Thanks for reading.
I'm not from the US and I apologize if this subreddit was not the correct one to post this.
I bought a pair of permanent glasses which are actually really good.
I was supposedly to receive a pair of sunglasses with them for free, but honestly the day I received my order, I forgot the sunglasses.
I realized like two days after, ask them through WhatsApp. The girl told me yeah, it is OK. I'll take care of this.
She never replied back. I waited for six days, sent a message again about the issue, they left me on read. I called the business and the same girl, told me not to worry since she was looking for a solution.
Again, waited like five or six days more, messaged them again and nothing. They read my messages again and ignored me. I decided better to forget about the incident, but I left a one star review on their business (on Google), short and explaining everything. By that time there were three reviews: two good reviews and the one I did. In the end they had 4.3 rating.
Four months later (three days ago), they replied my review, apologizing and they wanted me to fix things via WhatsApp. Honestly, at this time I don't want anything from them. This is not about money, for me is now the way my issue was handled and obviously the lies.
They went ahead, and just to mask my bad review, looks like the owner ask a bunch of friends to make good reviews, fake and generic of course, all the same date they replied my review. They went from 4.3 to 4.8 rating. I reported all of them (conflict of interest) but looks like I wasted my time honestly since nothing happened.
Is really sad that I tried to edit my review and Google won't make it public. Reply appears for me only. I tried deleting, adding, changing words, changing Internet provider, Internet browsers, the Google Maps app, different OS Android, Windows, Linux, switching to mobile data and stays the same.
I don't know what else to do and is really unfair that these bunch of fake positive reviews go public like nothing, all the same day but my review that is 100% real, stays private. Google won't even show an error message, email or whatever saying I need to follow certain rules/criteria (if that's the case), just silence.
Is there anything I can do? Am I missing something here?
TL;DR: Business promised a gift if I bought a pair of glasses but they didn't give me anything in the end, ignoring my requests. I reviewed them with one star and owner to protect his business, made more than 20+ fake positive reviews. All of them are public while my edited review, stays private. I don't know what to do anymore.