Consumer Fraud & Deceptive Business Practices
When you're looking for a plumber to fix a pipe issue, searching for a doctor, heading out to have a nice dinner or looking to buy a car, you do what a lot if not what most of us do: You go online and look at reviews. Google and Yelp come to mind immediately for most business reviews. Car dealerships use those as well as other specialized platforms like DealerRater. Facebook has a review function that many business pages use too. And all of these sites have varying levels of review integrity management to ensure that reviews are authentic- for better or worse. But did you know that companies exist to manipulate those reviews? From online services that pledge to combat the negative to unscrupulous companies paid to actually create false reviews- if you want them, you can easily find them with a few simple clicks of your mouse. A few examples of why someone or a business would be tempted to leave a false review are: -Johnny just started a landscaping business but is having a hard time getting views to his website. He creates a Google listing for his company and asks his friends and family to leave him a positive review so that he might be more likely to be seen- and hired to get his business rolling. -Steve owns a car dealership and has taken it over from a previous owner. The original location operated so badly, it created quite a negative buzz- and Steve is fighting an uphill battle to get customers to trust his new, more kosher business approach. -Jane had terrible service at a local restaurant. Instead of simply leaving a review for the bad business she received, she- outraged, solicited people to also go and target the business and leave terrible reviews.
Many people might be surprised to learn that the first two examples of leaving fake reviews might be illegal. And Jane- even poor, pissed off, hangry Jane- might have done something that can get her into some legal trouble. The Federal Trade Commission or FTC has an entire division called The Bureau of Consumer Protection and much legislature exists to protect consumers from something called "deceptive business practices". In fact, each state also has its own sets of laws to protect consumers from businesses that may twist the truth (or in the case of this article- pad their reviews online) in effort to entice more business to come their way. Those laws would be enforced by your state's Attorney General's office.
Here in the state of Illinois, statute 815 ILCS 505 is dedicated to the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and outlines everything from how a business should word a print ad to what should be disclosed in the fine print. Your state's Attorney General, along with the FTC are dedicated to protecting consumers from fraudulent representations made by companies, and in the last several years, have started to seriously crack down on deceptive advertising and even those seemingly harmless online reviews. In an article published by the FTC October 13, 2021, the agency makes their position on the subject very clear: “Fake reviews and other forms of deceptive endorsements cheat consumers and undercut honest businesses,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Advertisers will pay a price if they engage in these deceptive practices.” The FTC also gives guidelines to influencers (like yours truly) about endorsements and product placement. For example, if I was given a product for the purpose of performing a review or was compensated for giving a review- I can not: -represent that I paid for the item myself (unless I did- otherwise I have to tell you that it was given to me in exchange for the review) -fail to disclose that my review is actually an endorsement if I'm paid to endorse it -accept payment to perform a positive review of a product OR be paid to give a product a negative review That's right- all reviews must be HONEST reviews and if they're simply paid endorsements- then it MUST be disclosed. Amazon.com has been in hot water for paid positive review scams on their platform, and even I can testify that I've been solicited by vendors to be compensated for performing fake positive amazon reviews. (I obviously declined) Amazon is very strict on this issue, and an account will be flagged if they can't verify a purchase has been made by a reviewer and a reviewer leaving too many reviews too quickly faces having their account suspended or revoked. Sellers risk having their Amazon accounts shut down, and many have complained about not receiving payouts owed to them after being caught giving or soliciting compensation for positive reviews only. Following a hunch of my own on a private, but related matter- I came across something called "Reputation Management" services. These services offer either legitimate action to combat fraudulent or misleading negative reviews on sites like Google and Yelp- or straight up, brazenly offer to leave positive reviews- in return for compensation. But they do not use the service, buy a product, or even have to be in the same state. They're just lying to customers for the business to look more reputable. I investigated further, and I quickly found an example of several companies that appear to be brazenly committing fraud through fake Google reviews. Let's take a look: Newmark Air Conditioning has 52 reviews on Google at the time of this article's publishing. A strong 4.9 out of 5 star rating is overwhelming. Seems like a wonderful place to do business.
But then we click on the reviews:
Right off the bat, just from this first page of reviews, we notice several reviews from the same time period, and several “odd” names. Let’s look deeper at the first name on the list and all of her reviews:
You might notice something right away here, without even being able to click on the reviews.
This person gets AROUND. And I mean, gets around like a $5 hooker on payday in the hood. She went far.
This lady has had not one, but two payday loans in two different towns in Ohio, got a mortgage in Texas, got IT services in North Carolina, SEO in Malaysia, Fireworks in the UK, a car in central Illinois, etc.
