Hi Community,
I’m new here and a bit lost. I read on a group that sometimes Google doesn’t let through negative reviews if someone write a bad review…Is that true ?
I wrote a review that appears as accepted but i can only see it on my account which is strange others cannot see it… I was blackmailed by this surgeon https://maps.app.goo.gl/c4qZ23qaEbxTeUTL6 to not write any reviews otherwise I wouldn’t get my medical record (i was botched by this surgeon and i have all the emails to prove the blackmail) which is illegal by egyptian and international laws that protect patient rights to have full acess to their medical records. I had to ask the help of the French embassy to get my medical record sent to my Parisian surgeon that was also incomplete and manipulated. Its very alarming since patients choose their surgeon doctors based on reviews and it is important to be able to share an honest review on a case of malpractice. Whats is happening why my review can’t be seen only on my profile ? Thanks a lot My review link https://maps.app.goo.gl/c4qZ23qaEbxTeUTL6
Google has automatic filters that hide your comments so only you can see them. There are a few reasons why your Google Maps reviews may not be visible to the public:
Comments may be rejected for violating Google’s comment policies.
Google may hide reviews for a variety of reasons, such as if the reviews are reported by other users or if they are about a closed location.
What the review contains: Does it contain offensive or off-topic content?
Commenting account: Does the Google account have a history of suspicious behavior?
The place itself: Has there been any unusual activity, such as a large number of comments in a short period of time? Has it received any recent attention in the news or on social media that would motivate people to leave fake reviews?
The reason you cannot see your comment when you log out of Google may be because your comment has been reported. I experienced the same situation many times as a guide. The other possibility is that your comment is considered spam. When you constantly edit the comment, after a while it becomes considered spam.
Hi @French333
Sorry about your issue.
I will not give you a “canned response” like the one you have just received, because it will not help in your case.
And unfortunately we can’t see an hidden review, even if you share the link, for the simple reason that it is not publicly visible.
Also, due to the fact that your profile is locked we can’t see if you have more hidden reviews or if this is just a single case.
You can unlock your profile, or check this by yourself: open this link in a web browser (it works also on mobile) and compare your private profile using the app with what you see in the browser. Here’s the link: https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/113404883276319553370
Kindly give us a feedback.
It would be great if you can also paste here the text of the review mentioned in your post, for us to give you some advice. I have some ideas about the content but honestly I don’t want to speculate without seeing it.
Merci ! Thank you very much for you answer, Yes my profile is public now. Bellow my comment, maybe i can change things but i stick to the facts. What else can i do ? We must be able to share an honest review specially regarding this surgeon behavior…He clearly lied in an offical medical report which again i can prove, should i change some words ? (i choosed him because of the good reviews) also 2 other women who wanted and tried to write reviews can’t it doesn’t show so i though maybe Google does’n’t accept a negative review because of all the good reviews he has ? (i also checked from the begining all reviews this surgeon had and a lot are 1 review account) I also contacted what Clinic and explained what happened, they asked me for pictures of emails sent by him and might take him down after investigation. Its really frustrating regarding the gravity of his acts (not sure if i can also share the picture of his email trying to blackmailing me to not write any reviews and now that i want i can’t) He put my life in danger by wanting to use something i was allergic when my allergist in France sent him an email warning him about my allergy. Here is my review that doesn’t show on his page :
‘This surgeon tried to blackmail me to not write an honest review otherwise i wouldn’t get my medical record. Which is illegal as per Egyptian and International laws. (His PR Barbara was the one sending me those messages) i had to contact my embassy and asked for legal support and warned them that what they were doing was illegal. They only sent me half of what I paid and refuse to refund me the rest of it plus the damages I have to fix. I was botched by this surgeon who wasn’t skilled to this operation. My allergist warned him about Hyaluronidase and until the last moment he put my life in danger asking me if I would use it when many times we said No. His results were catastrophic. The surgery left me with severe asymmetry and deformities that completely ruined my face (he extracted a material from my face without my consent and then lied about it on the medical record) he damaged my skin texture. The surgeon in Paris that review his videos told me it was a massacre, one other surgeon told me he would show this to his students because it was so bad. I woke alone bleeding from my cheeks with no one speaking English, bleeding on the ground. Until an Egyptian friend came and asked her to do something about it. They answered to her “oh we will giver her instruction by what’s app” which i refused and asked to see the Doctor (they even lied saying I was discharged after 4 hours which is not true) I have of course photo evidence and I documented with reports the extent of damage. When I reached out to adress the mistakes they keep lying and manipulating or giving me false information what only build more anger and frustration You do not fix skin laxity with a cream. The doctor was very dismissive. They even tried to blame it on me saying I already had those damages then it’s because I stayed one hour I the sun (which is not true as I was in a café with friend) This lack of accountability and care is unacceptable. It seems more women had also problems. This experience has been life changing in the worst way possible. If any problem occur doctors need to recognise and do something about it. Avoid this Doctor at all cost. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions’
Hi @French333 , thanks for sharing the text of the review and your profile.
