OLD HICKORY, Tenn. (WTVF) — Leaders with some roofing companies in Tennessee are speaking out after they were targeted by scammers leaving fake 1-star Google reviews last week.
According to Tim Leeper, owner of Tim Leeper Roofing, scammers flooded his business with one-star reviews before sending a message that would have led to the company paying for the scammer to remove them.
Tim Leeper Roofing’s marketing manager Chanler Niemy noticed the problem shortly after the reviews came in.
"We get notifications for every Google review that's left, and all of a sudden we started getting a swarm of one-star reviews," Niemy said.
The reviews immediately raised red flags.
Beyond the uncharacteristic one-star ratings, the language was suspicious, and the reviewer names and some of the pictures all pointed to signs of a scam.
After the initial one-star reviews, later messages with a contact phone number confirmed Niemy's suspicions about the true motive behind the fake reviews.
"What they're looking for is for businesses to call these numbers and they'll demand money for them to remove the reviews that they posted," Niemy said.
Tim Leeper Roofing wasn't the only local company targeted.
Centennial Roofing, another Middle Tennessee roofer, experienced the same attack with nearly identical messages and even profile names.
"They all started coming in Tuesday morning last week, about eight o'clock," said Ty Carter, co-owner of Centennial Roofing.
Carter noticed some of the same fake reviewer names appeared on multiple companies' pages.
While his digital team worked to address the problem, he reached out to Tim Leeper and other competitors who had been hit to alert them about the scam.
Carter said that while roofing can be a competitive, territorial industry, there are enough roofs out there for everybody, and he wanted to make sure the other companies knew what was happening.
"I just thought, well, maybe they need to know about it, and maybe we can all do something together," Carter said.
Both companies reported the fake reviews to Google, which removed them within about 24 hours.
For contractors and building trades professionals, Google reviews are critical for attracting customers, making them particularly vulnerable to this type of extortion scheme.
"Google reviews to contractors and people in the building trades are critical," Leeper said.
Leeper expressed concern about how these scams could impact smaller operations that may not have the resources to quickly address fake review attacks.
He's hoping to work with local business organizations to find solutions.
"I would like to work with the BBB and the chambers of commerce locally to see if there's anything that could be done legislation-wise that would keep these people in check," Leeper said.
This story was reported on-air by journalist Robb Coles and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Coles verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at robb.coles@newschannel5.com.
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