ORLANDO, Florida. – A former federal investigator has uncovered a pattern of positive reviews that she believes are 5-star fakes for sale.
Kay Dean has spent the last six years tracking online reviews, particularly on Google and Yelp, to alert consumers to a suspected high-risk scheme aimed at manipulating consumer decisions.
“I’ve seen fake reviews in every profession imaginable,” Dean told News 6. “It’s very difficult for consumers to know which reviews are real or fake.”
Dean contacted News 6 after receiving an unusually high number of positive reviews for an Orlando car company.
In fact, she once found 19 positive reviews for the same company within an hour.
Dean’s one-woman organization, Fake Review Watch, has developed several “indications” that consumers should look out for.
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A sudden flood of positive reviews, so-called banned profiles that block access to the profile behind the reviews, and eventually the same name publishes reviews for companies in other states and countries within hours or days.
“These are organized rings that are giving out fake reviews,” Dean said. “It’s the Wild West, the online review space is so full of this kind of garbage that happens every day.”
Dean created a spreadsheet for News 6 that provided compelling evidence for hiring recommendations.
Ten people who apparently wrote positive Google reviews for a company in Florida also wrote positive reviews for a roofing company in the United Kingdom.
The same 10 people write reviews for companies operating 4,000 miles apart.
According to Time Magazine, TripAdvisor was the first global review platform to publish a transparency report outlining the steps it takes to combat fraud. A 2021 report found that out of 26,000,000 reviews submitted to the site in 2020, 943,205 reviews (about 3.6%) were fake.
According to experts, a review that reads as if it were memorized is one of the first warning signs.
Also watch out for vague information that could basically describe any company or reviewer name and is just made up of random letters and numbers.
The World Economic Forum reports that fake reviews resulted in around $152 billion spent on mediocre products and services in 2022.
Dean has released a series of 90 video reports on his YouTube channel to uncover evidence of “fake online reviews.” Dean argues that companies like Google and Yelp need to go on the offensive to review and delete these reviews for a fee.
“They’re not doing nearly enough to police themselves,” Dean said. “I think if people knew how saturated (the rating area) is, they wouldn’t use it.”
Dean told News 6 that recent surveys show that over 90% of consumers consult reviews when making decisions about businesses or medical services.
Last year, Google introduced a new algorithm that it said would help the company “quickly detect the rise in suspicious reviews.” The algorithm can continuously analyze patterns, such as whether an account has posted reviews before.
News 6 is working with Kay Dean and Rep. Darren Soto (D-9th District) of Florida, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, on possible changes to online reviews to protect consumers from misleading and false reviews.
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