Online Reputation Management for Brands and E-commerce Companies in India
A single "is this brand a scam" page ranking for your name can turn a buyer's last search before checkout into an abandoned cart. Consumer brands and e-commerce sellers are attacked on the exact surfaces customers use to decide: the marketplace listing, the Google result for the brand name, the review platform and the customer-care number. RepuLex removes fake, defamatory and impersonating content from those surfaces through the legal routes India already provides, one URL at a time.
A D2C brand or a marketplace seller pays for every visit, through advertising, marketplace commissions and influencer fees, and an attack taxes that spend at the moment of conversion. The sponsored placement still bills for the click that lands on a listing whose rating has collapsed, the paid search still bills for the buyer who reads a scam page instead of checking out, and the marketplace's seller-performance metrics record the resulting cancellations against the genuine seller. Each of these is a distinct legal wrong with a distinct remedy, and the remedy has to reach the surface where the harm sits.
Coordinated fake-review campaigns and review bombing on Amazon, Flipkart and Google
"Is this brand a scam" pages, "fraud" videos and Quora threads ranking for the brand name
Fake customer-care numbers and lookalike domains that defraud customers, who then blame the brand
Counterfeit and impersonation listings on marketplaces using the brand's name and images
Competitor comparison hit pieces dressed up as independent reviews
False entries on Trustpilot, MouthShut and consumercomplaints.in, and negative news from a product incident
A consumer brand's name is searched before every purchase, and a fabricated scam page or a fake customer-care listing converts that search into lost sales or defrauded customers. The Consumer Protection Act 2019, the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020, the Trade Marks Act 1999 and the IT Act 2000 give brands real instruments against each of these threats. RepuLex applies them, through its partner law firm where an advocate's signature or a court filing is required, to remove the content at its source.
Free AssessmentWhat actually attacks a consumer brand's reputation online in India?
The attacks arrive on the surfaces where buying decisions are made. On Amazon and Flipkart the pattern is review bombing: twenty or thirty one-star reviews from accounts created in the same week, often with the same phrasing, timed to a launch or a festival sale so that the listing's rating falls below the threshold the marketplace algorithm uses to rank it. On Google the pattern is the query itself. Someone searching the brand name with "scam" or "fraud" appended finds a forum thread, a blog post or a video asserting that the brand takes payment and ships nothing, and that page then ranks for the brand name alone because the search engine has learned that people click it.
The second family of threats does not defame the brand at all; it impersonates it. A fake customer-care number is placed on a Google Maps listing, a Facebook page or a JustDial entry, or is pushed into a search ad. Customers with a genuine delivery problem call it, are asked to share a UPI collect request or install a screen-sharing app, and lose money. They then post on consumercomplaints.in, MouthShut and Trustpilot that the brand stole from them. A lookalike domain, sometimes with a single character changed, does the same with a cloned storefront. Counterfeit listings on marketplaces complete the picture: a lower-quality product sold under the brand's name and images, with the resulting complaints landing on the genuine listing.
The third family is editorial. A competitor commissions a comparison article or an influencer video presenting itself as an independent test, with the brand placed last on invented criteria. A product incident, a delayed shipment cycle or a payment gateway outage becomes a news story, and that story is accurate. Reader comments beneath it, and the reposts on X and in Telegram channels, then add allegations the report never made. The distinction between these families matters, because the law treats each differently and so does RepuLex: the fabricated review and the fake number are pursued for removal, the paid comparison is exposed as advertising, and the accurate report is answered rather than attacked.
Which law applies to each threat?
Fabricated reviews are false statements of fact. Where they allege fraud, danger or dishonesty they are defamation under BNS Section 356 (formerly IPC 499/500), and a burst from a single source is also an unfair trade practice under Section 2(47) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019. The BIS standard IS 19000:2022 on online consumer reviews, voluntary since November 2022, with a draft Quality Control Order put to consultation by the Department of Consumer Affairs in May 2024, sets out how a platform is expected to verify authorship and moderate, and RepuLex cites it in every platform complaint as the published benchmark for the grievance officer. The platform is an intermediary under IT Act Section 79 and keeps its immunity only if it acts on actual knowledge, which after Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) means a court order or a government notification, and if it meets the due-diligence duties in IT Rules 2021 Rule 3.
Impersonation engages three regimes. A fake customer-care operator commits cheating by personation using a computer resource under IT Act Section 66D and under BNS Section 319, with criminal intimidation under BNS Section 351 where a customer is threatened; the brand's name and logo are protected by Trade Marks Act 1999 Section 29 if registered and by passing off if not. The intermediary's own duty comes from IT Rules 2021: Rule 3(1)(b) places impersonation and trade-mark infringement among the content a platform must make reasonable efforts to keep off its service, and Rule 3(1)(d) fixes the three-hour clock once such an order or notification issues. Its separate duties as an e-commerce entity are set out in the FAQ below. Invoking all three together is leverage: a marketplace that has ignored a bare trade-mark complaint is easier to move once a single notice shows it is hosting an offence, infringing a registered mark and failing a rule that binds it.
