Most places are a 4.7 or better
The diner with the sticky menus has 900 reviews and a 4.8. I've eaten there. — Diner, 2019
In 2017 a London writer listed the garden shed he lived in on TripAdvisor as a restaurant. His friends wrote the reviews. One of the dishes in the photos was his own foot. By November it was the top-rated restaurant in London. It was still a shed. In 2024 the United States banned buying and selling fake reviews. Telling a fake from a real one is still your job. Good luck to you.
For now: tap the reviewer's name. An account with just one review is a warning sign.
The full file
The writer, Oobah Butler, knew the business from the inside. Before the shed, he'd been paid £10 a review to write TripAdvisor reviews for restaurants he'd never eaten at.
The shed sat on the site six months before it hit No. 1 in London, on November 1, 2017. He told everyone who called that it was booked solid for six weeks. Then he opened for one night and served the guests £1 supermarket ready meals.
The 2024 rule goes further than you'd think. It also covers AI reviews from people who don't exist, reviews from a company's own people who don't say so, bought followers, and threats to get bad reviews taken down. It took effect October 21, 2024.
What to watch for, per the FTC: a pile of reviews all at once. Fakes can be bad reviews too, and some of the good ones give four stars instead of five so you'll believe them. Clever. Not honest, but clever.
Relates to No. 09300.
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