There could be a solution for café owners unhappy with negative reviews.

It comes after the case of a Napier woman who was barred from her local cafe after she wrote a three-star online review.

She loved the coffee but her complaint was over the expensive food, with the harsh review enough to earn her a ban.

Many people agree the cafe went too far in banning her – and it turns out there is a proper solution.

Andrew Whitford is the founder of a Melbourne start-up called Removify. He told Andrew Dickens that it has been built to deal with this exact situation and help cafes get reviews that either go to far to are likely fake removed.

He says that they will assist the businesses go to the various platforms and act on their behalf. 

Whitford says that the reviews can be used by rival businesses or angry customers. 

"Definitely you get competitors using it to attack a rival. It can be a real person, but what they've ended up doing in their review is try to get some kind of revenge or extortion."

• Napier woman barred from local cafe over three star review