How to Spot a Scam in Plain Sight: When Five Stars Don't Mean Trust

Online reviews can make or break your decision to trust a company — but what if those glowing five-star ratings are fake? In this article, I break down how to spot suspicious review patterns, fake testimonials, and reputation manipulation tactics that shady businesses use to trick you. If you rely on sites like Trustpilot or app store ratings, you need to read this.

In the digital age, reviews are everything. A company with glowing feedback and a high star rating can seem like a safe bet. But here's the truth most people miss: a wall of five-star reviews can be just as suspicious as a trail of one-star complaints. I recently dug deep into a company that, on paper, looked fantastic—excellent rating, thousands of satisfied customers, and stellar support. But what I found underneath the surface was a masterclass in reputation management... and manipulation.

The Patterns of Deception

The first thing that stood out was the language. Hundreds of five-star reviews, many of them just a few words long:

"Great service!"
"Very helpful!"
"Excellent customer support."

Over and over again. The same phrases. The same tone. No details, no specific scenarios, no context. If you’ve ever left a real review—good or bad—you probably told a story. Real users talk about what they used the service for, what went right (or wrong), and what made the experience memorable. These reviews didn’t do that. They just screamed template.

Timing Tells a Story

Another red flag? Timing. Many of these vague 5-star reviews were posted in tight clusters—multiple reviews going live on the same day or within hours of each other. That's a classic sign of a review campaign: either the company asked users for reviews all at once, or worse, someone was hired to fake a batch of positive reviews.

No Bad News Allowed

Even more suspicious was the lack of credible negative feedback. When negative reviews did pop up, they were often buried under dozens of vague positive ones. On less-polished platforms—forums, complaint boards, and low-profile review sites—the tone changed dramatically. People complained about serious issues: billing problems, service failures, and shady verification processes. These weren't trolls. These were customers who had experiences detailed enough to be credible.

Not long ago, I had a review removed on Google Play Games. The developer responded to my first review with some kind of junk reply. The review later disappeared. I re-wrote it trying to give more details to make my negative review so that it would hold my weight. I was specific this time to what was wrong. I don't recall the details but the review finished again.

Review Platforms Aren’t Neutral

Here's a dirty little secret: many review platforms aren't your friend. Some allow businesses to dispute or remove bad reviews with minimal oversight. Others let companies subscribe to premium services that help them bury or flag unfavorable feedback. If a company is spending money to manage their image, the truth can get scrubbed right off the page.

Even Amazon, one of the biggest retailers on the planet, isn’t immune. They routinely remove reviews—sometimes for policy violations, sometimes after abuse reports from sellers. Unfortunately, many customers have found that negative reviews can disappear with no explanation, especially if they hurt a high-volume seller or Amazon’s own private-label products. Plus, Amazon suffers from fake review floods and review hijacking—where a seller swaps out products but keeps positive reviews intact.

To their credit, Amazon does make an effort to identify and remove fake positive reviews as well. They use algorithms and machine learning to detect suspicious behavior, and they’ve banned thousands of seller accounts over review fraud. But despite those efforts, a lot still slips through the cracks—so shoppers need to stay sharp.

Facebook Ads and the Positivity Trap

One of the first things I ever spotted on this kind of behavior was on Facebook advertisements. Look at the comments in the ads. I have noticed a lot of people asking "How much," or "Location." I would also see comments like “This is amazing!” or “I love this company!”… hundreds of them. When you see that over and over you can be certain that they paid a service to comment on these post. Many platforms see comments as engagement. When people engage with content, many platforms will say to themselves "Hey people like this, so let's have more people see it." That gives advertisers the motivation to do this.

Today, I liked on ad for a telephone service. I decided to ask ChatGPT about the reputation of the service and "she" first came back with it had mostly positive reviews. I suspect they had swamped one review service with their feedback or hired people to do it. I asked her to check for similarities in the comments and she found them. She also found that they came in spurts. There would be a lot of short answer reviews within a few minutes of each others. I asked her to take a deep dive and analyze what she found. She then came up with some less-known sites with mostly negative reviews.

The company was billing people for premium service and asking for proof of residence and ID. Some people were told things like their documents did not meet our requirements and they were blocked from the service with no refund. One person had to go through PayPal to get their refund. In short, I will not be using that company.

What You Should Look For

If you're researching a company and the reviews seem too good to be true, they probably are. Here's how to read between the lines:

Look for specifics. Real reviews tell stories.
Watch for repetition. The same phrases = likely fake.
Check timing. Clusters of reviews often signal manipulation.
Compare platforms. If only one site shows glowing feedback and others show red flags, be skeptical.
Search complaints and forums. Unfiltered feedback lives there.
Be wary of social media hype. Positive ad comments may be curated or bought.

Final Word

Don’t take star ratings at face value. Vetting a company goes beyond the surface. Sometimes, the truth isn't in what people say—it's in how they say it, and when. Trust your gut. If reviews feel like a script, they probably are. And if you can’t find real-world complaints? That’s not always a good thing. It might just mean someone is cleaning up behind the scenes.

Do your homework. Your wallet will thank you.

This article was prepared by me with assistance from ChatGPT.

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