A new beauty salon in Bromley has been left “shocked” after an investigation revealed that a 1* review left by a ‘customer’ turned out to be from a competitor across the road.

Beutiva beauty salon in Bromley High Street opened in May 2021 and has received 5* Google reviews from customers ever since – until earlier this month.

On August 9, the team at Beutiva were devastated after they saw they had been left a 1* review from who they thought was a paying client.

After “scrambling” to investigate what they had done so wrong to the so-called client, the team found that the review had actually been left by Bromley competitors Primark’s Rawr Beauty.

The review rated the waxing service as 1* and said “overpriced and poor service”.

The salon team said they could not understand why a local competitor wanted to “intimidate” them, and that things were hard enough anyway as a new, independent business.

Marketing manager Esther Sosan told the News Shopper: “We were so shocked when we initially saw the review because we had a 5* streak and we are trying to build a luxury VIP brand and service.

News Shopper:

“We went to investigate the review to see if we could help this customer and then we saw that it had been left by Rawr Beauty who are in the Primark in Bromley.

“We obviously knew they were a local competitor but found it so weird that they had left us a review, as some sort of intimidation tactic.

“It was left at 1am as well which makes it even weirder.”

Esther explained that Beutiva also received an email from a Rawr Beauty email address saying “Why Primark Bromley cheaper than u for lash lifts? Rip off”.

She said: “The review and email came from an official Rawr email address and it’s weird that they didn’t put it as anonymous either.

“Is it an intimidation tactic, do they want us to know that they’re on our radar or do they do this often and forgot to hide their tracks this time?

“The review was quite obviously traceable and its misleading customers on purpose.

“Why would they even do this?”

Esther said that Beutiva wrote an open letter to Rawr, emailing it directly to them, but that she has not yet had a response.

She clarified that Beutiva has no record of anyone from Rawr having had an appointment or any treatments at the salon.

The News Shopper has contacted Rawr Beauty for comment.

News Shopper:

Esther added: “This is something worth a response from the company as someone who represents that company has acted completely out of what I’d hope their guidelines are.

“It’s difficult enough for a business that’s just opened up and is brand new with no other chains to have to compete with bigger companies.

“And, our social media and reviews are where we build our trust and we thought we were losing trust with potential clients because of their actions - when it was in fact a fake review.

“We enjoy a bit of friendly competition but this wasn’t exactly friendly.”

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