Review removal FAQs, answered straight

Erase Trax is an online reputation management agency that removes fake and policy-violating reviews, rebuilds ratings and recovers search visibility for businesses in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

In plain terms: we remove fake and policy-violating reviews, help you earn genuine new ones, push damaging search results down, and help you get found on Google and in AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini. Review removal is invoiced only for removals verified on your live profile; the other services are ongoing work, quoted in writing before they start.

Send us the link to the profile and tell us which reviews are the problem. A person on the team checks each one against the platform’s own policies and comes back within 24 hours with what breaches policy and what does not.

The audit form is fastest, because it arrives with what we need to look.

Yes. The audit is free and puts you under no obligation.

We look at the reviews you point us to, assess them against the platform’s own policies, and reply with our honest opinion of what is realistically removable and what is not. If a review is genuine, we say so, and we will not try to remove it.

A written audit: every review on the profile, our verdict on it, and which ones we would pursue for you.

If nothing on the profile violates policy, the audit says so and that is the end of it. We do not take on reviews we expect to lose in order to look busy.

The public profile link and which reviews you believe are fake, spam or from someone who was never a customer. That is all it takes to start.

You do not need to gather anything else. The audit runs on public information, we tell you if one specific detail from your records would help, and we never ask for your login.

If your rating is low, or something damaging sits near the top of a search for your name, very likely. People check a business before they call, and the ones who leave never tell you.

You cannot see those lost calls, which is why the free audit looks at what a stranger sees first (your rating, your newest reviews and the first page for your name) and says plainly what is worth fixing and what is not.

It takes away the reasons people leave before they call, such as a fake one-star review, a low rating or a bad result for your name, and helps more of the right people find you. We do not promise a number of leads.

Removal and monitoring change what a customer sees when they check you; SEO & AI search changes how many find you in the first place. The free audit tells you which of the two matters more for your business.

A small business has fewer results attached to its name, so a single damaging one carries far more weight than it would for a large brand.

That is the case for doing it early rather than after a problem appears.

You can, and many owners try. Most get a quick, automated no and stop there.

What we add is the expertise. Our specialists judge which reviews genuinely violate the platform’s policies and handle every one of them for you until the platform decides. You never deal with forms or appeals, and you pay only for removals verified on your live profile. Whether a review comes down is still the platform’s decision.

Any business judged by its reviews and search results, with dedicated guides for home-service trades, hotels and restaurants, real estate, dental and medical practices, law firms and car dealers.

No. We pursue reviews that breach the platform’s published policy — fake, spam, never-a-customer, wrong business, abuse.

A real customer describing a real experience stays up, and the better answer there is a good public reply. We will tell you that at the audit rather than after you have paid. Removal is always the platform’s decision.

No. Anyone who guarantees a removal is guaranteeing a decision that is not theirs to make.

What we guarantee is the pricing: if nothing comes down, there is nothing to pay. For the ongoing services, which have no single yes-or-no outcome, you get a report each month that you can check yourself.

Then the audit says so and we leave it alone.

A real customer’s fair complaint does not breach any platform’s policy, and trying to remove one puts your own profile at risk. We will help you write a reply instead.

Not on its own. “Untrue” is a disagreement between two accounts of the same event, and a platform has no way to settle it.

A platform acts on a breach of its own published policies (a reviewer who was never a customer, a duplicate, a rival’s advert), and that is what our specialists look for at the audit. If there is a case, we handle it for you; if there is not, we say so.

It is a case worth taking on. The platform’s policies require a review to describe a genuine customer experience, and a caller who only asked for a quote, a bidder who lost, or the opposing party in a case was never your customer.

The platform decides, and we do not promise it will agree. Where the review describes real dealings with you — a missed appointment for the estimate, a call to your office — the platform may treat that as an experience and the case is weaker. We tell you which you have at the audit.

It is a case worth taking on: a review that describes a decision made by another company, or a different property, is one of the clearer cases.

If the review also describes your own service, that part is a real experience and the case is weaker. The audit tells you which you have before any case starts, and we handle the case with the platform.

Yes. On most platforms a review used as leverage breaches the rules on its own, whatever the review says.