Competitor hit pieces sit under defamation where they state false facts, and under the ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Advertising (2021, updated 2023) where a paid comparison is presented as independent. The Central Consumer Protection Authority can impose penalties for a misleading advertisement under Section 21 of the same Act, and Section 89 makes it a punishable offence for a manufacturer or service provider to cause one. Where the piece extorts, offering to take the article down for a payment, BNS Section 308 on extortion is engaged and the demand itself becomes evidence: the exchange is preserved with its metadata for the brand's own police complaint rather than answered, because a reply negotiates and a record convicts.
How does RepuLex remove the content, and how long does each step take?
The sequence is the same for every URL, and its clocks are statutory. The first step is a complaint to the platform's grievance officer with the evidence attached, arranged against the platform's own published criteria rather than as a narrative. An Indian intermediary must acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and dispose of it within seven days under IT Rules 2021 Rule 3(2), and a complaint seeking removal of content falling under Rule 3(1)(b) must be resolved within 36 hours, which is the clock that governs impersonation complaints; trade-mark complaints fall under sub-clause (iv), which stays on the seven-day clock. That step alone closes most marketplace and review-platform matters, and it is the reason the evidence is assembled before the complaint rather than after the platform asks for it.
The second step, where the platform declines or the author is identifiable, is an advocate notice issued by RepuLex's partner law firm, Unified Chambers And Associates, to the platform and to the originator, setting out the specific false statements, the sections engaged and the demand. Notices typically draw a response within seven to twenty-one days. The third step, filed by the partner law firm, is a court application: an interim injunction against the author and the host, a John Doe order against unidentified counterfeiters or fake customer-care operators with directions to registrars, telecom operators and payment gateways, and, for repeat relisting, a dynamic injunction that extends to new storefronts and mirror domains. Once an order exists, the Rule 3(1)(d) clock described above runs against the platform.
The fourth step is reserved for foreign-hosted scam sites and mirror domains that ignore notices and orders. A blocking request under IT Act Section 69A goes through the Nodal Officer route under the 2009 Blocking Rules, and a court order can be executed under Rule 10 of those Rules; MeitY exercises the power at its discretion and its orders are confidential under Rule 16, so timing cannot be predicted, and RepuLex says in the quote that this takes weeks rather than days. In parallel, a lookalike domain is contested at its registry: an INDRP complaint through NIXI for a .in domain, a UDRP complaint for a .com, and a registrar abuse report where the registrant details are false. Search results pointing at removed pages are then cleared through Google's outdated-content and legal removal channels, so that the brand-name search stops showing a dead scam link once Google processes the request.
What cannot be removed, and what is done about it instead
Before a review is treated as fake it is checked for signs of being genuine: the account's age and review history, whether the review appeared alone or as one of a cluster in a single week, and whether its wording recurs on other listings or other platforms. A review that passes is an honest one, and an honest negative review by a real customer cannot be removed; RepuLex will not attempt it. The purchaser who found the fabric thin, the delivery late or the refund slow is exercising protected expression, and a notice sent over such a review invites a counter-complaint and a public thread about the notice. The same applies to fair comment: a blogger who discloses their basis and calls the product overpriced is giving an opinion, not asserting a false fact. The brand is told to answer a genuine review publicly through the platform's reply feature, which is the appropriate response to accurate criticism.
Accurate news reporting stays. If a regulator ordered a recall, a court passed an order, or a payment failure affected thousands of customers and a publication reported it correctly, a court will not direct its removal. Delivered WhatsApp messages and forwards are in the same category for a different reason: once a message has reached the recipients' devices there is no mechanism available to the person the message is about, legal or technical, to recall it, and a notice to WhatsApp achieves nothing because the platform cannot read or delete end-to-end encrypted content. What can be addressed is the public re-publication of the same material: a website that reproduces the forward, a Telegram channel with a public link, a YouTube video that reads it out, or a group whose invite link has been posted openly. Each of those is a host with an address, an intermediary obligation and a takedown route, and RepuLex treats them as ordinary URLs.
Complaints on a consumer-complaint portal that record a genuine grievance stay too, even when the tone is unfair. What comes down is the complaint that describes a transaction that never occurred with the brand, the complaint that is in fact about the fake customer-care operator and names the brand as the thief, and the complaint that is one of a batch traced to a competitor. The distinguishing evidence is usually in the complaint itself: an order number that matches nothing in the brand's system, a helpline number that is not the brand's, a payment made to a UPI handle the brand has never held, or a batch of entries posted minutes apart in identical words. The portal is shown that evidence, and where it will not act the entry is treated like any other false statement of fact.
