ITV Tonight
Fake Reviews, Trust, and What Consumers Should Know
The TruthEngine® appeared on ITV's Tonight programme to explain why online reviews are becoming harder to trust and what consumers, businesses and platforms can do in response.
We are an independent, UK-based review authentication specialist. We focus on identifying suspicious, manipulated or misleading reviews across major UK and international review sites.
Our data shows that up to half of the reviews we analyse now show signs of manipulation. This number varies by sector, but the number of suspicious reviews is generally higher in competitive industries, particularly where a new customer is hard to win and worth a lot.
The scale of manipulation we find often surprises people, because the suspicious reviews we detect, when read individually, may look perfectly normal.
Reviews can be flagged as suspicious for many reasons, including unusual bursts of activity, repetitive or templated wording or other hidden patterns that are almost impossible to spot by eye.
AI has made it much easier for bad actors to create large numbers of believable but false reviews. These can include positive five-star reviews designed to boost scores, negative one-star reviews intended to harm a rival's rating, or a combination of both. These reviews can often pass basic platform checks and may look genuine at first glance. Review platforms invest in detection, but at this scale it is difficult for them to catch everything.
For consumers, the key takeaway is to use reviews with caution!
We advise consumers to take time to look for balanced feedback (pay particular attention to 2,3 and 4 star reviews), cross-reference star-ratings between platforms, and sense-check what you find against well-established independent sources such as consumer organisations, broadcasters and expert guides.
Why reviews are harder to trust than they used to be
Online reviews were designed to help people quickly and easily share their genuine experiences. Over the last 25 years, however, they have changed:
- Reviews have become an important commercial lever for businesses
- Businesses arriving into competitive markets with high scores create a commercial pressure for their rivals to respond.
- AI has made large-scale review generation cheap and easy
Research consistently shows that it is actually very difficult to persuade consumers to leave reviews.
When they do, the reviews they leave are more likely to be negative than positive. This imbalance creates an environment for review manipulation and makes review scores hard to interpret at face value.
If you're a consumer: here's how to shop more wisely
If you watched the ITV Tonight programme and rely on reviews to help you make decisions, here's a few tricks to help protect you against fake reviews:
1. Be wary of perfect reviews
The public are a tough crowd. Genuine reviews will contain a broad mix of reactions. Some people will love something and others won't - often for the same reason. Be wary of a wall of flawless five-star reviews.
2. Read the words, not just the stars
Look beyond the star rating. Delve into the reviews. Don't just read the 'recommended' ones, change the filters and look for detailed reviews mentioning specific details. If they're all mentioning the same thing, proceed with caution.
3. Check the times the reviews arrived
Bursts of reviews all arriving in a short period can be a warning sign. Genuine feedback builds up gradually. A low number of reviews is actually quite normal.
4. Check reviewer profiles (where available)
Lots of glowing reviews from brand-new 'burner accounts' should be a red flag.
5. Treat unauthenticated reviews with caution
Choose a reputable review site, ideally one which uses independent third-party review authentication such as our TruthMark® product, and be particularly cautious when reading 'self-hosted' reviews on smaller ecommerce websites.
Remember - Reviews are useful, but they shouldn't be the only factor in a decision - especially for high-value or safety-critical purchases.
The good news: fake reviews are now illegal in the UK
Fake and manipulated reviews are now illegal under new UK consumer laws.
Under legislation introduced last year, reviews that are not based on real experiences, are written by staff, or are left in exchange for an “undisclosed” incentive are now illegal.
Businesses and platforms found to be breaking these rules can face significant fines of up to 10% of their global turnover.
The government's aim is to protect consumers and restore trust in reviews. Detecting fake reviews is hard and enforcement has so far been limited.
The Competition and Markets Authority has a difficult job, and enforcement is taking a long time.
If you're a business, platform or journalist
Reviews now influence far more than consumer choice. They increasingly affect:
- Trust and conversion
- AI-driven discovery and recommendations
- Regulatory and media scrutiny
What organisations should consider
- Understand your exposure, including historic reviews
- Move beyond moderation towards evidence-based oversight
- Treat reviews as trust infrastructure, not just marketing content
About TruthEngine®
TruthEngine® is an independent review authentication and analysis company.
Our role is not to accuse, but to identify risk, explain patterns and help restore trust through evidence.