Long story short,

I fired an employee. Her friends posted about 10 false google reviews to my business’s site. Some have no text, some have false narratives (slightly convincing). Of note, I have over 200 reviews and the lowest are 4-star except these 10 1-star reviews. All within a week of firing the employee. I went through the Google Reviews appeal process and they state that the reviews don’t violate their terms of service. I have no more recourse with them.

I contacted a major “bad review removal” company and they wanted $1k PER review. Is that normal? Any other way to deal with this?

Thanks!!