Yelp Reviews: Can You Trust Them?
BU Today interviews Institute Junior Fellow and Assistant Professor or Marketing in Questrom, George Zervas, about his most recent work on the effect of competition on online reviews, in which George and his co-authors concluded that at least 16 percent of the reviews are fake. The researchers found that the worst offenders are restaurants seeking to offset negative write-ups, that chain restaurants are the least likely to commit review fraud, and that restaurants sometimes take the low ground by posting fraudulent negative reviews for establishments competing for the same customer base.