In Germany, businesses routinely bully reviewers into deleting negative reviews, so the scores are meaningless.
I only trust what friends recommend.
I've had this happen to me, posted a factual restaurant review 12 months later threatened with defamation and it's auto removed by Google. It seems there are agencies that use legal framework to do bulk removal requests to Google for any low reviews no matter the content. The in-authentic Korean restaurant in Cologne went from a 1.9 to a 4.6. It's impossible to trust reviews in Germany due to these corrupt bully tactics.
I’ve almost moved on from online reviews. So many are fake, so many these days are slop. Half the time a 3.5 place is rated so low because people pick the most random ass reasons to slap it with 1 star.
Also I’ve decided I don’t want to live my life by following what Google says I should do as a default. Sometimes I go to a place that sucks. But that happened when I checked Google reviews anyway!!
Yeah, reviews are useless in Germany as a result. If anyone from Google is reading this, PLEASE add a tag to establishments that remove reviews by legal means!
Serious question: How do they bully online reviewers?