Fake reviews: how to spot them and get them removed in the UK
Fake reviews come in three flavours: bought praise for others, sabotage against you, and revenge from people who were never customers. UK law now squarely prohibits fake reviews, and platforms remove them, if you make the case properly.
Spotting the fakes
- No matching customer record, order or booking
- Reviewer history that is all one-star reviews, or brand new
- Generic content that could apply to any business, or details that match no service you offer
- Clusters: several similar reviews in days, especially after a dispute or from one region
- For competitor sabotage: timing that coincides with local rivalry, phrasing echoing each other
The removal route
Reply publicly first, briefly and factually: "We have no record of serving you; please contact us if this is a genuine visit." This flags the dispute for readers regardless of removal. Then report through the platform's process, citing the specific policy breached: conflict of interest, not a genuine experience, spam. Evidence helps: state plainly that no matching record exists.
If the platform refuses
Escalate with the pattern, not the single review; platforms respond to demonstrated clusters. Persistent, provably false attacks can amount to defamation, and a solicitor's letter to an identifiable author changes behaviour quickly, but treat legal routes as the last resort they are.
The long defence
A deep bench of genuine reviews is the best protection: one fake one-star in two hundred real reviews moves nothing, and its strangeness stands out.
MyView watches every mention of your brand and tells you what needs a reply.
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