Review fakery is becoming more common. In fact, the buying and selling of fake reviews is big business, as companies know the impact reviews can have on revenue. Fake review brokers are individuals who create and sell fake reviews, allowing businesses to deceive consumers by generating an unfair competitive advantage, thus harming others.
Any company can easily and cheaply exaggerate their popularity and trustworthiness with hundreds of fake reviews, and many do. Up until recently, there have been no consequences for this unethical practice. But now, in the UK and many countries across the world, legislation is coming.
Review fakery is becoming more common. In fact, the buying and selling of fake reviews is big business, as companies know the impact reviews can have on revenue. Fake review brokers are individuals who create and sell fake reviews, allowing businesses to deceive consumers by generating an unfair competitive advantage, thus harming others.
Some businesses go to great lengths to improve their rating. Their tactics range from the slightly grey area of incentivising happy customers to write reviews to the clearly unethical practice of purchasing fake reviews in bulk from fake review brokers. In this article, we uncover nine main types of fake reviews.