How the engagement runs for a brand or a marketplace seller
Every matter begins under a non-disclosure agreement, before any URL, order record or customer complaint is shared. The brand then sends the URL list, and RepuLex returns a per-URL assessment: the legal ground for each, the route that will be used, the realistic clock, and the URLs that are declined because they are honest reviews, accurate reporting or fair comment. The classification is written down, URL by URL, so that the brand can see why a page was accepted or refused and can challenge the reasoning before paying for anything; no fee is taken for a URL that cannot legally come down. Pricing is per URL and is published; news media, court-reported matters and legal-database entries are quoted separately because they go to editorial and legal desks rather than takedown forms. The published rate card, the complexity band and the payment terms are on the pricing page.
Payment is 100% in advance, and it is paired with a refund: any URL not removed within the agreed timeline is refunded in full, including where a platform refuses. Each removal is confirmed in writing with the platform's response or the order attached, and for search results a de-indexing confirmation from Google. For a brand under a live attack, the emergency track typically has the first notices out within hours and the partner law firm's court application drafted and filed within days; listing is for the court, and the application asks for urgent listing on the strength of the ongoing harm. The surcharge for that track is stated on the pricing page. Progress is reported per URL at each stage, from grievance filed to notice served to order obtained, so that a marketing head or a founder can see at any point which pages are down, which are pending and which are in court.
Before any notice is issued, RepuLex reviews the brand's own exposure, because every instrument on this page invites scrutiny of the party invoking it. A court hearing an injunction application asks whether the applicant comes with clean hands, and a brand whose own listing breaches the rules it is relying on risks losing the application and a public order saying so. Review platforms and marketplaces check the complainant's history before acting on a fake-review grievance, and a complaint about other people's reviews from an account that has seeded its own is refused and remembered. A complaint to a grievance officer or a regulator can also draw the Central Consumer Protection Authority's attention to the complainant, so a brand is told to correct its own pages first. A brand that is itself the subject of a well-founded scam allegation is told so in writing at the assessment, because a defamation notice sent over a true statement is worse than no notice.
Why removal rather than burying is the right answer for a consumer brand
Burying means publishing enough positive content to move a harmful page off the first page of results. For a consumer brand it fails on the surfaces that matter. A fake review on a marketplace listing is not on a search results page at all; it sits on the product page and feeds the rating and the ranking algorithm, and no amount of content elsewhere changes it. A fake customer-care number keeps taking calls from customers who found it on a Maps listing or in an ad, and the complaints it generates keep arriving. A counterfeit listing keeps selling. Burying addresses none of these because none of them is a ranking problem.
Removal also produces a record that burying cannot. A platform's written confirmation, an advocate notice with proof of service, an injunction or a John Doe order are documents a brand can show to a marketplace account manager, to an investor conducting diligence, to a payment gateway reviewing chargeback rates, or to the CCPA if a regulator asks why the brand's rating collapsed in a single week. The record establishes that the content was false, fabricated or infringing, and that the brand acted lawfully rather than by manipulating its own reviews.
The third reason is durability. Content that has been moved down comes back with the next news cycle, the next algorithm change or the next attack. A page that is deleted at source, de-indexed and covered by an order against re-publication has no ranking position to return to, and any re-publication is a breach of the order that the partner law firm can take back to the same court. RepuLex is India's #1 legal-first online reputation management agency because it treats each of these threats as a legal wrong with a remedy, and executes the regulated parts of that remedy through a partner law firm rather than through content volume.
Can fake reviews on Amazon or Flipkart be legally removed in India?+
Yes, where the review is fabricated, and each marketplace has a route for it. Three kinds come down. The first is the review with no order behind it, which the seller can show from its own order data. The second is the review attached to the wrong product, where a listing merge or a variation has carried another item's ratings onto yours. The third is the genuine complaint about a counterfeit bought from a different storefront, which the marketplace can detach from your listing once that seller is identified. Amazon's report-abuse form and Flipkart's seller-support ticket take the first complaint; where the marketplace does not act, RepuLex escalates to its grievance officer with the same file. A verified purchaser's genuine dislike of the product is protected expression, and that review stays.
How do I remove an "is my brand a scam" page or YouTube video that ranks for my brand name?+
Start by proving it false, because every route will ask for that. A page claiming the brand collects money and never delivers is answered with despatch and delivery records, refund logs and the complaint-resolution history for the period it names; a page calling the company unregistered is answered with the incorporation certificate and GST registration. With that file, the host is approached first: YouTube takes defamation complaints through its legal web form, and Quora and Medium through their reporting routes for false claims of fraud. An anonymous author is not a dead end: alongside the interim injunction application it files in a High Court, the partner law firm can ask the court to direct the host to disclose the account's registration details, and the platform is bound to act on whatever the court orders.
