ATLANTA — If you’re looking for a business or a product, you’ve likely read the reviews to figure out which place you’re going to give your money.
Turns out, some of the reviews people depend on can be fake, misleading you into making a bad business decision.
Within the past month, six major companies across the globe are working to stop that by forming a coalition to fight fake reviews. Amazon, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, and Trustpilot are working together to figure out best practices to detect and stop fake reviews.
Amazon posted a statement following the coalition’s announcement:
Customer reviews are an important part of the shopping experience, and the goal of this coalition is to ensure every review reflects customers’ actual experiences. Amazon is aggressively fighting fake review brokers to protect our customers and selling partners, but these fraudsters are a global problem, impacting multiple industry sectors. Through greater collaboration and sharing across industries, including information on fraudsters’ tactics and how they operate, we can more effectively shut down fraudulent review activity, deter other bad actors from attempting to game our systems, and protect more consumers,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Services.
This comes on the heels of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposing a rule to stop businesses from using questionable practices like paying for good reviews. The FTC said the rule would bring civil penalties for people who break it and make things fair for honest companies by attacking what it calls deceptive advertising.
"Our proposed rule on fake reviews shows that we’re using all available means to attack deceptive advertising in the digital age. The rule would trigger civil penalties for violators and should help level the playing field for honest companies," said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.
Fighting fake reviews is something Dave White, with Southern Scoopers, a pet waste removal business based in Cumming, Georgia, said he could get behind. White said his business got reviews a couple of years ago from one person after he said he told the potential customer they only accept cards, not cash.
“So he flipped out and wrote five fake reviews under fake accounts,” White said.
White said his business is back at five stars on Google reviews now but added it took a couple of years for all the fake reviews to get removed.
“It’s a big deal,” White said of having a good rating. “Normally, when people google 'dog waste removal,' they're going to go down and look first at the people that have the most reviews and look at their average score. So five stars is pretty important.”
“It can make or break a business,” Simone Williams, with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), said.
What to do if businesses get a fake review
If a business gets a bad, fake review, the BBB suggests:
- Report it to the website the review where the review is posted.
- Answer it politely because the response could be seen by future customers.
- Check the BBB’s scam tracker to both report the review and compare it to similar problems reported.
How to spot fraudulent reviews
The BBB also gave tips for spotting fake reviews:
- Check if it’s a verified purchase, meaning the reviewer actually bought the product.
- Generic profiles or names are a red flag.
- Bad grammar or spelling errors typically signal a scam review.
- If the review is only using one or two words, without specifics, it’s likely a bot.
The BBB added people can also post reviews for businesses on its website. The BBB said it verifies each review and makes sure there is a transaction.