On November 15, 2025, while returning from Palm Springs, Alpana Singh received a text from her restaurant manager. Her Google rating for Alpana Restaurant on North State Street in Chicago's Gold Coast had plummeted from 4.5 to 4.1 stars overnight. Dozens of one-star reviews had appeared — vague, generic complaints about "rude staff" and "cold food" that bore no resemblance to the actual dining experience.
The extortion
Among the fake reviews, one stood out. A reviewer named "Peter Vicious" included a WhatsApp number, inviting Singh to contact him about "removing" the reviews. When she did, the demand was clear: $200 to make them disappear — with the threat that refusal would mean escalation.
"Your digital score is your reputation. So somebody is basically taking your digital reputation and they're holding it for ransom."
— Alpana Singh, WGN-TV
"There's this feeling of helplessness… there's no tech support whatsoever."
— Alpana Singh
The aftermath
Singh spent four hours that Saturday reporting every fake review to Google. The platform removed the spam reviews within 24 hours and suspended the accounts. But even after removal, plus 65 new five-star reviews from supporters, the rating barely moved. Singh calculated she would need approximately 160 perfect reviews just to recover what was lost in a single night.
Sam Toia, CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, reported an uptick in review bombs over the prior six months, particularly targeting mid- to upscale restaurants in Chicago.
What this case reveals
A rating can be destroyed in minutes but takes months to rebuild. The asymmetry is devastating: the extortionist risks nothing, while the business owner loses real revenue from every hour the rating stays down. When your "digital score" can be held for ransom by a stranger with a phone, the system is fundamentally broken.