When the internet extortionist comes calling

Crowdsourcing is only as good as the crowd.

And it’s only as honest as the crowd as well.

Sadly, the problem is that the crowd may be neither.

Everyone has, no doubt, heard of the prevalence of internet scams — the police warn you about them, your bank warns you regularly, and the list goes on.

Yet scams are still effective, because it costs nearly nothing to carpet-bomb a wide range of people, and if you’re a scammer operating from outside the country, it only takes one or two credulous recipients to turn your scattergun email approach into a moneymaker.

Not only that, but foreign internet scammers are rarely prosecuted: for municipal police forces — and even national forces — the scammers are too far away, too many and too hard to reach. They can operate from jurisdictions half a world away, where local police forces may have neither the time nor the inclination to help Canadian police find thousands of dollars stolen from a Canadian senior citizen.

But back to crowdsourcing and the latest scam: business reviews.

Looking to find a service provider? Check Google for one near you, and make sure you check the customer reviews. Sure, the reviews may not tell the whole story — they may be gamed or, at the very least, strongly encouraged by business owners.

Everyone – from plumbers to realtors to caterers — hits you up for that all-important five-star review. It’s a crucial part of modern marketing.

But it can also be a target.

Jennilee Martineau, owner of Winnipeg’s Ex Inked Laser Tattoo Removal, got a one-star review on her Google Business profile last Thursday. It was followed by other similar reviews, claiming to have received poor customer service from her staff.

Then, a WhatsApp caller from Pakistan got in touch, offering to take down the bad reviews — for a fee.

Yes, humble readers, that’s extortion. And the one thing that’s clear about extortion is that, if you pay it once, they’ll come back for more.

After Martineau outlined her experience on social media, another tattoo removal business said it had a virtually identical story to tell — and the same promised solution: pay up,a dn the bad reviews will be taken down. The problem is, as bad reviews lower a company’s overall rating, there’s a point where Google stops recommending the business to new clients. And that’s just the first part of what looks like a catch-22 — Google doesn’t seem to be interested in, or able to, fully address the problem (though they say they’re trying), but if Martineau leaves Google, her business, with the fake reviews, will stay up online.

So it’s not just a question of extortion, it’s also one of accountability. If a site owner can’t be accountable for addressing the actions of those who abuse their system for profit, it will eventually collapse. If a crowdsourced review system can be hijacked so simply, you absolutely can expect that tattoo removal shops in Winnipeg are just the beginning.

If other business haven’t been hit already, you know that they soon will be. The approach will likely be the same: obtuse, non-specific complaints about poor service, piled on one after another, with the sheer weight of their one-star reviews dragging businesses underwater.

And if it’s already simple and cheap to dive-bomb Google ratings for businesses — it will become even easier and cheaper for offshore scammers with AI support to write and distribute fake reviews on an absolutely massive game.

Crowdsourced reviews could go the way of the dodo.

And this, as your mother might say, is why we can’t have nice things.

Because there’s an awful lot of not-nice people.