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Do you trust reviews of businesses?

ended 23. March 2026

Fake reviews are now illegal in the UK under the Digital Markets, Competition & Consumers Act. But do you trust reviews of businesses online? Or should we be suspicious if a business has numerous 5 star anonymous reviews?

  • Do you have any suspicion that businesses faking reviews? How many businesses are faking reviews despite it being illegal?
  • Why do businesses do it? And how important is it that customers get an accurate view of the business?
  • What are the warning signs that reviews are fake?

Responses this afternoon.

8 responses from the Newspage community

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Sarah Gatford
The Positivity Pathfinder - Head of Interactions at Sarah Gatford Ltd
Perfect scores. Polished profiles. Planted reviews. We've become so obsessed with flawless that we've forgotten what genuine actually looks like. A string of 5-star reviews doesn't build trust, it erodes it. Too uniform, too polished, no nuance. The warning signs are hiding in plain sight. Real businesses don't need manufactured perfection. They need honest conversations, real experiences and, occasionally, that 3-star review that shows they've got nothing to hide.
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Rohit Parmar-Mistry
Founder at Pattrn Data
Fake reviews aren’t a side hustle. They’re fraud dressed up as marketing. The uncomfortable truth is incentives are stacked for it: a small bump in star rating drives real revenue, while enforcement is slow and buyers rarely report. Making it illegal helps, but it won’t matter unless platforms and regulators can prove they can spot and remove manipulation at scale. In our AI Audits, we see the same pattern: companies optimise for the metric (stars) instead of trust (verifiable customer outcomes). The quickest warning signs are clusters of generic 5-star posts, repeated phrasing, sudden spikes, and reviewers with no history. The real question is will we measure businesses on verified reviews, or just whoever games the system best?
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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
Let's be honest. The law is chasing a problem that's already mutated. Government research found at least 10% of product reviews on major UK platforms are fake. Industry estimates put it closer to 30%. And that was before generative AI made it possible to produce thousands of convincing five-star reviews for the price of a coffee. The CMA can fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover, which sounds terrifying until you realise they're still writing polite letters asking firms to check their policies. Meanwhile, generative AI reviews are now so fluent that detection tools struggle to tell them from real ones. Humans manage about 57% accuracy, barely better than a coin toss. The warning signs? Walls of five-star reviews from anonymous accounts, suspiciously similar phrasing, no specific detail about the actual experience, and review clusters that appeared overnight. If it reads like a press release wrote itself a fan letter, it probably did.
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Michelle Lawson
Director at Lawson Financial
Business reviews are useful but I am always cautious now as there are so many scams. It is hard to know who and what to trust so in some ways reviews are diluted. People will often complain rather than praise so it is learning about sorting the wheat from the chaff. Anonymity doesn't always mean to exercise caution but too many hide behind this as the default option. Accurate representation of customer feedback can make or break a business so it needs to be trustworthy or not at all.
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Tony Redondo
Founder at Cosmos Currency Exchange
While the UK’s 2025 Digital Markets Act makes fake reviews illegal, up to 30% remain inauthentic. Businesses chase "5-star perfection" because a one-star increase boosts revenue by 5–9%. To spot fakes, watch for "bursts" of many reviews in 48 hours, generic praise lacking detail, or profiles with no history. Suspicion is healthy: anonymous 5-star streaks are major red flags. For better reliability, look for "Verified Review" systems like Trustist as we do at Cosmos Currency Exchange. These platforms create a "closed loop" by inviting customers to review only after a transaction, building a digital audit trail that satisfies UK law. They also aggregate ratings from multiple sources, making it harder to hide poor performance. Trusting a third-party validator is always safer than trusting a business’s self-reported testimonials.
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Anita Wright
Chartered Financial Planner at Ribble Wealth Management
Online reviews absolutely have their place. They give people reassurance and, at their best, they can provide a genuine feel for service standards and client experience. But let’s be honest, the system itself is flawed. Anyone, anywhere, can post a perfectly polished 5-star review. It costs nothing to write something glowing and, in a competitive market where reputation directly impacts revenue, the incentive to do so can be strong. Do some businesses still fabricate reviews despite it now being illegal? I would be surprised if they did not. Regulation increases the risk of getting caught, but it does not remove human nature. Where income is driven by perception, the temptation will always exist. In professional services in particular, I place far greater value on personal recommendation. If someone I trust has used that professional and can speak credibly about their competence, integrity and the actual outcome achieved, that that carries real weight. Anonymous 5 star ratings don't.
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Clive Bonny
MD at Strategic Management Partners
There are well known major issues with Trip Advisor and Airbnb. I'm seeing ongoing issues with business award programmes which offer PR for a price. B Corp ESG recognitions rely too much on self assessment. Glassdoor staff feedback is useful as poor employers try to overcome low scores with 5 stars leaving a big obvious gap between reality and fake scores. The most reliable feedback comes from LinkedIn testimonials where we can see the responder cv details and from ESG accreditation bodies such as the Organisation for Responsible Business ORBUK.org who are licenced by an education body, and who use trained and licensed advisers, assessors and verifiers, ie Triple Lock authenticity.
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Astrid Davies
Founder CEO at ADCL
Online reviews can be a really mixed bag. They can vary from the terse "He fixed my tap. Good" to a lengthy testimonial with gushing accompanying video footage. The use of anonymity can be helpful if you work under Non Disclosure Agreements as I do with several major clients. It can, however, raise eyebrows. Particular giveaways are the overlap of language, with phrases occurring with telltale frequency. Why do companies do it? Because they can, as the old joke goes. Until now. Thankfully, it will be illegal AND actionable now, which should deter all but the shiftiest (or most inept) of businesses. Video footage that is convincing still seems the best way to gauge success. I have to confess I don't have them; the thought makes me cringe. There will no doubt be a novel way to futureproof your testimonials and ratings coming along ... and then there's AI...