Review manipulation agencies lure small business owners with claims that manipulated reviews sent their sales and search volume soaring. certain@sportsseoul.com

[Sports Seoul | Reporter Yang Mi-jeong] As the number of consumers who open their wallets only after checking review content, counts and ratings surges, 'review manipulation' has become rampant. Write a five-star, all-praise review, then hit the store-save and product-wishlist buttons, and 1,000 won lands in your bank account. Because review manipulation can be done with multiple or third-party accounts without any verification, it is spreading at an alarming rate.

With the arrival of the 'review-is-everything' era, value-for-money reviews (reviews that emphasize performance relative to price) have emerged as a key benchmark. Whether eating out, visiting a hot spot, going to a hair salon, ordering delivery or shopping online, checking a platform's 'reviews' section has become an essential step. Places and products whose reviews or ratings fall short of expectations are cut out. Even if the price and performance are excellent, a business with few reviews is easily misread as 'unpopular or low in quality.'

Platforms that grasped this psychology introduced review services one after another. Businesses that racked up an overwhelming number of reviews, high ratings and reviews studded with glowing 'positive comments' thrived. A structure has taken root in which the top predators, those sitting at the very top when sorted by most reviews or highest rating, take the lion's share of the profits.

As an atmosphere spread in which consumers blindly trusted a business armed with the powerful weapon of reviews and ratings, even if it was a little pricier or a little inferior, businesses resorting to tricks began to appear one by one. They went beyond asking acquaintances and started seeking out specialized agencies to request review manipulation. As fake reviews flooded the market, the ecosystem was thrown into disarray, and it reached the point where anyone 'not manipulating reviews was treated as a fool.' Review manipulation, now out in the open, has hardened into standard practice.

In fact, an analysis of hundreds of review-manipulation requests posted in a review-manipulation company's KakaoTalk open chat room between the 14th and the 21st found that 80% of all requests were for manipulating Naver reviews (Naver Place, Smart Store, etc.). Baemin (10%), Coupang (5%) and Wadiz (2%) followed in that order. This is why the same restaurant can show wildly divergent ratings, such as 4.9 on Naver and 3.3 on Daum.

On Naver, searching for 'review company' brings up a variety of review-manipulation agencies at the top as Power Link ads. The agencies entice business owners by claiming that 'because businesses that incorporate customer feedback write the heartfelt reviews themselves, the quality is different from ordinary reviews.' In reality, however, anyone can enter the KakaoTalk open chat room anytime, anywhere, without restriction, and contrary to the promotional copy, review manipulation was being carried out by an unspecified mass of people.

Review manipulation is carried out covertly through KakaoTalk open chats. Reporter Yang Mi-jeong certain@sportsseoul.com

Marketers enter a group chat packed with some 1,000 unspecified people and post notices on how to manipulate reviews and ratings, how to inflate review counts using multiple accounts, and that 1,000 won will be paid for the labor. The agency charges business owners 5,000 won per review. Of that, the agency keeps 4,000 won and pays the review writer only 1,000 won, but for students short on pocket money, office workers dreaming of a side hustle and homemakers interested in supplementary income, it adds up to a tidy sum.

Once you enter the open chat room and tell an agency staffer you want to participate, they send you an instruction message. If your address, mobile phone number and IP address differ, you can even use multiple accounts. A participant buys the product at their own expense, enters a review tailored to the agency's taste along with a five-star rating, and is paid 1,000 won. The rules are fairly strict and complicated. A momentary slip can mean losing not only the payment for your effort but also the purchase cost you put in. Yet the agency makes it clear: 'No inquiries about purchases made by mistake.' Given the nature of open chats, it is also extremely common for agencies to simply vanish.

This reporter logged on to Naver and, using two IDs, booked hair treatments at Salon A priced at 330,000 won and 260,000 won respectively. Writing 'This is a booking for writing a review' in the review request field got the booking rejected. When the agency asked whether this was my first review gig and told me to do it properly, I changed it to 'Please make my hair pretty,' and the agency approved the 'fake' booking.

Once the booked time slot has passed, the conditions for writing a review are met. I praised the salon, saying the quality, price and service were all excellent and that I was 100% certain to return. I did not forget the five-star rating either. An employee of Salon A, having traded 5,000 won for a quality review, replied as if the reporter had actually visited: 'Thank you for visiting our salon during these anxious and worrying times. We will continue to maintain a safe and clean environment.'

The review written by the reporter and the salon's reply beneath it. certain@sportsseoul.com

The problem is that reviews manipulated this way harm both consumers and fellow business owners who operate honestly. For owners falling behind in the review race, the temptation to manipulate reviews is hard to resist. Mr. B, who runs a Japanese restaurant, lamented: 'For the past 30 years I took pride in earning customers' recognition and satisfying sales purely on taste, portions and price, but sales have plunged recently because of COVID-19. Businesses have been approaching me one after another, tempting me to boost sales through review manipulation. In the past I would have refused, calling it absurd, but with my livelihood on the line I feel like grasping at straws.'

Because review manipulation constitutes the crime of obstruction of business, or obstruction of business by damaging computers or similar means, under the Criminal Act, both the business that requested it and the people who took part are subject to punishment. It carries up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 15 million won. Attorney Shin Dong-woo of Shinhan Investment Corp. warned: 'There is a recent case in which a defendant was sentenced to 10 months in prison over a similar matter. If economic gains were obtained through the manipulation, confiscation and forfeiture are also possible.'

The Fair Trade Commission also imposes an administrative fine of up to 10 million won for violations of Article 21(1)1 of the Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce (the act of soliciting or transacting with consumers, or obstructing the withdrawal of an offer or termination of a contract, by conveying false or exaggerated facts or using deceptive methods).

Rep. Bae Jin-kyo of the Justice Party (right) explains a proposed amendment to the E-Commerce Act that would strengthen platform operators' responsibility for reviews, curb excessive review competition, ban paid reviews and punish fake reviews.  Yonhap News

Rep. Bae Jin-kyo, floor leader of the Justice Party and lead sponsor of the recent amendment to the E-Commerce Act to toughen penalties for fake reviews, argued: 'Platforms are not bystanders when it comes to review manipulation. They must fulfill their responsibility to prevent it. To establish a fair trading order online, the practice of paying for reviews must be banned.'

The E-Commerce Act amendment includes provisions that △ require online marketplace intermediaries (platform operators) to ensure transparency by disclosing how they collect user reviews and the criteria used to sort them, △ insert a warning that writing false reviews is punishable, and △ put in place preventive measures against writing false reviews and against brokering or arranging reviews. Violators of the prohibited acts would face up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 100 million won, with aggravated punishment where an intent to cause detriment is established.

'Unless the current structure in which everything is judged by reviews and star ratings is changed, the problem will keep recurring,' Rep. Bae stressed. 'We need to hold platform operators, as the parties running these services, responsible for coming up with remedies, while at the same time regulating by law the practice of manipulating reviews for pay and of demanding payment in exchange for writing reviews.'