Can You Trust Online Reviews? Here’s How To Find The Fakes

The Federal Trade Commission announced a groundbreaking lawsuit Tuesday against a company it accuses of paying for fake Amazon reviews. But the agency may have a lot more work to do if it wants to end the scourge of fake online reviews.

An NBC News investigation found thousands of questionable reviews on Amazon, Yelp, Facebook and Google — and showed that it was possible to purchase hundreds of positive reviews within days for a new company that had never done any work.