Tag: fake reviews

New laws to be introduced to ‘force businesses to be upfront with customers’

  • Fake reviews will be added to banned practices
  • Unavoidable hidden fees cost consumers £2.2 billion every year

Fake reviews, shop labelling and hidden fees that make shopping more difficult and expensive for consumers will all be targeted head on to clamp down on unfair trading practices.

Following a consultation into consumer transparency and as part of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill (DMCC), the Department for Business and Trade will officially add fake reviews to a list of banned business practices, outlaw dripped fees that are unavoidable for consumers and ensure that businesses provide clearer labelling for prices on supermarket shelves.

These measures will be legislated for as part of the DMCC Bill as it progresses through Parliament.

Sneaky hidden fees, or dripped prices that are unavoidable will be banned. Drip pricing occurs when consumers are shown an initial price for a good or service while additional fees are revealed (or “dripped”) later in the checkout process.

Research suggests it is widespread and occurs in more than half of providers in the entertainment (54 percent) and hospitality (56 percent) industry, and almost three quarters across transport and communication (72 percent) sectors.

Every year, unavoidable fees cost consumers £2.2 billion, which is why these laws are being designed to ensure online shoppers have a clear idea of what they are spending upfront, to inform them as much as possible and as soon as possible before making purchases.

To make it easier for consumers to compare products and services, fees that are mandatory must be included in the headline price or at the start of the shopping process – these include booking fees for cinemas and train tickets.

Optional fees such as airline seat and luggage upgrades for flights will not be included in these measures.

Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business Kevin Hollinrake said: “From supermarket shelves to digital baskets – modern day shopping provides customers with more choice than ever before. But with that, comes the increased risk of confusion, scams and traps that can easily cost the public more than they had planned.

“Today’s announcement demonstrates the clear steps we’re taking as a government to ensure customers can compare purchases with ease, aren’t duped by fake reviews, and have the sting of hidden fees taken away.”

Reviews were found to be used by 90% of consumers and contributed to the £224 billion spent in online retail markets in 2022, which is why this government is committed to ensuring that the information available online is accurate and fair.

Working with the Competition and Market’s Authority, new guidance will be created in the coming months to tackle fake reviews which will be added to the list of banned practices, with website hosts held accountable for reviews on their pages.

The Price Marking Order (PMO), a piece of Retained EU Law, will also be reformed now ]we have taken back control of our laws’.

The PMO requires traders to display the final selling price and, where appropriate the final unit price (e.g., price per litre/kilogram) of products in a clear way. The EU’s PMO laws were last updated 20 years ago and no longer reflect modern shopping habits.

We will be working with stakeholders and businesses to create new, simpler and clearer guidance for pricing labels that works best for British businesses and improves the shopping experiences for UK customers. This is expected to be issued in the spring.

Our proposed changes will ensure unit pricing is consistently applied, including to promotions and special offers, helping consumers compare products easily and identify what items represent the best value to them.

Small shops that are currently exempt from the PMO will continue to be exempt from those specific measures.

Graham Wynn, Assistant Director, British Retail Consortium said: “The BRC looks forward to continuing to work with officials as practical detailed implementation plans are developed. We are committed to ensuring information given to consumers is clear and they are not misled in any way.“

The UK Government will also be making provision for the PMO in relation to the Deposit Return Scheme so the cost of the deposit is displayed separately on price labels.

In addition to fake reviews and hidden fees, the DMCC Bill will also look at other consumer issues including subscription traps, and will provide the CMA with stronger tools to investigate competition problems and take faster, more effective action, including where companies collude to bump-up prices at the expense of UK consumers.

CMA to investigate Amazon and Google over fake reviews

The CMA has opened a formal probe into Amazon and Google over concerns that they have not been doing enough to combat fake reviews on their sites.

In this next phase of the work, the Competititon and Markets Authority (CMA) will gather further information to determine whether these two firms may have broken consumer law by taking insufficient action to protect shoppers from fake reviews.

The move comes after an initial CMA investigation, which opened in May 2020, and assessed several platforms’ internal systems and processes for identifying and dealing with fake reviews.

