Fake reviews

How it works

A rating is a shortcut. Four and a half stars from 2,000 people feels like 2,000 strangers vouching for a product, and nobody reads 2,000 reviews. That shortcut is exactly what gets bought. Sellers pay review farms a few euros per five-star review. Facebook and Telegram groups match sellers with “reviewers” who get the product refunded in exchange for a glowing write-up. A card in the box promises a gift voucher for five stars, and quietly steers anything lower towards “customer service”, where it never becomes public. Competitors get the mirror image: a wave of one-star reviews, sometimes from the same farm.

Platforms fight it, with mixed results. When the European Commission and national consumer authorities screened websites in 2022, 55 % of them breached EU rules on reviews; most could not show how they checked that reviewers had actually bought the product. The EU’s Omnibus directive, applied since May 2022, makes it illegal to post or commission fake reviews and requires shops to say whether and how they verify that reviews come from real buyers. The US followed in 2024 with a federal rule banning fake and bought reviews. The groups are still there. The law makes it riskier, not impossible.

Example

@trendly_official, 2d · Sponsored 4.9 / 5 from 1,312 verified buyers. The AirPure Mini is Europe’s best-loved air purifier. Order today.

@dori_reads_reviews, 1d Sorted by newest: 800 five-stars posted between 3 and 9 March, all from one-review accounts, half of them containing the phrase “AirPure Mini air purifier”. Then nothing since. Hm.

Notice what the shop sells with the rating: a number and a vague superlative. What the reply does is the whole defence: change the sort order and look at when and by whom.

Why it works on you

• Numbers feel like crowds. We read a rating as the verdict of many independent strangers (the bandwagon effect). Bought reviews are not independent and often not strangers.
• Stories beat statistics. One vivid “my grandmother loves it” review persuades more than the distribution of 2,000 ratings. Farms write vivid.
• Lying is cheap, checking is slow. Thirty seconds of reading versus three weeks waiting for a refund: the shortcut wins every time unless you turn checking into a habit.

What to do

Before you buy: sort by newest and look at the dates. Real reviews trickle in, bought ones arrive in bursts. Read the three-star reviews; they are rarely bought and usually honest. Click a few reviewer profiles: one review each, or the same five brands praised in a row, is a sockpuppet pattern. Search the product name plus “review” outside the shop. And treat “incentivised” or “free product received” labels as what they are: ads.

When you are asked: a voucher for a five-star review is a bribe, and in the EU it is illegal for the seller. Review honestly or not at all; a “paid review” side hustle also ties your name to a fraud.

In a comment section: do not accuse a seller of fraud you cannot prove. Describe what you saw (“800 five-stars in one week, all first-time reviewers”) and link the pattern. Readers can verify that themselves in a minute, which is more persuasive than any accusation.

Don’t confuse it with

• A genuinely popular product also gets lots of five stars, but spread over time, in many voices, with complaints mixed in.
• A “verified purchase” label means the account bought the item, not that it was not refunded afterwards for the review.