Five firms including Autotrader and Just Eat investigated over fake review failings | Competition and Markets Authority
The UK competition watchdog has launched an investigation into five companies, including Autotrader and Just Eat, over concerns they are not doing enough to tackle fake and misleading online reviews.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has previously investigated tech companies Amazon and Google, said its latest crackdowns included funeral services operator Dignity, review company Feefo and restaurant chain Pasta Evangelists.
The CMA said that in the case of Autotrader and Feefo, it was examining whether a number of one-star reviews moderated by Feefo were excluded from being published on the car dealer’s platform, thus giving consumers a full picture of other customers’ experiences.
The Dignity investigation focuses on whether staff were asked to write positive reviews about the company’s cremation services.
Food delivery company Just Eat is being investigated over concerns that its system “inflates the star ratings of certain restaurants and grocery stores.” Pasta Evangelists are facing an investigation into whether customers were offered discounts on future orders in return for leaving five-star reviews on delivery apps.
“Fake reviews strike at the heart of consumer trust – many of us worry about misleading content when looking at online reviews,” said Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA. “With household budgets under pressure, people need to know they are getting real information, not manipulated reviews or star ratings to lull them into the wrong choice.”
The CMA said it had not yet reached a conclusion on whether any of the companies had breached UK consumer law, but the latest crackdown brought the total number of businesses under scrutiny to 14.
UK consumer body Which? It has previously found that 89% of people use reviews when researching a product or service before making a purchasing decision.
Last April, the CMA was given new powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act to ban certain practices relating to online reviews as “unfair and unlawful”.
This gave the CMA the power to decide whether consumer laws had been broken without having to take companies to court.
“We gave businesses time to get things right,” Cardell said. “We are now using our new powers to tackle some of the most harmful practices.”
If the CMA finds a company has breached the law, it can force it to change its practices, as it has done with Amazon and Google, and has the power to impose fines of up to 10% of global turnover.