Keep the message, the email or the chat log exactly as it is, and do not pay: a business that gives in once is usually approached again. Send it to us with the profile link. We cannot promise the platform will act, but it is one of the clearer cases there is.

No, and we do not try. We cannot see who is behind an account, and a case that accuses a named competitor without proof goes nowhere.

We do not need to. Our specialists work only from what the platform itself can verify, not from an accusation, and handle it for you. The identity is not the point.

Yes. A flood of fake one-star reviews in a short time is one of the clearer situations we deal with, because the reviews give each other away.

Every review in the wave is checked, the ones that violate policy are handled for you together rather than one by one, and you pay only for removals verified on your live profile. The platform decides each one. While that runs, genuine new reviews from real customers soften the damage.

Not on age alone. A real customer wrote about a real experience, and the platform will not remove it because things have changed since.

The audit sometimes finds that an old review is not what it seems; beyond that, the honest answer is recent reviews from recent customers and an owner’s reply that gives the date of the work.

No. Only the reviewer can delete their own post, and only the platform can remove one, when it violates a published policy.

Anyone who claims special access to delete reviews directly is not telling the truth. A legitimate removal service works only through the platform’s own official channels.

You can ask once after resolving the issue, with no conditions attached.

Offering money or discounts for removal breaches platform policy and consumer protection rules.

No. Removal is decided on policy alone.

The reply still matters, because every future customer reading the review also reads your answer. A calm, factual reply helps you whether or not the review comes down, and it does not weaken a removal case.

No. Going after reviews that do not violate policy works against you: challenging every low rating reads as manipulation and can see later, legitimate cases taken less seriously.

Staff piling in on the same review from their own accounts looks coordinated too. That is why the audit picks out only the reviews that genuinely violate policy, and we handle those for you.

It almost never does. What is far more likely is a new review from the same source or a related account.

That points to an ongoing attack rather than a reversed decision. Send it to us: we treat it as part of the existing case.

No, and it makes things worse.

Deleting the profile removes every genuine review, the map presence and the local rankings with it. The attacker wins outright. Keep it: we deal with the reviews that violate policy, and you rebuild from genuine ones.

Review removal has no upfront fee: you are invoiced only for removals that are verified, at a price per removal agreed in writing before work starts.

The other services are scoped and priced in writing after the free audit, and depend on the problem — how many searches or results need to move, and how strong they are. We quote after a free audit rather than from a price list.

No. There is no upfront fee and no retainer.

The audit is free, and everything we do on your reviews once the case is opened costs nothing. The invoice only exists for removals we have verified on the live profile.

Nothing for removal. A review that stays up is not on the bill.

We will usually suggest a different route — answering the criticism well — and be straight about whether it is worth doing.

Removal is: review removal and social media post removal are billed only per verified removal. The ongoing services are not; we will not pretend one pricing model fits everything.

A removal is a single yes-or-no event that can be verified, so it is billed per removal. Reputation monitoring and SEO & AI search are ongoing work, billed weekly with no fixed term, against a report you can check yourself. Any removals found during an audit are billed the way removals always are.

You can stop at any time by telling us in writing. Removal has no retainer, and the weekly services have no fixed term.

For removal work you pay for removals verified before we received your notice, and nothing else. On a weekly service, if the report shows nothing changing and you want to stop, you stop; the audit and the map of where you stand are yours to keep either way.

For removal the pricing works that way, but we do not use the phrase, because it belongs to attorneys and we are not one.

The audit is free and the invoice lists verified removals only. A review that stayed up costs nothing.

Tell us. We will look at it again and agree with you how to handle it.

Platforms sometimes put a review back after removing it, which is why a removal is only invoiced once it is verified on the live profile.

You send the profile; our specialists do the rest. The audit is free, every policy-violating review is handled for you, and you are invoiced only for removals verified on your live profile.

You never deal with forms or appeals, and you can see where each case stands as it moves. Whether a review comes down is the platform’s decision, and a review that stays up is not on the bill.

The audit comes back within 24 hours. After that, a straightforward case is often decided in days; one the platform contests takes longer.

We do not control the platform’s queue, so we report progress rather than promise a date, and you can see where each case stands as it moves.

A first refusal is common and is not the end of the case: our specialists take it further for you.

