Open this photo in gallery:
Between 11 and 15 per cent of the reviews for a sample of common e-commerce products are fake by some estimates, the report said, citing research from the British government.Illustration by Photo illustration by The Globe and Mail/Getty Images
Nick Ford still remembers all of the extra hours and customer perks it took to build a perfect five-star Google rating for his small business, Integrity Masonry in Ottawa.
“Always coming back, being on time, all the little things we did,” he said. “That used to be something that we were able to differentiate ourselves with.”
Now, Mr. Ford said he watches competitors tack on the same volume of positive reviews virtually overnight, often with disastrous consequences for clients, including needlessly torn up driveways or a shattered roof.
Fake reviews have been around as long as consumers have turned to online platforms such as Amazon and Google for help deciding what to buy or where to eat.
Over the past few years, however, they’ve grown from a minor irritant into a force capable of distorting competition and exposing consumers to serious harm, according to a new report from the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP), an independent Canadian think tank, which calls on regulators to crack down on the issue.
With black market operators offering to boost a company’s online ratings or smear competitors’ reputations for a price, fabricating reviews has morphed into a thriving business of its own. It’s a problem that plagues not just retailers, restaurants and home repair businesses, but also professional services such as health care clinics and law firms, according to the report.
Fake reviews are multiplying. Here’s why it will cost you
And yet, online review platforms often have few incentives to stamp out bogus reviews and the brokers that facilitate them, the report argues.
It calls on Canadian regulators to consider stepping in with legislation that would compel platforms to provide public warnings to consumers when a business is using fake reviews, create a system to share information on bad actors, and report regulated professionals such as doctors and lawyers who rely on fake reviews.
Tech giants, for their part, say they’re doing their best to crack down on spurious reviews.
Amazon spokesperson Gage Knox said the company has a “zero tolerance” policy for fake reviews and blocked hundreds of millions of suspicious ratings in 2025 while suspending, banning and taking legal action against offenders. The company also uses machine-learning models to help direct its efforts, Mr. Knox said.
Similarly, Google said it blocked or removed over 292 million reviews that violated its policies last year alone and placed restrictions on more than 782,000 sanctioned accounts.
But Emily Osborne, a researcher at the Canadian Shield Institute, CAMP fellow and author of the report, questions whether weeding out false reviews is truly a top priority for Silicon Valley behemoths.
“A dollar spent on a misrepresented product is still a dollar spent on the platform,” Ms. Osborne said in an interview.
Between 11 and 15 per cent of the reviews for a sample of common e-commerce products are fake by some estimates, the report said, citing research from the British government.
Badges and awards handed out by Amazon to highly rated sellers and products create even more incentives for purchasing fake reviews, CAMP’s report found. Amazon is estimated to have held over 40 per cent of total retail e-commerce sales in Canada in 2023.
Facebook, meanwhile, is where many sellers and business owners go to solicit five-star ratings in exchange for free products or commissions, according to the report. Sellers or review “brokers” post products they want to be reviewed in groups with names echoing some variation of “Amazon Reviewers.” Some even buy ads on Facebook.
“Meta profits off of scam ads as much as it does legitimate ones,” Ms. Osborne said.
Meta did not respond to several requests for comment.
Then, there are large-scale fake-review brokers, which can be even harder to halt.
Skitsolutionbd.com, one of the websites examined in the report, advertised a full suite of services to increase online sales through what it calls “real, legit and authentic reviews.” A single review costs about US$35 and bulk orders go up to as much as US$1,000.
For as little as US$20, the site offers to plant negative reviews targeted at competitors. At the same time, the company says it can also do the opposite, have fictitious reviews taken down. That service, though, costs considerably more, at as much as US$150 per removed comment.
Fake reviews help companies climb online search rankings while offering products that are often priced lower than comparable alternatives because they’re of poorer quality than the made-up consumer ratings suggest, the report said. By doing so, they’re effectively warping competition, Ms. Osborne argues.
“It just distorts how consumers are able to compare and shop and assess value,” she said.
For consumers, the stakes can be high, especially when there’s a lot of money on the line.
Integrity Masonry’s Mr. Ford said he has had to repair damage done by companies who duped clients with fake reviews. One elderly couple had their driveway torn apart by a company that took their money and disappeared. He’s heard of contractors hired to repair a chimney push it through the roof.
“They say, ‘Don’t worry about it. We also do roof repair.’ ”
But the threat to consumers extends beyond financial losses, with bogus reviews sometimes promoting hazardous products such as faulty oven mitts, or counterfeit baby car seats, the report found.
There are also plenty of fake reviews for medical clinics, dentist offices and law firms, including on Google, the report found. One example cited findings by former U.S. federal criminal investigator Kay Dean, who runs a YouTube channel exposing fake reviews, identifying a Toronto dental clinic that received more than 100 fake five-star reviews in two days.
And artificial intelligence is making it even easier to dupe online shoppers. In some cases, it can enable fraudsters to more easily craft long and detailed reviews, complete with made-up photos, said Rajvardhan Oak, whose PhD research at University of California, Davis looked at underground review networks.
Yet, Ms. Osborne believes there’s a lot more online platforms could do to police and deter fake reviews, even as shills acquire better and better tools of deception.
Her report calls on regulators to put more pressure on e-commerce giants and online platforms to hit fake reviewers with harsher penalties, and publicly name and shame the businesses that use their services. Sites that host online reviews should also be required to share evidence with accreditation bodies whenever they spot certified professionals relying on phony reviews.
“I think we need to be asking whether there’s a place for more comprehensive anti-fraud legislation,” Ms. Osborne said.
Canada’s Competition Bureau is currently investigating Amazon over fake reviews, including looking into whether the company has a “business interest” in allowing fake reviews to remain on its platform.
In the past, the bureau has only set fines in cases where companies were found to purchase or produce fake reviews, a violation of Canada’s deceptive marketing provisions. But these don’t establish legal precedent, and it’s unclear whether liability extends to platforms where the activity happens.
Other countries have taken a tougher approach. Australia explicitly bans fake reviews.
In Britain, the Competition and Markets Authority has concluded investigations involving Amazon, Google and Meta over fake reviews, and, in some cases, secured “name and shame” measures, where consumer warnings are prominently displayed on pages of firms caught purchasing fake reviews.
Ms. Osborne praised that approach.
“It’s a clear consequence on a business that is reputational, that enhances transparency for consumers.”