Fake Reviews

[cpsychic]

Hello!

Not sure anyone else has had this issue, would love any assistance if possible. I've had someone email me saying they are actively leaving 1-star reviews to destroy my podcast. Originally this was Sept 19th, and I left it thinking they might be struggling with their own mental health concerns. I don't know this person they are not my client nor have I had any person contact with them, but then they have emailed me again, and have shown me how they are actively leaving fake 1-star reviews and how it is dragging down my podcast ratings. 

I've even had my clients reach out to me concerned as they listen to my podcast frequently and love it and they are seeing the ratings drop so quickly especially because before Sept 19th my podcast was rated above 4.5 and now in less than a month it is 3.3. 

I have the emails where this person is taking credit for this work of trying to bring down my reviews ratings and they tell me they will continue to do so. I've contacted Spotify for 2 hours in Chat about this and through various emails to support. Everyone is saying there's nothing that can be done? 

I just find it strange that a company of this size doesn't have a system in place to review ratings left, maybe see if they are being left by the same IP address or provide any solutions on this at all.

Anyone else had this issue? 

[acrossthedivide]

I am encountering a similar issue. My podcast went from having a 4.8 star average with ~150-200 reviews to having a 1.2 star average and 860+ reviews in about 3 months. This seems like a bot rating issue rather than that of a single/multiples listeners, but it is very concerning. Did you end up getting any help from Spotify to fix the issue?

[TheTraumedyShow]

We are having the same issue with our podcast - my ex is specifically targeting our podcast with 1star bot reviews and tripled our number of reviews in 24 hours, bringing it down from 4.7 to 3.5. Support tried to tell me that they these are genuine reviews, but I've been pushing back and demanded they open a case. They need to have a better system in place to stop and remove this fake reviews and bot reviews. My case is still under review currently. 

[kylebhanson1]

We're having the same issue- I know who it is, and they've gotten several people to do it... there has to be a way. Otherwise, we'll choose a different platform other than Spotify to distribute our podcast. It's very unfortunate.