Fake Reviews: When the Five Stars Were Bought, Not Earned

What it is

Reviews are how most people choose a car shipper — which is exactly why bad operators buy them. A company with a wall of glowing five-star reviews may have earned none of them. The reviews are purchased, incentivized without disclosure, or posted in coordinated clusters, specifically so that when you do your "research," the research points you at a company that will lowball you, hold your car, or take your deposit and vanish.

This isn't a gray area the industry tolerates. The first time the Federal Trade Commission ever brought an enforcement action against a company for misrepresenting online reviews, the company was an auto transport broker.

How it works, step by step

1. The broker builds its reputation the fast way. Customers are offered a discount, cash, or entry into a "best review" prize drawing in exchange for posting reviews — without disclosing that the reviews were paid for. Generic five-star praise floods Google, BBB, and review platforms in clusters.
2. The advertising does the rest: "More highly ranked ratings and reviews than any other company in the business" sounds like proof.
3. You book based on the stars. The pricing scams — lowball quotes, deposit games, cancellation traps — only become visible after you've committed.
4. Meanwhile, the honest record sits elsewhere. Federal complaint files and BBB complaints tell a different story than the review wall, but most consumers never think to compare them.

The FTC's case is the cleanest illustration. In 2015, the FTC charged AmeriFreight, an auto shipment broker in Peachtree City, Georgia, with misrepresenting its online reviews: the company gave customers a $50 discount for agreeing to post reviews (and raised the price $50 if they declined), ran a "$100 Best Monthly Review Award," and advertised itself as having more highly ranked ratings and reviews than any other company in the automotive transportation business — without disclosing that it paid for the endorsements. The settlement barred the company from misrepresenting ratings as unbiased and required it to disclose material connections with reviewers.

Red flags

• Reviews sound generic and repeat the same phrases: "great service," "highly recommend," no specifics.
• Reviews arrive in clusters within a short timeframe.
• Reviews lack the details real shipments produce — pickup cities, delivery dates, vehicle types, problems and how they were handled.
• The star rating is wildly out of line with the company's complaint record. FMCSA consumer complaints about auto transport nearly doubled from 4,340 in 2020 to 8,295 in 2021 — a five-star profile sitting on top of a stack of federal complaints is a profile to distrust.

How to protect yourself

• Read reviews for texture, not the average. Real reviews mention routes, dates, drivers, and things that went slightly wrong and got fixed. Bought reviews mention feelings.
• Cross-check three sources: the star rating, the BBB profile, and the FMCSA complaint/authority record. When they disagree, believe the complaints — nobody pays to file those.
• Be suspicious of perfection. A busy transport company with years of shipments will have some unhappy customers and some detailed complaints. A spotless wall of brief five-star praise is a marketing artifact, not a track record.
• Remember what incentives do. If a company offers you a discount for a review, the reviews you're reading were produced the same way.

If it already happened

If fake reviews steered you into a company that then scammed you, the reviews aren't your main fight — the underlying conduct is. Pursue the deposit dispute, price change, or damage claim through your bank or card issuer and the channels in the relevant article on this site (FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, FMCSA at 1-888-DOT-SAFT, your state attorney general).

But do two extra things:

• Leave your own detailed, honest review — with your route, dates, and what actually happened. Specific reviews are the antidote to generic ones, and they're what the next customer needs.
• If you were offered money or a discount for a review, mention that in your review and in your FTC report. Undisclosed paid reviews are themselves a violation regulators have acted on.

On Dispatch A Car, ratings live on company profiles next to the legal name and authority numbers — and a rating can only be left by someone with a registered Customer, Carrier, or Dealer profile, who can edit their own review but can't post anonymously. Our own founding broker profile is no exception: Auto Car Ship's 4.8 stars across 199 Google reviews is a Google number, labeled as such — check it there, not here.