This work has raised specific concerns such as whether Amazon and Google have been doing enough to:

  • Detect fake and misleading reviews or suspicious patterns of behaviour. For example, where the same users have reviewed the same range of products or businesses at similar times to each other and there is no connection between those products or businesses – or where the review suggests that the reviewer has received a payment or other incentive to write a positive review.
  • Investigate and, where necessary, remove promptly fake and misleading reviews from their platforms.
  • Impose adequate sanctions on reviewers or businesses to deter them and others from posting fake or misleading reviews on their platforms – including those who have published these types of reviews many times.

The CMA is also concerned that Amazon’s systems have been failing adequately to prevent and deter some sellers from manipulating product listings – for example, by co-opting positive reviews from other products.

Fake and misleading reviews have the potential to impact on businesses’ star ratings and how prominently companies and products are displayed to consumers, changing their whole shopping experience.

Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive, said: “Our worry is that millions of online shoppers could be misled by reading fake reviews and then spending their money based on those recommendations. Equally, it’s simply not fair if some businesses can fake 5-star reviews to give their products or services the most prominence, while law-abiding businesses lose out.

“We are investigating concerns that Amazon and Google have not been doing enough to prevent or remove fake reviews to protect customers and honest businesses. It’s important that these tech platforms take responsibility and we stand ready to take action if we find that they are not doing enough.”

If, after investigating, the CMA considers the firms have broken consumer protection law, it can take enforcement action. This could include securing formal commitments from the firms to change the way they deal with fake reviews or escalating to court action if needed. However, the CMA has not reached a view on whether Amazon and Google have broken the law at this stage.

This latest work builds on action taken by the CMA last year over the trading of fake reviews, which resulted in Facebook, Instagram and eBay removing groups and banning individuals for buying and selling fake reviews on their sites.

The CMA’s investigation into fake reviews is part of a broader programme of CMA work, which includes establishing a new pro-competition regulatory regime for digital markets, to curb the power of big tech. This will be achieved through the Digital Markets Unit. As the CMA works with the Government on proposals, it will continue to use its existing powers to their fullest extent in order to examine and protect competition in these areas.

Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: “We have repeatedly exposed fake reviews on websites including Amazon and Google, so this investigation is a positive step. The CMA must now move swiftly towards establishing whether these companies have broken the law.

“This should prompt Amazon and Google to finally take the necessary steps to protect users from the growing tide of fake reviews on their platforms and, if they fail to do so, the regulator must be prepared to take strong enforcement action.

“The government must also give online platforms greater legal responsibility for tackling fake and fraudulent content on their sites – including fake and misleading review activity.”

More information about the CMA’s probe into Amazon and Google can be found on the Online Reviews case page.

CMA intervention leads to further Facebook action on fake reviews

  • Facebook to make it harder for people to find groups and profiles that buy and sell fake reviews
  • 16,000 trading groups removed with suspensions or bans for users who create these groups
  • it comes after CMA investigation found more evidence of misleading content

This latest action by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) follows reports that fake and misleading reviews continued to be bought and sold on the social media platforms.

In January 2020, Facebook committed to better identify, investigate and remove groups and other pages where fake and misleading reviews were being traded, and prevent them from reappearing.

Facebook gave a similar pledge in relation to its Instagram.com business in May 2020, after the CMA had identified similar concerns.

A follow-up investigation found evidence that the illegal trade in fake reviews was still taking place on both Facebook and Instagram and the CMA intervened for a second time.

Facebook has now removed a further 16,000 groups that were dealing in fake and misleading reviews. It has also made further changes to its systems for identifying, removing and preventing such content on its social media platforms to ensure it is fulfilling its previous commitments.

These include:

  • suspending or banning users who are repeatedly creating Facebook groups and Instagram profiles that promote, encourage or facilitate fake and misleading reviews
  • introducing new automated processes that will improve the detection and removal of this content
  • making it harder for people to use Facebook’s search tools to find fake and misleading review groups and profiles on Facebook and Instagram
  • putting in place dedicated processes to make sure that these changes continue to work effectively and stop the problems from reappearing

Andrea Coscelli, Chief Executive of the CMA, said: “Never before has online shopping been so important. The pandemic has meant that more and more people are buying online, and millions of us read reviews to enable us to make informed choices when we shop around.

