On a busy Saturday evening in March 2023, a customer at Hapa Izakaya in Vancouver objected to the restaurant's 90-minute dining time limit. The confrontation escalated: the customer asked "What if I don't pay my bill?", refused to pay the remaining $5, wouldn't leave, and eventually punched the owner Justin Ault in the face. Police responded but Ault declined to press charges.
The revenge campaign
Within 24 hours, approximately 40 one-star reviews appeared on Google. The first wave claimed poor service and terrible food. The later wave evolved — reviewers claimed to have "witnessed" the encounter, alleging it was racially motivated and that the customer had been physically assaulted.
Ault searched the reviewers' names on Facebook and discovered something revealing: many of them were people who live in Montreal — thousands of miles from Vancouver, who had clearly never visited the restaurant. It was a coordinated campaign by the angry customer's friends and family.
"It just became very apparent that it was a concerted effort."
— Justin Ault, Daily Hive
What this case reveals
Ault's case demonstrates how easy it is to weaponize reviews for personal revenge. One angry customer can recruit dozens of people across the country to destroy a business's rating — people who have never visited, never eaten there, and have no legitimate basis for a review. The platform has no way to verify whether any of them are genuine customers.