We opened up a music store a few miles from another music store that is focused on different things (we focus on school band instrument repair and rentals, other shop mostly does used gear and sells records) we are about as different as an automotive body shop is to an automotive mechanical repair shop.

I have had only one interaction with the other store – he kicked me out and cursed at me when I went to deliver a package that was mistakenly delivered to us when we first opened. Other than that, I do not know him.

Shortly after that interaction, he started advertising that he does “band instruments rentals” and offering “woodwind and brass repair” – which is what we are focused on. It didn’t bother us at all, we do not talk badly of him to anyone. Though many customers have come in and told us some very nasty stories about him – we just say we do not know him and haven’t been in his shop.

Over the last year we started getting negative reviews from what appear to be new Google accounts with made up scenarios and stories every other month or so. It is just my husband and I who work here so we really do know every interaction and can back it up with camera footage if need be.

One review said they took a lesson from us and was treated poorly. At the time of the review, I only had one lesson student, so it was false. After responding to the review that it was fake, the reviewer changed it to, “called about a repair and no one got back to me” we checked our voicemail, emails, call log and not a single person had called about repairs that we hadn’t replied to. Google will not remove the review.

We got about 4 more after that and it tanked our 5 star rating to a 4.5, we have gotten a few of them removed, but two won’t go away no matter how much reporting. We do reply to all of the reviews and state that what they are saying did not happen and suggest it may have been left for the wrong business.

We have no proof that it is the other store owner, other than two reviews use the same initials as the guy lol Every single one comes from a google account with 0 other reviews. We have tried to counteract with getting customers to leave 5 star reviews but it still is very frustrating this is happening.

Has anyone dealt with this? Is there anything we can even do other than keep reporting the reviews and encouraging more customers to leave us reviews? Getting people to leave reviews feels like pulling teeth. 😅