“That’s why fake and misleading reviews are so damaging – if people lose trust in online reviews, they are less able to shop around with confidence, and will miss out on the best deals. It also means that businesses playing by the rules miss out.

“Facebook has a duty to do all it can to stop the trading of such content on its platforms. After we intervened again, the company made significant changes – but it is disappointing it has taken them over a year to fix these issues.

“We will continue to keep a close eye on Facebook, including its Instagram business. Should we find it is failing to honour its commitments, we will not hesitate to take further action.”

This move follows the UK Government’s announcement that a dedicated Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will be set up within the CMA from April 2021.

Once the necessary legislation is in place, this will introduce and enforce a new code for governing the behaviour of platforms that currently dominate the market. As part of this process, the CMA has been advising government on the design and implementation of a pro-competition regime for digital markets.

Rocio Concha, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Which?, said: “We’ve previously raised the alarm about fake review factories continuing to operate at scale on Facebook, leaving online shoppers at huge risk of being misled. The tech giant failed to meet its earlier commitment to the CMA, so it is positive that the regulator has stepped in and demanded more robust action.

“Facebook must deliver this time round – it has shown it has the sophisticated technology to eradicate these misleading review groups and needs to do so much more swiftly and effectively.

“The CMA and Facebook now need to monitor the situation and if the problems persist the regulator must take stronger measures to ensure that trust in online reviews does not continue to be undermined.

“Online platforms should also have greater legal responsibility for tackling fake and fraudulent content and activity on their sites.”

For more information on the CMA’s fake reviews work, please see the dedicated webpage: Fake and misleading online reviews trading.

Black Friday: beware of fake reviews

Which? is warning of the risk of fake reviews misleading shoppers this Black Friday as new research suggests Amazon is struggling to spot and prevent sellers from using unscrupulous tactics to manipulate their ratings.

Fake reviews are a big problem on many of the world’s biggest websites and Which? has also previously uncovered evidence of fake and suspicious review activity on eBay, Facebook and TripAdvisor.

In the UK, Amazon is a dominant force with Black Friday shoppers. Which? research found 34 per cent of consumers planned to buy something there this Black Friday, compared to 16 per cent at John Lewis and seven per cent at Currys PC World.

In its latest investigation Which? looked at the first page of Amazon listings for some of the most popular Black Friday product categories, including tablets, smartphones and wearables, as well as headphones and mobile phone accessories – where it has previously found evidence of concerning review activity.

Which? uncovered a range of obvious tactics sellers are using to manipulate review ratings. Amazon says it has clear policies that prohibit sellers from engaging in this type of activity, and has mechanisms in place to analyse reviews, but Which? is concerned that its approach is not effective enough. Which?’s experts found:

  • Blatant evidence of sellers incentivising shoppers to write positive reviews, using free gifts or vouchers. Despite exposing this practice in previous investigations and it being in breach of Amazon’s site policies, this appears to be a persistent issue. In a number of cases the products were also labelled with the Amazon’s Choice endorsement and had comments within reviews such as: “wouldn’t have placed this review but for the fact that I am hoping to claim the free gifts offered by doing so”.
  • Large numbers of positive product reviews uploaded in a suspiciously short space of time. In one example a pair of Pro-Elec headphones had 1,006 ratings and 4.8 stars despite the listing having only been added less than six months earlier. That’s more than five reviews each day, on average, for a brand that’s unknown outside of Amazon. Of those reviews, 92 per cent were five stars.
  • Products with a suspiciously high number of review images – Which? research has shown how unscrupulous sellers often ask for images when they request positive reviews on their products. One smartwatch by Willful, an Amazon’s Choice product, had 3,800 images posted alongside the 2,544 written reviews – easily outnumbering the reviews with images left for products by better-known brands – this is more than 60 times the number of reviews with images left on the Apple Watch Series 3.
  • Review merging – where sellers merge dormant or unavailable products with new or existing product listings as a way to transfer positive reviews from one to another. This included a supposed iPhone 11 adaptor which appeared to share reviews with the popular PS4 video game The Last of Us.
  • Products with colour ‘variations’ manipulated to create higher numbers of positive reviews – evidence of users leaving multiple reviews, on the same day, by selecting different colour variants, in an apparent effort to evade any systems Amazon uses to detect fake reviews.
  • An account that had been hacked and used to leave a five-star review – one review of a set of headphones had been updated with a claim that the reviewer’s account had been hacked and used to leave a five star review, a tactic that other people have previously reported to Which?.

