Online reviews are a great way for consumers to make informed purchasing decisions, but reviews should be independent and genuine. Reviews should only be written by those who have actually experienced the product or service and reflect their genuinely held opinion.
Writing fake or misleading reviews is against the law. You should not ask others, including family and third parties, to write reviews about your business without prominently disclosing their personal connection or commercial relationship with your business in that review.
If you offer incentives to customers to encourage them to provide reviews, these incentives must be equally applicable to both positive and negative reviews and be prominently disclosed.
If your business receives a fake review, you should notify the review platform immediately and request that the review be removed. You can also respond to the review directly in a professional manner to correct the public record. Businesses and review platforms that do not remove reviews that they know to be fake risk breaching the Australian Consumer Law.
Case study
Bloomex Pty Ltd is an online florist and gift retailer, selling flowers, hampers and other products through its website across Australia.
Bloomex published misleading star ratings on its website that gave the impression they were based on genuine customer feedback. It also displayed inflated 'strikethrough' prices to suggest discounts that were not real and failed to clearly disclose additional surcharges until late in the checkout process.
Following ACCC action, the Federal Court ordered Bloomex to pay $1 million in penalties for making false or misleading representations about online reviews and pricing on its website.
Read more in the Bloomex ACCC media release.
Watch our short video explaining online reviews
Online reviews are great. They help consumers make informed decisions about how to spend their money.
That's why it's so important that reviews are independent, genuine, and only written by those who have experienced the product or service.
In fact, it's against the law to post fake or misleading reviews online, even as a favour to friends or family. If your business receives a review that you know to be fake, you should notify the review platform immediately and request it be removed. However, you should not selectively edit or remove genuine reviews. Genuine reviews are in the best interests of everyone.