That might not be completely unbelievable, by itself... but upon closer inspection, all of her reviews were done two weeks ago:
No problem, maybe she was just catching up on reviews from the last few years. She had a day to kill two weeks ago and thought… “Hmmm… I better review that SEO company I hired in Malaysia that one time, and that payday loan in Ohio, and oh yeah… those fireworks I bought in the UK. Oops, can't forget that VA mortgage I got in Texas.”
Let’s give her that much benefit of the doubt. So, we’ll go look at some of the other people that also left a review for the original company we looked at- Newmark AC company:
Would you look at that?!? Someone who also reviewed the AC company at the very same time that our first poster did also happened to buy fireworks from the EXACT same company in the UK… what are the odds? Small world, I guess:
The next one down the list?
Also bought a car at the same car dealership as the original reviewer, went to the same company in Singapore, and got their AC fixed with Newmark. I’m feeling like playing the lottery with these odds.
Let’s continue to the next person and the one after that:
And there you have it. The most unlikely set of people that overlap the most unlikely locations. Click on any single one of those businesses, and follow the rabbit down the hole:
And deeper down we go:
(I’ve been clicking these names for hours and it’s not even difficult to connect here.)
And you start to see that either a caravan of people happen to travel the world and leave reviews at exactly the same time for exactly the same businesses… or… there’s some fraud afoot.
So, why would these businesses do that? Simple. Go back to the examples above:
- Trying to build an online reputation for themselves (most likely what the air conditioning company was trying to do)
-Trying to combat an earned bad reputation
-Responding to targeted fraudulent negative feedback
In most cases, it’s one of the first two because Google is fantastic about removing targeted negative reviews very quickly.
So what can you do to protect yourself? Do exactly what I just showed you here. Several red flags are: -A company that only has positive reviews all within a short span of time -A company that has bursts of 5 star reviews in bunches, then a break in time between those and prior reviews -A company that has a large number of reviews and is brand new in business or a sudden number of positive (or negative) reviews all at once -A company that has hardly any in between (2 and 3 star reviews) but majority 1 and 5 star. You should also take notice if a review is over the top in excitement, but very vague at the same time. An example positive review fake might look like- "BEST EXPERIENCE EVER! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!" And a negative fake might be like- "Terrible people. Don't waste your time." Instead, look for very detailed reviews. People that take the time to leave an honest review are usually provoked by feeling and will want to give you details: "I visited Sarah's salon on Tuesday on the recommendation of my best friend. I was there on time and Sarah was already set up and waiting. She looked at the photo of what I wanted my hair to look like and addressed issues with my expectation and was able to achieve something similar. I'm glad she explained a realistic expectation to me and I trust her to do my hair in the future. I highly recommend Sarah. Thanks for a great visit!" Clicking through the reviews as we did above is an excellent way to quickly figure out if there are fraudulent reviews. Where there are some details to the reviews, they're still pretty generic. That, and it's pretty unlikely that a person would buy 5 cars in the span of a week, or like we saw above- the same names all visited locations all over the world and transacted there according to these reviewers. Pretty unlikely indeed- if not impossible. Another scam to look out for with reviews is fraudulent employee reviews. Simply put, look for names of salespeople currently employed at the business. (Lots of businesses list their employees on their websites. "Meet the team" tabs are really common.) This type of scam is extremely common in commissioned sales positions. Steven leaves a review for John. John leaves a review for Glen. Glen leaves a review for Steven. All of these men represent themselves to be customers that received service from another member of the sales team to try and bolster each other's images. Had they instead left a review- "I love working here, such a great place to be!" or "I work with Steve, and he's such a great guy!" it is my understanding it would have been completely legal because they aren't representing themselves to be customers, and they disclosed that they work there.
Please also keep this article in mind should a friend or family member ask you for the favor of a positive review. You might think you're helping them out, but not being forthcoming about your relationship or representing yourself as a customer when you aren't might get the business in trouble. According to a 10/20/21 article on koaa.com: "The Federal Trade Commission just announced it will now fine businesses up to $43,792 per violation for fake reviews and misleading endorsements." That's not pocket change to anyone! The FTC has had some pretty large fines for fake reviews in recent years: $12.8 million for fake Amazon reviews on a supplement, and $3.6 million for a group of car dealerships creating fraudulent online reviews are just two examples. With the FTC making an announcement this year that they'd be cracking down even harder on fraudulent online reviews, better tell cousin Betty that as much as you love her cooking, you can't review her bagel shop until you've actually bought the bagels. On the flip side of fraudulent reviews, leaving a cranky review for bad service might not get you into any trouble with the FTC, but soliciting and encouraging others to leave fake negative reviews might get you sued. If you rely on honest reviews before you choose to transact with a business, definitely consider digging into them just a little deeper before you make up your mind. And if you feel like you found a whopper of an online fraud, consider reporting it to your state's attorney general and the FTC. If you need help reaching someone urgently, reach out here- we might be able to help you out.
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