Update 13 November 2021 – Decided to rewrite this to be more concise

If a transaction with a given business is likely to be near or exceed a certain amount in dollar value terms, that business’ reviews will be closely checked for anomalies.

Generally, I consider trust extremely important in any transaction I undertake with any business and while this check is only one of a large suite of checks I undertake in determining whether a business is worthy of on going custom, It has been my experience businesses found manipulating their reviews on a large scale will almost certainly be up to other anti consumer antics in the background.

Unfortunately, simply throwing reviews through ‘Review Meta’ and ‘Fake Spot’ in my experience has not been sufficient due to the relatively limited parameters they use to assess the authenticity of reviews when compared to my own manual checks. It’s a cat and mouse game and even my own criteria continuously evolves.

Examples of additional manual checks include (but not limited to) checking for unusual review patterns and thoroughly checking certain profiles of reviewers, including cross checking against profiles/names in other resources such as Facebook and Linkedin to detect a material failure to disclose either a commercial and/or employment relationship to the reviewed business.

If a business has been found to be manipulating their reviews on a sizeable scale, this leaves me to wonder if they are prepared to pull this sort of stunt, then what other antics are they likely up to? The business will also very likely lose me as a customer (or potential customer) as a result.

Fairly recent examples of a more significant nature include Dental practices using the services of a specialized PR firm and a Car Rental franchise in Victoria, Australia getting their staff to post fake reviews (Discovered after they levied fees outside of the written legal documentation).