Let’s start with the review:
A very common tendency, when a patient has a negative experience in a clinic, is to write an excessively detailed review, with details that could have legal implications (defamation, invasion of privacy, etc.).
In this case, Google generally removes the review to protect the person who wrote it first of all. If the business has committed acts that are against the law, legal action should be taken.
My advice is to write a more concise review, without citing specific facts and especially without citing names of people.
Believe me, I understand your frustration and your intention to inform other users, but there is really no point in doing it this way. You will not get any results, and you will not inform anyone. As you can see, the business has other (few) negative reviews. This means that if a review does not violate the policies (it must not be an outburst or appear as revenge) the business will not be able to have it removed.
Your profile:
As you can see you have 21 reviews and 6 ratings that are not publicly visible. The fact that the ratings are not visible makes me think that somehow there is a flag on your account.
When a review is not published, if it is about a place that is within the EU, above the review there is a red message that tells us that the review is “not posted”. If you do not have any of these messages let me know, and I will tell you how to proceed.
I don’t need to see anything else on your profile, so feel free to make it private again if you feel more protected that way.
In any case, just for your info, I think that the huge amount of five stars reviews, mostly written by accounts that only wrote that review is quite suspicious, so I will report the business privately to Google.
Thank you so much for those clarification and advises ok i will try again following your instructions, i talked to the other girls and their reviews don’t show neither. We don’t understand…I also choosed this surgeon based on his reviews its how people do now but it’s not fait if people can’t share when there are problems specially in surgery were choosing the right surgeon is important
And to answer your question no i din’t get the red flag message) What should i do ?
can this surgeon block all the negative review ? i checked on his page again and i can’t even read his bad reviews i see them but can’t read them when i click ‘worse reviews’
Yes some of then are only 1 review account. Blessings
Bonjour, @French333 , and sorry for the late reply.
This is exactly what I was thinking before to read your review. Keep it simple, do not mention anything that can have a legal implication. Just share your disappointment and your delusion for your bad experience. You can also mention that you trusted them because of the high rating, but that the real story is very different.
A business doesn’t have the power to take your review down, if the review is respecting the rules. The big issue with reviews of customers that had a bad experience in medical centers is that they are normally writing with an overflow of personal details. I know they do that to worn others, but that kind of review will be easily taken down, for the reasons explained on my previous reply. That’s why many bad businesses only have a few negative reviews.
Generally speaking about reviews, only reviews related to locations inside the EU have the red text when taken down. This is because it is required by a law of the European Community.
To find the not visible reviews for locations outside the EU:
Make your account visible.
Open the link to your profile (Google Maps) in a web browser in incognito mode, and compare it with your private profile. In this way you will be able to see which reviews are not publicly visible.
There is a long explanation about what to do after that.
I will try to condensate it:
A review can be blocked because one of his components (e.g. a photo) was considered inappropriate. Try to delete the photos and publish the review again. If it is published, add one by one the photo to find the one that is causing the block.