How do I stop a fake customer-care number that is defrauding my brand's customers?+
Treat it as a live fraud first and a reputation problem second. RepuLex prepares the evidence bundle for the brand's own complaint on the national cybercrime portal, which the brand files in its own name: the number, the payment identifiers and remote-access apps the callers used, and customers' call records. Customers who lost money are pointed to the 1930 helpline, which can have the receiving account frozen, and each is supplied with a ready Chakshu report for the Sanchar Saathi portal to submit against the number. RepuLex files a Google Business Redressal complaint against any Maps listing carrying the number and an impersonation report with any social page or directory that displays it. The brand's genuine helpline is then placed on its verified Google Business Profile, its app and its invoices.
Can counterfeit or impersonation listings on marketplaces be taken down?+
Yes, and the registration certificate does most of the work. Amazon Brand Registry, Flipkart's brand-protection channel, and the seller-support and legal-notice routes on Myntra and Meesho each accept a complaint from the proprietor or agent, and RepuLex files it with the certificate or the application number, the listing identifiers, comparison images and, where a test purchase was made, the invoice and photographs. A marketplace needs a reason it can act on without adjudicating, and an unlicensed use of a registered mark is that reason; an unregistered brand is told to file the trade-mark application first, because the programme records a certificate or a pending application number. Relisting under a fresh storefront is common, so each takedown cites the earlier case reference and the seller's new identifiers, the basis on which a marketplace suspends the account rather than the single listing.
Can an honest negative review or a genuine news report about my product be removed?+
No, and an agency that says otherwise should be avoided. What can be done with an accurate report is different from removal. A factual error inside an otherwise accurate story, a wrong figure, a wrong date, a confused product name, is corrected by writing to the editor under the publication's own corrections policy, which most national mastheads publish, so the correction appears on the URL that ranks. A dated statement on the brand's own site, describing what was fixed and when, gives the brand-name search a current result beside the old one. One situation does bring an accurate report down: where the finding it reported is later reversed, for example a regulator withdraws its notice or a court sets aside its order, the publication can be asked to retract or update on the strength of that document, and many do.
How long does removal take for a consumer brand?+
Four things decide it, and the brand controls one of them. The first is whether the host acts inside its statutory window. The second is whether the author can be identified, since a notice needs an address to be served at and an anonymous author adds the time it takes to reach them through the court. The third is whether a court order is needed: a matter that closes at the platform stage is measured in days, one that needs a hearing in months. The fourth is where the host sits, since a foreign-hosted scam site answers to no Indian clock. What the brand controls is readiness: customers' call records collected as they arrive, screenshots captured with URL and date, and a board resolution naming the officer who will sign the affidavit, without which no court application can be filed.
Is Amazon or Flipkart legally required to remove a seller impersonating my brand?+
Not on the brand's word alone, but its duties make refusal costly. Under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020, Rule 4(4) requires every e-commerce entity to appoint and display a grievance officer, and Rule 4(5) requires that officer to acknowledge a consumer complaint within 48 hours and redress it within a month. Rule 5(2) requires a marketplace to take an undertaking from each seller that its descriptions and images match the goods, and Rule 6(2) bars a seller from posing as a consumer. A brand is not a consumer, so RepuLex uses the rules two ways: supporting a defrauded customer's grievance against the impersonating seller, and putting the marketplace on written notice of an undertaking it is not enforcing. The rules do not order a listing down; they make the marketplace answerable for its seller, which moves the delisting.
Do I need to fix my own listings before acting against fake reviews and scam pages?+
Usually there is something to fix, and four things are checked before the first complaint is filed. Influencer content is read against the ASCI Guidelines for Influencer Advertising: every paid post, gifted product and affiliate link needs a visible disclosure label. Checkout and pricing pages are checked for drip pricing, false-urgency timers and pre-ticked add-ons, the practices named in the CCPA Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns 2023. The brand's own review collection is compared with IS 19000:2022: reviews solicited only from satisfied customers, incentivised without disclosure or written by staff are flagged. The refund policy is read against the listing, because a "no questions asked" claim beside a fourteen-day exclusion is itself a misleading advertisement. A failing check holds back only the URL whose complaint would expose it; the rest of the matter proceeds.
Brands & E-commerce cases we have resolved
Anonymised, real brands & e-commerce engagements — the legal route, the timeline, and the verified outcome. Identifying details are altered to protect client confidentiality.
Ready to protect your brands & e-commerce reputation permanently?
Free assessment · Complete confidentiality · Fixed fee · Written removal confirmation