A Russian marketing company has offered to help restaurants in cities hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup to use fake reviews to bump up ratings on review Web site TripAdvisor, the agency’s owner has confirmed.
Marketing company Bacon Agency has said it can circumvent TripAdvisor’s algorithm for detecting fraudulent posts and publish reviews in foreign languages ahead of an influx of fans from abroad.
“What can you do if no Serbs and no Swedes have ever been to your venue and left a review?” Bacon Agency asked in a brochure received by a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, which is to host Egypt and Uruguay in their first round matches.
“You write it yourself!” the agency said.
For 35,000 roubles (US$559.65), the agency promises a spot in TripAdvisor’s top 10 list.
“We are offering to help tourists find you and to leave their money specifically with you,” it writes.
“We oppose any attempt to manipulate a business’ ranking,” TripAdvisor said. “Our dedicated investigations team is proactive and extremely effective at catching those trying to solicit fake reviews for money.”
Fake reviews are widespread, but it is unusual for a company involved in the practice to discuss it so openly, or to link it explicitly to a sports event.
The World Cup has created lucrative opportunities for businesses in the 12 host cities hoping to benefit from well-to-do foreign fans at a time when Russians are feeling the pinch from a fragile economy and Western sanctions.
Contacted by reporters, Bacon Agency confirmed that it had offered the service, but said that it only wanted to act as the middleman between restaurants and freelancers posting fake reviews.
“We understand that all this is illegal in the sense that TripAdvisor is against it,” Bacon Agency owner Roman Baldanov said.
“We were just testing this niche, because we see high demand,” Baldanov said. “It’s not because we’re bad guys who came in and said, look, you’ve got to start swindling ... All restaurants know that reviews are ordered, and many use this service.”
He said nobody had yet taken up his offer.
“The response we got was: Thanks, but we are already doing this ourselves,” Baldanov said.
Reporters tracked restaurants in six World Cup host cities over two months, noting an uptick in suspicious-looking posts.
At least six restaurants in the TripAdvisor top 30 list for Kaliningrad, which is to host Croatia and Nigeria, appeared to have dubious reviews.
Peperonchino, a cafe serving Italian cuisine 20 minutes’ drive from the World Cup stadium, used to get about one review a week.
However, two weeks ago reviews began to flood in — 45 in total — the majority from accounts with stock photos, created this year and rating the cafe five stars. Peperonchino rose from 28th place to second on TripAdvisor’s list.
“All our reviews are real and are left by our customers,” Peperonchino said. “It’s just we have a big loyalty system, a mobile phone app, and so on.”
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