Forty-five Singapore businesses have admitted to purchasing fabricated online reviews and agreed to publicly apologise after an investigation by the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore uncovered a fake review operation serving about 100 businesses.
The businesses were investigated as part of the first phase of the regulator’s largest fake-review probe to date. They admitted obtaining fake reviews from a provider operated by Julian Tung Yan Kai, the sole director of Reputifly.
The fake review services were offered through websites known as BuyReviewSG and GetReviewSG. According to the investigation, the operation began in or before 2023 and eventually provided services to around 100 businesses.
Businesses could purchase packages of fake reviews for platforms including Google, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Carousell, Yelp and Trustpilot. The provider even offered a calculator that allowed customers to estimate how many five-star reviews they needed to reach a desired Google rating.
The operation also used generative artificial intelligence to make fabricated reviews appear more authentic. The system could vary writing styles and sentence structures, include Singapore-specific details and introduce deliberate imperfections. Businesses could edit the generated reviews before they were posted.
A dedicated online dashboard was later developed to generate, manage and track fake reviews. It could also use details from a business’s existing four- and five-star reviews to create new content designed to resemble genuine customer experiences.
The provider recruited people through Telegram to post prepared reviews and ratings in exchange for payment. Participants were instructed to avoid duplicating reviews to reduce the chances of detection. The provider also offered replacement reviews when some were removed by online platforms.
The 45 businesses that admitted purchasing fake reviews have agreed to stop the practice, identify and remove fabricated reviews, strengthen their compliance measures and report their progress to the regulator.
They must also publish prominent public apologies for six months on their websites, official social media accounts and at their physical premises or outlets. The fake review provider separately agreed to stop offering the service, publish an apology for six months and donate proceeds from the operation to a charity.
Two other businesses included in the first phase declined to provide the required undertakings. Their investigations remain ongoing, with the regulator saying firmer enforcement action could follow if supported by the findings.
The second phase of the investigation has also begun and will examine other businesses that may have obtained fake reviews from the provider.
The regulator said fabricated reviews can mislead consumers into believing that a business or its products and services are more popular or positively received than they actually are. Under Singapore’s Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, using false reviews to deceive or mislead consumers is considered an unfair practice.
The case highlights the growing challenge of distinguishing genuine customer feedback from commercially manufactured reviews, particularly as artificial intelligence makes it easier to produce convincing online content at scale.
