeted by scammers who tanked her online reviews and tried to extort money.
The owner of a Sydney removalist business has been targeted by scammers who tanked her online reviews in a bid to extort money from her.
A sudden flurry of negative reviews came as a shock for Move It With Gina owner and single mother-of-six Gina.
"I started it 11 years ago, packing and cleaning," she said.
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"All my clients wanted a removalist so I ended up buying a truck.
"Four days ago we got one-star reviews in consecutive orders within every half an hour.
"When we had a look at the reviews and who they're from, we were like, 'we haven't serviced these people'."
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Then Gina started getting suspicious text messages.
"I have received A order for posting thirty bad rewiews (sic) on your business. Now he is ignoring My message please pay my loss. 60$. Otherwise I'm going to More One Star review," one of the messages said.
Gina said she ignored the messages.
Cybersecurity expert Simon Smith said there were a few tell-tale signs of a fake review.
It could include generic language and a succession of negative reviews in a short period of time.
"The most important thing is to never pay the extortion," Smith said.
For Gina, it took days for the reviews to be taken down.
9News attempted to get a response from the scammer on their number based overseas but they have since gone quiet.
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