Fake reviews are aimed at damaging or boosting a business’s reputation.
Social media reviews created a lucrative industry—especially in the automotive sector. Some franchised dealers are now required by their OEM to use a vendor to monitor their social media for positive and negative reviews, and to follow review response best practices. According to this myriad of vendors, customer reviews are so important that getting good ones, and using best practices to deal with bad ones, can make or break a business. So why doesn’t Facebook monitor reviews and remove the ones that obviously do not comply with their terms of service?
Google business profiles feature Facebook reviews, including fake ones
Read what Google considers prohibited and restricted content here. Yet Google business profiles also feature Facebook reviews. Google’s failure to audit Facebook reviews is potentially damaging honest businesses or helping dishonest businesses.
One of the most common types of fake reviews is written by employees or ex-employees. Employee-written reviews often openly admit that the user who wrote the review is an employee. These employees often list their employers on their own profiles. I’ve even seen positive reviews left by owners and general managers. I’ve seen some from sales staff that say, “great place to work”, or “come buy a car from me!”
When ex-employees leave reviews, they tend to be negative. Some might share company information that they should not, or make false accusations about management or other staff. Some might say nothing, but leave a single star to bring down the rating average. Employers who want to remove reviews that violate the rules have no method of doing so. Essentially, they are forced to continue to violate Facebook or Google terms of service.
Businesses buy fake reviews with no repercussions
There is a franchise dealership on Facebook with 500 5-star ratings from fake profiles. These ratings were all left on the same day, within a few hours, in 2017. Every single fake profile lists its location as Brazil. I’m pretty sure that 500 fake reviews from Brazil for a dealership in the midwest USA are fake and likely paid for. However, we’ve reported them to Facebook more than once and they are still there, 4 years later.
These positive reviews have boosted their page’s score to a 4.9 average. Since the majority of their 569 reviews are fake 5-star ratings, that dealership is pretty iron-clad in a world where dealerships are easily damaged by social media reviews. They’ve gained an unfair advantage over their competitors by creating a totally fake illusion of reputation health.
The Federal Trade Commission agrees that fake online reviews are a form of deceptive marketing and are fraud. Go here to read about two important cases that were settled with the FTC in 2019. One case involved a company that sold fake reviews and phony followers, while the other case involved employee-written reviews. Let’s hope the FTC takes action to audit and enforce Facebook and Google terms of service. Both consumers and businesses need protection against this fraud.