Member-only story
Businesses are Caught Buying Fake Reviews, and Nobody is Surprised
Fake 5-star reviews flood Amazon, Google, Etsy, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, and all major platforms.
If you want your friend to get a job after a trial shift at a restaurant, go to the restaurant's TripAdvisor, and leave a positive review about a fantastic new person that’s serving you today. Restaurant managers love positive reviews. Your friend could get the gig, even if he doesn’t perform well.
“I feel like it gets the managers off my back about it if I write a few for myself here and there. I do get a few genuine ones, but a few more won’t hurt, eh?” —shared an anonymous reviewer for BBC.
I’m not advocating you actually write fake reviews — just painting the picture of what happens in that world every day.
My best friend held an office job writing fake Tripadvisor reviews.
He would wear a shit and a tie to his office every morning for a brief month. We were still in college, and a fake-review writing job seemed like a perfect summer gig. The whole scene takes place in Spain. We never held any real jobs before, and he got laid off soon.
However, I realized that some companies would rent office space and hire bogus copywriters to write bogus testimonials about…