If in this way the review isn’t published, move to the next step: Appeal
The check may take time, in my case I had to wait a couple of months to have my reviews checked
Do not modify the review after the appeal is sent. The date of a review is always updated to the last edit, and if the review appears as “more recent” that the submission of the form it will not be checked. So if you want to try to modify the review do it before to submit the appeal.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, the pictures you shared are magical
To let you know, there are more victims of this surgeon that contacted me. A woman that now lives in the United States told me that she had to contact the Egyptian Police to get her receipts and medical records, which is unbeleivable ! He made her sign an illegal non disclosure agreement in order to send her a refund she accepted because she needed this money to pay her revision. Exactly what he tried with me, which didn’t work because i involved the French Embassy in Cairo. We all think that he might delete or report negative reviews (he only has good reviews) which i don’t understand since we are almost 10 women on the whats app group. I found an article on a surgeon that did the exact same thing. It helped me understand what can happen in those cases (what clinic is doing an investigation on him) but how can we report him to Google and snd all the relevant documents. ’ According to a 2020 survey, over 70 percent of patients use online reviews as the first step to finding a new doctor’ This is concerning…
We cannot write any reviews not even a one star review. What do you think ? Blessings
As I said, a business cannot remove a review if the review is not violating the rules, unless you were flagged for posting reviews in that place.
Can you post reviews in other places?
My suggestion is to keep the review simple, something like “My experience with this clinic was terrible, after the surgery my face was deformed. I would not recommend it to anyone.”
And if the review is not published use this form to appeal: Account investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps
On my side I’ve already escalate the issue with the manipulated reviews of this clinic.
Keep in mind that the check of the review may take several weeks.
Please keep me updated.
I hope you are well, i promised i will keep you in touch. A lot happened since our last messages. We created a group and found more victims of this surgeon. Google Search Breast and Body Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Clinic. Dr.Ashraf Abolfotooh Cairo
Every stories is horrible. This surgeon thinks he can do whatever he wants and Google won’t do anything about it. So many of us tried to write reviews and it didn’t go though even with being factual. This Dr. tried to take down one of the girl review but she edited it and it went through. Yesterday night her review appeared and today 13/02/25 we found out 13 fake reviews saying how much he is incredible etc…, one is from his assitant Ghada, another one from Barbara his PR. Those reviews were reported but still there, i took a screenshot of all of it. How Google is allowing this. I made the mistake by letting me touch me because i felt safe with the reviews. A surgery is something that can be life threathening. We are gonna sue him but we don’t understand why Google don’t apply their policies. This is very concerning. No buissness has 13 reviews in one day…Some of us send a warning buisness conduct to Google, is there any way to contact Google this can’t continue…there are people’s life in danger…
Thank you so much for the update, @French333 .
I saw you already tagged four Googlers in your previous reply where you highlighted the fake reviews the clinic had to counterbalance the one they weren’t able to take down.
Googlers may not respond but I am sure they read your post and escalate the issue to the appropriate department.
Sometimes a check may take time, but when it happened to me after a few months the profile of the business was completely erased from Google Maps. I know, it would be better to have it publicly visible with only the real reviews all published, as a warning from the users, and maybe this will happen too, because it looks like Google Maps is moving to this direction:
Thank you so much for your answer, I’m sorry i start to beleive nothing can be done, i was on a call yesterday with a woman and this Dr for a gastric procedure switch and put back at the wrong place her intestines and stomach as per MRI and scanner she did back in the states… I mean its not an hair cut she could of die, she has to pay an expensive revision surgery in the states. One woman had to write the review 3 times as he was deleting it. Its now 21 fake reviews in one and half day on his Google page !! He keeps adding fake reviews and delete all negative reviews. We also checked his registration and resume he lied on 3 registration, fellowship UK/France (we will continue to check) Its an emergency this can’t continue, it’s been month who can we contact more ?? It is extremely concerning that nothing is being done by the Google to protect consumers, especially when it comes to medical procedures, which can have life-changing consequences. It is completely unacceptable for a surgeon to fabricate positive reviews and fake reviews that mislead patients and consumers. People rely on these reviews to make informed decisions about their health and safety, and allowing fraudulent reviews to go unchecked puts lives at risk. Google must take immediate action to regulate and enforce stricter measures against such practices ! I feel hopeless and don’t trust google anymore here
Hi Ermest
We reported the Buissness conduct to Google, This surgeon has now deleted again the 3th review of one of the women. He has full control on reviews and Google is not regulating this. What else could we do ? People need to be able to read honest reviews, a surgery is important its not like a hair cut. What do you think ? Thank you so sos much for your support. Blessings
Hi @French333 , thanks for adding more information. As you tagged some Google Moderator they are aware of the issue, and hopefully they are escalating it.
However, please keep in mind that there is not a “quick” solution, because they need to investigate before to take action, and this may take time.