If the platform still refuses, the review stays up and it is not on your bill. We tell you that plainly rather than pushing a case that cannot win.

No. Every case goes through the platform’s own official channels, and your account stays yours throughout.

You never hand over login details, and we would not ask for them. For monitoring, where replies are posted from the business account, we ask you to add us as a manager on the profile, which you can revoke at any time. We never hold a password.

Yes. You get a record of every review we take on, and you see where each one stands.

There is nothing in the work you cannot see, and nothing you have to do: the record is kept up to date as each case moves, until the platform decides.

Each removal is verified on the live, public profile before it is invoiced, and you get before-and-after screenshots of it.

Every client receives the written audit, the record of each review we took on, and the screenshots. The itemised invoice names each review and what happened to it, so you can check every line against the live profile yourself.

Partly. Removal cases on clear violations and basic profile optimisation can show visible movement within a month when the violations are clear and documented.

Ranking work cannot, whatever a proposal claims. Building authority on Google takes time, and no month of effort changes that.

It depends on two numbers: how many reviews you already have, and how fast genuine new ones arrive.

A profile with a few dozen reviews moves visibly within a few months of steady asking; one with several hundred moves slowly whatever anyone does. Removing reviews that violate policy shortens this. We work the arithmetic out with you at the audit rather than quote a date.

The ones your customers actually use, which the audit works out. For most local businesses that is Google first.

The audit reads Google, Trustpilot, Facebook, Yelp, ConsumerAffairs, TripAdvisor, Glassdoor, Reddit and Instagram, plus the directories and portals of your trade. Where a platform will act on a review that violates its policies, we take cases there on the same terms. Some directories have no meaningful way to have a review removed; where that is so we say it, rather than starting cases for the sake of it.

Where it breaks Trustpilot’s published policies, yes: we handle it for you, and Trustpilot decides.

Trustpilot removes reviews that break its published policies. What it will not remove is a genuine customer’s negative opinion, and resolving the complaint does not make a review a violation. The audit tells you which of yours are worth pursuing, and we handle those cases for you.

Yes. Answering that request is part of what we handle for you.

Send it to us with the profile link. We tell you exactly what we need from your records, usually a plain yes or no on whether the person was ever a customer, and nothing that would breach your customers’ privacy.

Yes, with a caveat we give up front: Yelp’s route is narrower than Google’s and it refuses more often.

A Yelp case is taken on the same terms but with lower odds, and the audit says which reviews are worth the attempt — and whether your Yelp page influences your customers at all.

They were most likely moved to the “not currently recommended” section by Yelp’s automated software rather than deleted.

That software weighs how established and active a reviewer’s account is, so reviews from new accounts are commonly filtered, whether positive or negative. A review Yelp does not recommend does not count towards the star rating, but it remains readable behind a link at the bottom of the page.

No. Yelp states publicly that it does not remove reviews in exchange for payment, and a paid Trustpilot plan changes the tools available to a business, not which reviews comply with the rules.

Anyone offering paid removal on a platform is describing something that is not available, and a firm suggesting otherwise should be treated with caution.

Yes. Recommendations can be disabled in the Page settings, which hides all of them at once — the positive ones included.

It is a blunt option with a real cost, but it is a legitimate way to stop a coordinated pile-on while the underlying cause is dealt with. A wave of fake recommendations is something we take on as one coordinated case rather than post by post.

No. A property cannot remove its listing or switch reviews off.

That is why the page deserves more attention than platforms you can opt out of, and why management responses matter so much there. A review about a different property, or one used as blackmail, is still a clear case, and one we can take on.

Its automated systems catch the most obvious spam and repeat offenders; subtler attacks usually pass the first check.

Google acts more reliably when a properly evidenced case is put in front of it, which is the work our specialists do for you.

Some. A verified review from a real customer — one the platform ties to a booking or a completed transaction — is close to untouchable.

What can still come down there is content that violates policy regardless: abuse, a staff member named with personal details, a threat, a review that is plainly about a different business. Some directories verify reviews themselves and will not act on a business’s case; there we say so up front instead of taking the case.

Where the platform will act on a review that violates its policies, yes, on the same terms.

