Before dining at a restaurant for the first time, wary patrons are often prone to jumping on their smartphones to check out online reviews on services like Yelp or Urban Spoon.
But the practice of “astroturfing” — or flooding online services with fake reviews, either positive or negative — has become so prevalent that it made the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) top 10 list for biggest scams of the year.
The B.C. chapter of the BBB is attempting to battle back against astroturfing with its own verified customer reviews service.
While the program initially started in the Calgary market, the BBB began rolling out the service locally on March 31.
“Obviously BBB is very aware that online reviews are here and here to stay, and they’re extremely popular,” said BBB B.C. spokesman Evan Kelly.
“There was a lot of demand for (online reviews) from consumers and our accredited businesses alike, who wanted a way to interact with consumers, and consumers wanted a way to appraise businesses for their practices and their services.”
Unlike other online services, reviewers must first be vetted by the BBB to determine the user is real (their identities are kept anonymous to the public).
After a review is submitted, BBB employees confirm with the business that the interaction with the customer took place and the company has the chance to respond to or even challenge the review.
But Kelly said measures are being taken to ensure companies don’t tilt the new system to favour only positive reviews.
“Negative reviews are obviously a part of it and the message we’re trying to instill with businesses is negative reviews can actually be beneficial,” he said.
“Once you start paying attention to these reviews, perhaps there’s a pattern of inconsistency within your own business practices you’re not aware of.”
BBB’s customer reviews can be accessed at bbb.org/mbc.
