• The President of UOKiK has initiated proceedings against a Leszno-based company operating under the name of Best-Review, accusing it of selling false online reviews.
• The allegations are related to selling false product and service reviews – a practice that could have contributed to misleading consumers.

​The share of Polish Internet users who buy online continues to grow – according to the latest data, it is approaching 80% (source: “E-commerce in Poland 2023” report by Gemius). Each purchasing decision, regardless of whether we are looking for a new washing machine, sports equipment or an overseas trip, is based on a few key elements. We verify the prices, product descriptions, their ingredients or important technical specifications, and seek the opinions of others. According to a study commissioned by UOKiK, as many as 93 percent of online buyers consider reviews before clicking the “buy” button. Unfortunately, the role that reviews play in the sales process encourages some economic operators to engage in unfair practices. Trading in positive online reviews that are written and published on selected websites to the order of a specific company has become a lucrative business.

– Verification of the transparency of messages posted online is increasingly challenging for the average user. Even those functionalities that were intended to support customers in making their purchasing decisions and verifying the products and services offered online (such as customer reviews and opinions) are becoming increasingly prone to violations and infringements” – says Tomasz Chróstny, President of UOKiK. – The publication of false or biased reviews is prohibited by law, as such practices violate the interests of consumers and honest entrepreneurs alike.

The price... of trust

Best-Review was misleading consumers by selling ready-made reviews without testing the specific products or verifying the integrity of entities placing the orders. Furthermore, the ordering parties often had a say in shaping the final wording of the published reviews, and in many instances, they even created them themselves.

The entrepreneur was sourcing its customers via one of several websites, harnessing a similar mechanism. The contents of all those websites were very much similar. Each offered the publication of, inter alia, “Google reviews with specific comments” and “[Google] reviews without any comments (stars only)” on popular web portals and sites. The positive reviews purchased by the entrepreneur’s customers were posted on Google Maps, or on such websites as znanylekarz.pl, opineo.pl, oferteo.pl, ceneo.pl, wakacje.pl, TripAdvisor, Google Play. They were published on social networks (Facebook) as well. It was the customer who decided about the frequency of posting and about the length of specific reviews, thus defining the final cost of the service provided.

In the opinion of the President of UOKiK, such practices may have affected consumers’ purchasing decisions which, due to the entrepreneur’s activities, were based on false information. Moreover, buyers are not the only ones who were misled and harmed by false ratings or reviews. Other honest entrepreneurs  may have suffered too. Should the allegations be confirmed, Best-Review faces a penalty of up to 10% of its turnover.

Not the first such case

UOKiK continuously monitors the market and has been following the activities of entrepreneurs selling false online reviews for a number of months now. In February of this year, the President of UOKiK imposed a fine of PLN 40,000 on Agencja City Damian Trzciński from Poznań for trading in false reviews, and also pressed charges against J&J Jakub Brożyna, a company offering a “Google Maps Reviews” service through its Seosklep24.pl website. Earlier, in November 2022, the President of UOKiK fined two companies - Opinie.pro from Lubartów and SN Marketing from Kraków - for offering and selling false reviews online. The financial sanctions amounted to more than PLN 70,000.

Guarding the interests of consumers and ensuring healthy competition

The EU’s Omnibus Directive calling, inter alia, for greater transparency in online shopping, has been in force since the beginning of 2023. One of the major changes it has brought about consists in introducing specific regulations related to consumer reviews. Any economic operator providing access to product and service reviews must declare whether such reviews are subject to verification. If so, the entrepreneur should state how their authenticity is confirmed, and whether all such reviews, including the negative ones, are posted. The economic operator is not allowed to state that the reviews have been posted by consumers who were using or purchased a given product if no action has been taken to verify this. A fine of up to 10% of turnover may be imposed for such illegal practices. The legal changes make it possible to hold accountable not only the companies that offer untrustworthy reviews, but also large e-commerce players failing to sufficiently protect consumers from false reviews published on their websites.