Office of Competition and Consumer Protection proceedings against the company Best-Review from Leszno. The office believes that the company sold favorable reviews of products online that it had never tested. There is a huge penalty for this.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) started trading in false opinions. It’s criminal
According to the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the company sold ready-made, positive opinions about products or services without checking them or verifying the reliability of the client. Buyers of fake reviews also often influenced the content of these reviews, and in some cases even created them themselves. The company advertised on several of its websites based on a similar mechanism.
The company offered two services: “Google reviews with content” and “Google reviews without content (only stars)”. The reviews purchased by customers were then posted on many well-known platforms, including: in the Google Play application store, in Google Maps business cards, on Facebook, as well as on websites such as poznalekarz.pl, opineo.pl, dziennikeo.pl, ceneo.pl, nazwa.pl and TripAdvisor. Customers themselves decided the length of reviews and the frequency of posting positive opinions, and these factors obviously influenced the price of the service.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection assessed that such practices could have influenced the purchasing decisions of Poles, who – guided by positive reviews – could more often buy falsely rated products. Thus, consumers were misled. Research commissioned by the office shows that as many as 93 percent takes into account opinions posted online before deciding to purchase a specific product or service. Competitive enterprises were also allegedly harmed in the practice.
The Best-Review company that sold ready-made reviews now faces a huge fine – a maximum of 10%. its turnover. This is another case of review trading detected by the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. In February this year in a similar case, the City Agency Damian Trzciński from Poznań was fined (with the amount of PLN 40,000). Charges were also brought against the J&J Jakub Brożyna company for selling opinions posted on Google Maps.
Source: Gazeta
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