7:09 am, August 13, 2026
An independent car dealer was forced to spend hours playing ‘detective’ after his business was wrongly targeted over a customer complaint involving a completely different dealership.
Umesh Samani, chairman of the Independent Motor Dealers Association and owner of Harris Motor Company in Stoke-on-Trent, found comments warning customers to ‘avoid’ his business appearing across around 10 of his TikTok videos on Monday night.
But the allegations had nothing to do with Samani or his dealership.
The woman posting the comments was complaining about treatment her sister had allegedly received from Harris Motor Group in Dewsbury, Yorkshire – a separate business more than 80 miles away.
Harris Motor Group, which was the subject of the original complaint, has since closed, with its website disappearing, Google profile removed and the company behind the dealership, Harris Automotive Limited, dissolved on August 11, according to Companies House.
Samani told Car Dealer: ‘I got the alert and I’m thinking, “What the hell’s happened?”
‘I started seeing “avoid, avoid, avoid” all over my TikTok videos. At first I thought she’d simply got the wrong place, but she’s posting all these comments underneath my videos.’
Unable to contact the woman through TikTok, Samani shared screenshots with fellow dealers in a WhatsApp group.
Another retailer then spotted that the allegations had also been posted in a Dewsbury community Facebook group, allowing Samani to identify the woman and contact her directly.
‘I sent her a message explaining this was defamation and told her she’d got the wrong business and needed to delete everything,’ he said.
According to Samani, she quickly apologised after realising the mistake and removed the TikTok comments.
He said: ‘She said, “I’m really, really sorry”.
‘I told her, “You’ve started this.” She’d deleted the TikTok posts but by then somebody else had already taken screenshots.’
The problem did not end there. Samani said a man he does not know subsequently used screenshots from the original complaint to leave a one-star Google review on Harris Motor Company’s profile.
The review was still online when Samani spoke to Car Dealer, despite him reporting it to Google.
He said he spent much of Tuesday attempting to identify the people involved and have the material removed.
‘I’ve spent hours playing detective trying to track these people down,’ he said.
‘Honestly, it’s just a nightmare.
‘It’s hassle you don’t need. I’ve got better things to be doing than spending hours trying to trace people and message backwards and forwards.
‘We’re Harris Motor Company in Stoke-on-Trent, not Harris Motor Group in Dewsbury. There’s a massive, massive difference.
‘You should do your homework first, especially if you call yourself a content creator. Get your facts straight before posting something that could damage somebody’s business.’
Samani said the woman had apologised and promised to publish a TikTok video correcting the mistake, although he had yet to see whether it had been uploaded when he spoke to Car Dealer.
He said the incident showed how quickly an inaccurate allegation could spread online and create problems for an unrelated business.
The false review has not had a major impact on Harris Motor Company’s overall Google rating, and Samani was able to respond publicly to explain the case of mistaken identity.
However, he said the experience should serve as a warning to social media users about checking their facts before making allegations against businesses online.
‘Someone like me puts so much effort into customer service,’ he said.
‘It took me hours to sort out something that should never have happened in the first place.’