When we are about to make an online purchase, we often first check the opinions that a given product has, look at the rating, the number of stars. And this partly determines whether we will be tempted to buy such a product.
Punished for opinions on the internet
Unfortunately, it often turns out that many of the opinions we take for satisfied customers are purchased serviceand UOKiK inspectors were on the trail of companies engaged in just such procedures. And when they found them, they dug up some interesting data.
“Remember that you don’t have to wait for users to appreciate your work by posting positive reviews. You can have them right away. All you have to do is use our support” – one of the punished companies advertised online, and the other one directly assured that it creates “a maximally neutral impression of content, so that the information message does not seem like an advertisement”.
When the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection started to look into what was behind these mysterious advertisements, it quickly turned out that the entrepreneurs who published them did not use the services and goods of their contractors, and yet they evaluated them. They also offered to publish opinions prepared in advance by their clients.
-Reviews published by punished entrepreneurs simulated opinions of real customers. They were misleading because they artificially increased the reputation of the seller or the quality of the product or service. Meanwhile, the reputation and prestige of entrepreneurs should be based on true information and shaped within the framework of fair market play. Both consumers and honest entrepreneurs who collect comments on their products in a lawful manner lose out on the procedure of publishing false opinions – says the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, Tomasz Chróstny.
Companies fined. They will pay PLN 85,000
The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection found that there was violation of the collective interests of consumers and imposed quite significant fines on companies trading in opinions. Best-Review from Leszno has to pay PLN 35,000, and SeoSem24 from Krakow – PLN 50,618. The decisions are not final and entrepreneurs can appeal them to the court, but it is certain that for now they are no longer providing their questionable services on the market. This year, similar decisions were also made regarding companies providing almost identical services, and the following were punished: Agencja City from Poznań, Opinie.pro from Lubartów and SN Marketing from Krakow, as well as J&J from Rzeszów.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection is also conducting explanatory proceedings in the case of Energia dla Przyszłości in Warsaw, a company dealing with photovoltaics and heat pumps. The Office is checking, among other things, the rules of a competition in which people who gave a high rating to this entrepreneur on social media could participate.