In Canada that means Google first, then HomeStars, RateMDs, Yellow Pages, Facebook and TripAdvisor where they apply; in the UK, Checkatrade, Yell and TripAdvisor; in Australia, ProductReview and hipages. A site that ties each review to a job booked through it leaves less to remove, and the better answer there is usually a good public reply.

No — one case per platform. Each platform judges the review by its own policies and through its own route.

A removal on one does not carry to the others, and copies under different accounts on the same platform are a duplicate case there. We take each one on separately and verify each one.

All of them. Each is its own profile with its own reviews and its own rating.

A review sitting on the wrong listing — a restaurant complaint on the hotel’s, a service complaint on the sales listing — is itself a wrong-business case. The audit covers every listing and costs nothing either way.

Reputation Management & Monitoring, SEO & AI Search and Social Media Post Removal. Each is scoped and priced in writing before it starts.

Monitoring and SEO & AI search run weekly with no fixed term. Review removal and social media post removal are billed per verified removal.

We watch the review profiles themselves, read what arrives, decide whether it violates policy, and draft the reply.

Google Alerts watches web pages for a phrase and misses most reviews, because review text rarely appears as a new page. The watching is the cheap part. The judgement is the service.

No. Nothing can: a review is live the moment a customer presses the button.

What monitoring changes is how long a review sits unanswered and unexamined. A real complaint gets a reply within a business day; a policy-violating one becomes a removal case.

Some results can — a page that breaks a platform’s policies, an old listing, a scraped copy — and we try removal first. A news story or forum thread usually cannot.

An article comes down only if it is wrong enough for the publisher to correct or retract, which is a conversation with the publisher and sometimes a lawyer, not with a search engine. A post on social media that breaks the platform’s rules is a different case, and that one can come down.

Yes, when it breaks the platform’s own rules: false claims, harassment, impersonation, private details or content used without permission. The platform decides.

We cover Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn and YouTube. An honest customer post stays up. The audit is free and you pay only after a removal.

Usually, yes. Every major platform has rules against impersonating a business or a person.

A fake account is one of the clearest cases we take on, and like every removal it is billed only once it is gone.

Nobody can promise that, and you should walk away from anyone who does. There is no submission form and no paid placement.

What we can do is make sure that when a model reads about your business it finds something complete, consistent and worth citing, then check whether the answer changes. We ask each question several times and report the share of answers that name you, weekly. Sometimes a competitor has more of what the model wants, and we say so.

Some people now ask ChatGPT or Gemini to recommend a business, and the answer names a few, not a page of ten links. Being one of those names puts you in front of someone already looking for exactly what you do.

They also arrive trusting the recommendation they were given. No one can make an assistant name you; we make sure what it reads about your business is complete and consistent, and report how often it does.

SEO measures a ranking for a search; AI search measures whether you are named in an answer. Our SEO & AI Search service covers both.

Most of the work overlaps: a clear site, consistent business facts, real reviews, pages that answer questions. The difference is what you measure and how you write — the pages are written to be quoted, not to hold a keyword.

Yes. Our SEO and local search work covers your Google Business Profile, your website and the local map results, so more of the people searching for what you do find you, trust you and call.

Nobody can promise a position, and we say at the audit which searches are realistic for you. It is ongoing work, billed weekly with no fixed term, against a report you can check.

No. Google ranks pages and does not take instructions from us or anyone else.

We guarantee the work and the reporting. If a competitor with more history and more links holds a search, we say so and go after the searches you can win.

Longer than ads, shorter than most people fear.

Technical fixes and a completed profile can move a local map result within weeks. Ranking a page for a competitive search takes months, because you are overtaking pages with years of history. The audit gives a range for your searches and says which end you are likely at.

No, though they overlap. SEO gets you found for searches about your service; reputation management is about what people find when they search for your name.

Reputation work uses SEO techniques to rank content, plus removal, review and legal routes that SEO does not cover. If the problem is a false or abusive post about you on social media, look at social media post removal.

Genuine reviews from real customers are the ones platforms keep. What gets filtered or removed is bought, rewarded or staff-written reviews and posts from fake accounts, and we never use any of them.

One exception to know about: Yelp’s software hides some reviews from new or rarely used accounts, genuine ones included. Yelp also asks businesses not to request reviews at all, so it is best not to ask for Yelp reviews.

