LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — "I looked at a lot of the reviews online on Google, looked at a bunch on Yelp, just kind of tried to do due diligence on it," said Las Vegas homeowner Chris Hove, who found out the hard way that reviews he partially relied on to pick his pool builder were fake.
"To do something like that is extremely shady," Hove said.
After he left his review, he started looking more closely at others.
"I noticed numerous reviews that were very recent that were talking multiple praises, five stars, how great they were, and I thought, 'this is kind of funny, completely contradicts my experience and my neighbors' experiences.'"
The internet is littered with fake reviews.
It's become such a big problem that companies who typically compete are instead coming together to try to ensure customers get a more honest picture when deciding where to spend their money.
The platforms now banding together will battle fake reviews like those we exposed with Greencare Pool Builder in Las Vegas.
The newly formed Coalition for Trusted Reviews will establish best practices for hosting online reviews and work to detect and call out fakes.
Chris Hove says it shouldn't be hard.
"A lot of the photos that people posted saying 'Look at the amazing work that Greencare did,' I got suspicious because some of the photos didn't look quite right. And just a simple reverse Google picture revealed that some of those photos were stock photos that were pulled off the internet."
As 13 Investigates reported, former federal criminal investigator Kay Dean has been exposing the problem for years with a program called "Fake Review Watch" on her YouTube channel.
"As someone who's not a computer engineer, using just eyeballs and spreadsheets, what I'm able to find is shocking!" Dean said.
The Coalition for Trusted Reviews will include Amazon, review sites Glassdoor and Trustpilot, and travel companies Expedia, Booking.com and Tripadvisor.
Missing from that list are the companies Dean found to be the biggest offenders — Yelp, Facebook and Google.
"It's not in their business interest to call attention to widespread fraud on their platforms, and I think it's important for the public to remember how they make their money. It's the businesses that pay them. It's not the consumer," Dean said. "And so, it's an inherent conflict of interest."
Her assessment is backed up by Federal Trade Commission chairperson Lina Khan, who said, "The platforms that host reviews... have financial incentives to turn a blind eye to misconduct that brings in revenue."
"I think the appeal of the review platforms was a great idea," she said. "But in my opinion, these companies have created a Frankenstein's monster."
Much of the problem is fueled by brokers who solicit fake customer reviews through social media platforms, encrypted messaging apps and other channels in exchange for money, free items or other benefits.
Brokers can solicit positive reviews to boost sales for businesses or sellers. They can also post negative reviews for competitors to tank their sales.
According to the Associated Press, Amazon said last month that two review brokers in China were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and three years of probation after using messaging apps to advertise and sell fake reviews to Amazon selling accounts.
The company has filed many other lawsuits against operators it says were doing similar things in the past year.
Last year, Amazon sued the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups that it alleged were coordinating bogus reviews in exchange for money or free products.
"Consumers rely heavily on online reviews, and so, I think this issue affects millions daily," Dean said.
In June, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a set of rules that, if approved, could carry fines of up to $50,000 each time a consumer sees a fake review.
But Becky Foley, Tripadvisor's vice president for Trust and Safety, said in a news release that the bad "actors often operate outside jurisdictions with a legal framework to shut down fraudulent activity, making robust cooperation even more important."
