“Don’t necessarily trust the reviews of a complete stranger that you’ve never met -and actually they may not really be a real person at all,” she said. In the meantime, she says the 98% of us who read reviews should scrutinize everything that’s posted. It put them on notice that “fake reviews and other misleading endorsements” can cost them dearly.ĭean would like to see more aggressive action from regulators and review platforms. The FTC recently sent a reminder to more than 700 big companies, advertisers, and retailers - including Yelp, Facebook, and NBC's parent company, Comcast. “The FTC has the authority to hold companies responsible for anything they do related to false, fake, or misleading reviews, and they may be required to pay consumer redress or make consumers whole for that,” explained Amber Lee, an attorney in the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices. The Federal Trade Commission told us fake reviews are considered deceptive and the civil penalty can be steep: up to $46,517 for each fake review. “I feel bad being an Elite and betraying the community I helped build,” PG admitted. After all, his fake mover review remained up for six months.
PG’s account is still active, still Elite.Īfter we contacted him, he says he voluntarily deleted some reviews. “I think they could do better vetting out reviews that are fake versus doctored or even like mine, where they spoof a check-in,” PG said, noting that he found a way to “check-in” on Yelp to places he’d never actually been to. PG agrees: Yelp needs better “Elite” enforcement. It did say it has closed accounts that Dean flagged.ĭean says that’s not enough. Yelp told us it’s “very rare” for Elites to leave compensated reviews, but didn’t say exactly how often that happens. if we catch a Yelp user (including Elites) writing (or removing) reviews for compensation we will remove their reviews and close their account.” Yelp told us it “strictly prohibits offering payment for reviews” and uses tech tools and “human moderation” to sweep for fake reviews. We asked Yelp about its Elites - those “real people” with “real reviews” – some being paid to post fake reviews. “These groups come and go, change names and I don’t see that there’s any proactive efforts by Facebook to deal with it,” Dean said. Facebook and Instagram then removed each one for violating their policies. We flagged several groups and pages for them. Instagram said, “we don’t allow people to post or solicit fake or misleading reviews.”įacebook told us it removes content that engages in, promotes, encourages, or facilitates fake reviews.
We asked Facebook and Instagram about these groups. When our team messaged people in those groups, one former Yelp Elite told us he was part of an invitation-only online chat that included a few thousand Yelp Elite members who are paid $25 to $50 per fake review.
“This is a public group!” Dean said, pointing to a Facebook group she had pulled up on her computer monitor with plenty of recent posts. She pointed us to Instagram pages, Facebook groups, and other places where cash-for-review offers appear daily - in plain sight. This all began after she started questioning patient testimonials about one of her own doctors.ĭean says PG is not the only Yelp Elite who’s posting fakes. “It makes me actually angry about what’s going on, because it’s being allowed,” Kay Dean said of these paid reviews.įrom the spare bedroom in her San Jose home, Dean has launched a crusade and a Youtube channel, spending countless hours outing reviewers she feels are fishy. “Well, it was COVID and you know, I'm a little behind on a couple of my payments, and I thought, well, you know what? I get paid for it,” PG said.
#Yelp reviewer stupid how to#
Consumer Investigator Chris Chmura explains how to spot a fake review online.
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