A bespoke wine cellar business is battling negative Google reviews and Facebook comments from total strangers, following a contentious appearance on the home-building reality TV show The Block.
The ‘review bombing’ comes days after Cellar Creations, a maker of high-end wine storage systems, featured in an episode of the popular Australian renovation TV show.
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The Mornington Peninsula-based business built wine cellars for two pairs of contestants, who each paid for them from their project budgets.
The Block‘s rules state that contestants can receive discounts of no more than 50% on goods and services, unless the provider is a show sponsor.
One cellar, inspired by Japanese shoji paper windows, cost contestants Adam and Jolene Wagner around $20,000 of their project budget.
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The second cellar — featuring larger, sweeping latticework — cost Courtney Kain and Sevilay Keser $14,500.
The cost disparity caused some on-show conflict, with the Wagners arguing their competitors effectively paid less than 50% of the cellar’s actual value.
Kain and Keser argued their cellar was actually art, which, thanks to a quirk of The Block‘s rulebook, allowed them to pay about 10% of the cellar’s standard retail price.
The show’s judges awarded a tie, with some aggrieved viewers taking their concerns online and to social media.
Cellar Creations was swamped with negative Google reviews, with new commenters basing their ratings not on their personal experience with the business, but its appearance on The Block.
Many of those reviews appear to have been deleted, with Google currently showing three one-star reviews, at least two of which were submitted in the past day.
The business has received dozens of aggrieved comments on Facebook, with some social media users accusing it of “dodgy pricing” purely based on its The Block appearance.
Other social media users have called on The Block viewers not to bombard the business with fake reviews.
“What is wrong with these people? Too many folks are waaaaay too invested in this show,” said one Reddit user.
“People going out of their way to comment on someone’s business based off a tv show is ridiculous,” said another.
Cellar Creations has not publicly commented on the reviews.
‘Review-bombing’ in context
Beyond what appears to be a high-profile case of ‘review bombing’, other small businesses with less public exposure can find it hard to challenge disingenuous online ratings.
A sweeping Australian Competition and Consumer Commission review found businesses facing fake reviews often have little opportunity for recourse.
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Given the difficulty of removing a fake online review, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman assists businesses who challenge clearly false online ratings.
In some cases, scammers even try extorting businesses with the threat of poor online reviews, exploiting fears that a poor Google rating could lead to fewer customers.
In the case of Cellar Creations, it appears Google has taken action to delete some of the recent claims.
“Reviews are automatically processed to detect inappropriate content like fake reviews and spam,” Google said, in a notice accompanying its star rating.
“We may take down reviews that are flagged in order to comply with Google policies or legal obligations.”
SmartCompany has contacted Cellar Creations, Nine, and Julian Cress, head of The Block production company Cavalier Television, for comment.