How to spot fake travel reviews

When was the last time you booked or bought something without checking the reviews first? It’s almost mandatory, yet the usefulness and trustworthiness of reviews are starting to be questionable, with some reviews written by artificial intelligence robots or paid influencers. 

Personally, I’ve never booked lodging on VRBO without carefully going through the reviews – they are just too helpful for learning the hidden things that could make or break my trip or disrupt my family. Now that the property owners can also review renters, I find it even more useful to look at the reviews.

Here are some easy steps to take to spot fake reviews before booking.

1. Click the reviewer profile

If the reviewer profile has a high number of reviews, then the reviewer is probably getting paid, or it’s not a person. A fake reviewer can easily be a bot written by an AI program to post positive reviews on websites.

The majority of bulk fake reviews use thousands of accounts from nameless offshore firms. This makes it almost impossible to be sure if the reviewer is real or a fraud, but there are some hints.

• Generic names like John or Jane Smith are often used when reviews are mass-generated and posted.
• Some reviewer names are a random string of letters and numbers, which could feel more authentic (because the reviewer is private) but is more often than not simply fake.
• Finally, a fake photo – you can spot the difference – and a reviewer profile photo can only be used once.

Pro tip: To see if a reviewer is fake, check their other reviews, including the timing of them. If they’re being paid for their reviews, they’ll post often, sometimes with overlapping dates, and using the same copy-and-paste text.

2. Don’t rely on the first set of reviews you find

Before booking a hotel room, try to read the reviews on different sites. Here’s how to do this before booking a hotel, for example:

1. Start with Google Hotels and find the hotel you’d like to book.
2. Click the Review tab to see reviews.
3. Check at least one other hotel aggregator site (TripAdvisor, etc.) to see reviews on that site as well.

Reading reviews on multiple sites will make it much easier to spot fake ones. Bots and paid reviewers usually leave comments with the same exact wording on multiple sites.

Pro tip: Watch out for love/hate positioning. If a reviewer’s posts are all love or hate, they could be a fake reviewer paid to paint a bad or good picture.

3. Scrutinize the wording

Fake reviewers (even the bots) tend to write using overly hyped language; in short, they overdo it. They also tend to use these things in their review:

1. Lots of ‘I’ ‘me’ and ‘mine’ words attempt to reinforce their credibility.
2. Hotel jargon like ‘spacious twin suites’, again attempting to establish their credibility or simply re-using words scraped from the hotel website itself. Typical vacationers don’t write that way.
3. Sudden bursts of reviews—if there aren’t many reviews and then suddenly, over a quick period of time, there are a bunch of new ones.
4. Too many flowery words. Deceptive reviews demonstrate the characteristics of imaginative writing with frequent use of adverbs like ‘really’ and ‘very’.
5. Watch for ‘scene setting’. Fake reviews may talk about special occasions, while genuine reviewers focus less on the personal side of their review and more on specific issues.

Pro tip: Check the spelling and grammar. Due to the fake reviewer business model, most writers come from low-income countries where English is not the first language. A couple of misspellings and a common grammar mistake could mean it’s from a real person, but in general, reviews riddled with misspellings and poor grammar are fake.

4. Watch for lack of detail or inaccuracies

Some travel reviews you see online offer little to no detail of the establishment they’re reviewing. Even worse, they sometimes refer to features that aren’t even available!

If a reviewer was really impressed or really disappointed about their experience, they’ll have lots to share about the specifics.

5. Be wary of too much consistency

If almost all the reviews are 5-stars, for example, that’s a red flag (especially if they all come from one-time or first-time reviewers). 

With all that goes on and the expectations travelers have, even the best place can have the occasional 2-star review. It’s impossible to believe that every traveler’s experience was completely fantastic 100% of the time.

Additionally, if you click a reviewer’s profile and they’ve left 50 reviews in their lifetime and every single one of them is a poor review, don’t trust them. They’re either the worst curmudgeon in the world or a bot designed to create a negative story, likely to elevate someone else’s review status.

What to do if you’re not sure: Contact the business directly

Still not sure or confused by competing review comments? Contact the business directly and ask about the negative comments and what happened. If the owner’s site has been hit with a bot, they will usually know about it, and if not, they’d appreciate the chance to correct the situation quickly. 

Pro tip: Be sure to ask the owners how the issues have been addressed. Sometimes, a renovation or change of management is behind the differing reviews.

Ultimately, when factoring in reviews before booking on a travel site, it’s important to look for a balance – watch the trends. As I mentioned, any establishment can have an ‘off’ night but if the majority of the reviews are positive and they appear not to be bot-manufactured, you’re can probably trust the overall picture.