What online shoppers need to know to spot fake reviews

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The holiday spending season kicks off this week, and businesses from spas, to shops and restaurants -- and everything in between -- are competing for consumers’ money. But some businesses are gaming the system to get attention through fake online reviews -- and it's more common than one might think.

Online reviews are a huge part of doing business, but consumer advocates warn that not all reviews are genuine. The Federal Trade Commission even proposed a rule earlier this year that would prohibit fake reviews.

The agency said nearly 11% of Google reviews are fake, and the average American wastes $125 a year being deceived by them.

Mani Pannu launched his Westerville-based photography business in 2020, after years of honing his craft and assisting high-profile photographers in New York and California. 

"During the pandemic, as you've seen, a lot of new businesses popped up. People had time on their hands. They were working from home. Everybody started doing nothing but photography it seems like," Pannu said. "Every day is a challenge, you know, but it keeps getting easier and easier. The way you keep doing more and more good work, and people trust your name. People trust your work."

Three years in, Pannu said business is going well.

"Word of mouth," he said. "At the end of the day, that's still the best form of marketing today."

While business owners like Pannu work hard to satisfy their customers, consumer advocate Jason Brown said other business owners choose an easier route to achieve five-star status.

"I refer to the online review industry as the wild wild west," said Brown, a former marketing executive.

Brown launched reviewfraud.org seven years ago after learning about a friend's bad experience with a plumbing company, which Brown said showed up at his friend's door to ask her to change a negative review.

"When I looked at the plumbing company, they had a 2.3 or 2.1 Yelp rating, but on Google, they had a 4.8," Brown said. "And I was like, 'Ok, that just doesn't seem right.'"

Brown's website uses an algorithm to "inspect" customer reviews across different online platforms to detect fake ones. He lists businesses by state that are discovered to have fake reviews. The site lists more than 40 businesses in Ohio.

"Everybody says, 'Reviews are important and I'm not going to show up without them,'" Brown said. "And so that's the incentive that people see as a reason to ask friends, or review their own businesses, or get into these review swap groups or buy reviews online."

Just a quick search on Facebook reveals people all over the world looking to buy and sell fake reviews for as little as $1 per post.

As easy as it is to get a fake review, it's just as hard to spot one.

"You have to play detective, to keep yourself protected before you let somebody shady into your house," Brown cautioned.

One way to spot abuse is to click on the reviewer's profile. Brown said a profile that has only left one review, has an account set to 'private,' or uses a photo of a celebrity or a penguin as an avatar are all signs that the review might be fake.

The user's profile can also reveal where else they've left reviews. Brown said reviews of multiple businesses across different states around the same time can be a red flag, especially if multiple accounts appear to be reviewing the same distant businesses.

For example, Brown identified two accounts that left five-star reviews for a Columbus moving company and also reviewed a California marketing firm around the same time.

"We have better chances of winning the lottery, being struck by lightning during a shark attack, than it is to see three people reviewing the same businesses in multiple states," Brown said.

The FTC also recommends looking at when reviews are posted. A surge of positive reviews around the same time can be cause for concern.

Ironically, Brown said consumers don't typically prefer perfect ratings.

"There's actually a study -- a business with a 4.6 rating actually gets more clicks than the business with a five-star rating," Brown said. "But people think that we always need to be perfect. It's like no, we don't. Consumers know that not every business is perfect."

More important to a company's reputation, Brown said, is how it responds to negative feedback. 

He suggests consumers look at a company's negative reviews and consider the owner's response.

As a consumer and a business owner, Pannu said he always reads negative reviews first when he's shopping around.

"I always go for a restaurant that has like, above 4.5. Keep it realistic. That's what I believe in," Pannu said. "Not every customer is going to be happy with you. Not every place is going to be a golden place. There are places that will have some negatives. But who doesn't?"

And when he receives a less-than-stellar review, "We try to respond back to those reviews, and try to accommodate them in the best possible way we can, you know, refund or or give them a free shoot or something like that. But I think for us, it's we've been really lucky, everything's been positive so far-- knock on wood."

Amazon and Google have both said they're taking action to remove fake reviews from their respective platforms.

In a statement to NBC4, Amazon said it uses technology and human investigators to block fake reviews. According to the company, it blocked 200 million fake reviews in 2022 before they were even published. 

Google acknowledged a request for comment, but has not provided that comment.

Amazon and Google have also filed lawsuits against what they call "fake review brokers."