LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The soothing cool of Chris Hove's pool held a secret beneath the surface.
"Just a poor experience all around," Hove told 13 Investigates in March.
He learned late into a problematic pool installation that his builder, Greencare, used fake positive reviews, and suppressed negative customer comments to increase its business.
"To do something like that is extremely shady," Hove said.
Former federal criminal investigator-turned digital detective Kay Dean has been exposing that shady world on YouTube with a regular feature called "Fake Review Watch."
"The online review world is truly the Wild West," Dean said. "There's no regulation at this time... very little being done to protect consumers. And the tech companies and their algorithms are not self-policing as they should be."
That's why the Federal Trade Commission is proposing a new rule to fight deceptive practices and fine the fakers in a way they hope will level the playing field for honest companies.
Businesses would be barred from suppressing honest negative reviews, paying for positive reviews, and writing or selling fake reviews. All of we found Greencare doing on multiple platforms including Yelp, Google and Facebook.
"There have been some things on there that weren't accurate," said Greencare owner, John Reese during out initial investigation in March.
"I don't need anybody to post anything that's phony," Reese said.
"How do you think that makes you guys look?" asked 13 Investigates Chief Investigator, Darcy Spears.
"Obviously it doesn't look good," he said. "When it was brought to my attention, I wasn't aware of it."
The FTC rule would also prevent review hijacking, which is when a consumer review written for one product is made to appear as though it was written for something completely different. This was another Greencare practice we exposed with Kay Dean's help.
"They [fake reviewers] are plagiarizing content from Trip Advisor reviews in order to make their Yelp profiles look more realistic," Dean said. "And I have found thousands of examples of this on Yelp."
In March, we asked Greencare where their fake five star reviews came from.
"They're very specific, they name employees, they talk about project details," Spears said. "That information had to come from somewhere and that information is posted by clearly fake profiles."
"Right. Right. I agree. It could be from multiple areas: friends, family, friends of family, co-workers, things like that, people who are thinking they're doing us a benefit," Reese said.
That's another deceptive practice the FTC rule would prohibit—no reviews from friends, family, employees or business owners without clearly labeling their relationships to the company. Through 13 investigates, we found multiple Yelp reviews posted by Greencare co-owner Tim Hanlon without disclosing who he was.
We also found he would routinely comment and thank the fake reviewers for their positive reviews.
Since our investigation aired, Greencare has worked diligently to fix the fakes.
The FTC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be published in the Federal Register soon and will include questions for public comment to inform the Commission’s decision-making on the proposal.
Instructions for filing comments will appear in the notice.
Comments must be received within 60 days of the publication of the notice.
The primary staff member on these matters is Michael Ostheimer in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
