Why the online review you are relying on might be fake

The red flags to watch out for when seeking out a trader, product or service

Go on any search engine and plug in ‘get paid for reviews’ and you’ll get back hundreds of links offering all kinds of inducements to log five-star reviews on shopping and comparison sites.

Last month, US travel company Tripadvisor said it had detected just over 1.3m fake reviews on its websites, most of which (72%) were caught before they went live on the platform.

Meanwhile, UK consumer watchdog Which? published research last month which found groups offering fake reviews on Amazon, Google and Trustpilot continue to thrive on Facebook.