Yes. Every case goes through the platform’s own official channels and rests on the platform’s own published policies.

We do not access your account, we do not need your login, and we do not create or buy accounts of any kind.

No. We do not write, buy or incentivise reviews, and we do not create accounts.

Agencies that do get their clients’ profiles penalised — the opposite of what you are paying for. If you ask us to do any of these, we will refuse.

No, and we are not lawyers. The test is the platform’s own published policy, not defamation law.

A review can be untrue and still stay if it breaks no rule; it can violate policy without being defamatory. If you need a legal opinion, ask a lawyer. If you need the platform route, that is what we do.

No. Incentivised reviews are prohibited under Google’s fake-engagement policy, whether the incentive is cash, a discount, a gift or loyalty points, and whether or not the review is positive.

Trustpilot treats incentivising reviews, and inviting only the customers you expect to be happy, as a violation by the business; both can lead to action against your own profile.

No. Sending customers to a private form and forwarding only the happy ones to Google is review gating, and it breaks Google’s policy.

Platforms can spot a profile whose reviews are all five stars and all recent. A genuine complaint that arrives gets a reply, and where it points at a real problem it is worth more than the star it cost.

Yes, on every major platform including Google. What is not allowed is paying for them, filtering who gets asked, or writing them.

Yelp is the exception: it asks businesses not to solicit reviews at all, so for Yelp the better course is to make the profile easy to find and leave it there.

Yes, and that is the only way we work. A case rests on the rule the review breaks — not on the chart, the matter or the outcome.

We do not need access to patient records or practice software, and would not accept it; the only thing we ask is a yes or no on whether the reviewer was ever a patient or client. If a case could only be made by disclosing more than that, we do not make it. We also keep what you tell us private and never publish your business’s name or case without your written permission.

Possibly, if you can identify them and show a false statement of fact rather than an opinion.

Most cases stall at identification because the accounts are anonymous. Pair any legal step with the platform route rather than relying on it alone (we can run that alongside), and take legal advice in your own jurisdiction.

Not the way we do it. No bought links, no hidden text, no doorway pages, no fake locations, no spun content.

The methods that get sites penalised are faster, and we do not use them. Google finds them eventually and the penalty costs more than any ranking they bought. If work like this was done before, the audit will find it and we will say what to undo.

One remote team serves the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. There is no office and no local staff in any of them.

There are US and UK phone numbers, which reach those same people. The rules that decide a review are the platforms’ own and they are the same everywhere, so the work is done the same way from anywhere — in any US state, as in any other market.

A person. Someone on the team reads every review against the published content policy of the platform it sits on — not a summary of the policy, the policy.

By the free audit form, WhatsApp, phone in the US or UK, or email — and a person replies within 24 hours.

US +1 (585) 326-3166, UK +44 7916 690288, WhatsApp +1 (585) 326-3166, email info@erasetrax.com. The form is fastest: it arrives with what we need to look.

The US line is answered during the hours that overlap the US business day; outside them, email or WhatsApp and you hear back within 24 hours.

The time difference affects the conversation, not the case. Cases are decided in the platform’s queue, on the platform’s clock, which we do not control from any time zone. A case needs the profile link, not a same-time-zone conversation.

Canada can use the US number: it is a +1 number, so it dials like any other North American call. There is no Australian number.

The two lines are US and UK. Email or WhatsApp is the practical route from Australia and reaches the same people; if you want a call, we agree a time inside the narrow overlap.

A review that violates policy on its face — never a customer, a competitor’s advert, abuse — is handled the same way in any language.

Where the case rests on what the review says, tell us the language when you send the profile and the audit will say plainly what we can and cannot judge.

Yes. The results page shows 18 real client Google Business Profiles, before and after, shown with our clients’ permission. Across them the average Google rating went from 3.68 to 4.87 stars.

Every number there is read straight off the screenshots, and client names are not shown. You will not find a success rate or a promise: whether a review comes down is still the platform’s decision.

No. The chat is automated: it answers from our own published material, and it can be wrong.

Nothing it says is advice, or a commitment on our part. If something the assistant says matters to your decision, check it with a person on the team before you rely on it.