With many high street stores forced to shut due to lockdown restrictions, it’s likely that more people than ever will turn to online shopping in the weeks ahead. Which? is concerned that some sellers are seeking to manipulate reviews to increase their prominence in Amazon search results.

Worryingly there also appears to have been a rise in the proportion of suspicious reviews on Amazon in the UK since March’s coronavirus lockdown, according to ReviewMeta data.

ReviewMeta’s data suggests that there was a more than 30 per cent rise in the proportion of unnatural reviews on Amazon between March and August following the first coronavirus lockdown. This means consumers are at risk of being misled given Which? research has found that people could be more than twice as likely to choose poor-quality products online if they have been boosted by fake reviews.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has previously estimated that £23 billion a year of consumer transactions are influenced by online reviews and many people will be looking to use them as a helpful guide to get a good deal in the sales.

However, Which? believes that firmer action is needed to address the recurring problems caused by fake reviews on online marketplaces and other platforms, so that consumers can shop online with confidence.

The CMA must seek to conclude its investigation into fake reviews with some urgency. If it finds that sites that host reviews are not doing enough to detect and prevent fake reviews and the bad actors that flood their platforms with them – then strong action must immediately be taken to prevent growing numbers of consumers from being misled.

Natalie Hitchins, Which? Head of Home Products and Services, said: “Our investigation has uncovered popular Black Friday product categories that are littered with fake and suspicious reviews – suggesting that deals that look too good to be true often are. This leaves shoppers at risk of being misled into buying poor quality and potentially dangerous products online.

“With people more reliant on online shopping than ever before due to the coronavirus crisis, it’s vital that online platforms step up and do more to protect their users from fake reviews, otherwise the regulator must be prepared to swiftly step in with strong action.”

Which?’s advice on how to spot fake reviews this Black Friday:

If it looks too good to be true…

A healthy degree of scepticism is your best weapon against fake reviews. If a product has an unusually high number of reviews relative to others in that category, especially if these reviews are overwhelmingly positive, you’d be right to exercise caution.

Actually read the reviews

Don’t just trust the overall rating – read some reviews to look for suspicious repetition or signs of incentivisation, and sort by recent reviews to see what new buyers thought. Always check negative reviews as well, to see if there are recurring issues.

Take extra care with brands you don’t recognise

The majority of fake review activity we’ve seen has been on brands that are all but unknown outside marketplaces. If you don’t recognise the brand, check to see if it has a legitimate looking website, with clear contact details. You could even try calling or emailing the seller with a question, to see how quickly they respond.

Be wary of products with lots of pictures or videos 

Sellers on Facebook review groups who incentivise positive reviews often encourage people to add photos and videos. Ask yourself, how likely is it that you’d take the time to snap multiple images, or a video, of a product that you’re reviewing honestly?

Report suspicious reviews to Amazon

Consumers concerned about the authenticity of reviews left on a product, when they are looking at websites, are encouraged to report this to the online platform so that it can investigate.

Amazon’s reporting mechanism can be found here: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/features-and-services.html

Which?’s Black Friday insider’s guide: 

https://www.which.co.uk/news/black-friday/

Online shopping: Which?’s top 5 tips to stay safe and save money: 

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/shopping/article/online-shopping/online-shopping-top-tips-to-stay-safe-and-save-money-aMgbs0Q4k6U4