SINGAPORE, Sept 30 — Singapore’s competition watchdog has taken action against a fake review service provider and 45 businesses that admitted buying fabricated online reviews, in its largest investigation of such practices to date.

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCS) found that two websites, BuyReviewSG and GetReviewSG, had supplied fake review services to about 100 businesses, The Straits Times reported.

The websites were operated by Julian Tung Yan Kai, sole director of Reputifly, who admitted helping businesses generate fabricated reviews, recruit and pay people to post them, and make the content appear genuine.

The first phase of the CCS investigation covered the service provider and 47 businesses, with 45 admitting they had purchased fake reviews.

The 45 businesses have agreed to stop the practice, remove the fabricated reviews and display public apologies for six months on their websites, social media accounts and physical premises.

Reputifly has also agreed to stop providing fake review services and publish a six-month apology on its website, while voluntarily donating proceeds from the operation to charity.

Two other businesses declined to give the undertakings sought by CCS, which said it would continue investigating them and could take stronger enforcement action if necessary.

The second phase of the probe is also under way and will examine other businesses that may have used fake review services.

CCS chief executive Alvin Koh said consumers should be able to rely on online reviews as genuine accounts of other customers’ experiences, warning that fabricated reviews could mislead consumers and distort competition.

He said the watchdog would pursue both businesses that bought fake reviews and those that profited from supplying them.

The investigation found that Tung had been providing the service since 2023 or earlier, eventually expanding it to about 100 businesses whose reviews appeared on platforms including Google, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Carousell, Yelp and Trustpilot.

Businesses could buy packages of reviews posted at intervals and use a rating calculator to determine how many five-star reviews were needed to achieve a desired Google rating.

Generative artificial intelligence was used to make the fabricated reviews appear more authentic by varying writing styles and sentence structures, adding Singapore-specific details and introducing natural-sounding imperfections.

The operation later developed an online dashboard that allowed clients to generate, manage and track reviews, including content based on details from their existing four- and five-star Google reviews.

Some reviews were designed to appear more credible by describing initial reservations before ending with a positive account of the customer’s experience.

The provider recruited people through Telegram channels to post the prepared reviews in exchange for payment, while also offering to replace reviews removed by online platforms.

CCS said the operation could have misled consumers into believing that businesses or their products and services were more popular or positively received than they actually were.

Under Singapore’s Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, buying or posting false reviews is considered an unfair practice because it can deceive or mislead consumers.