Astroturfing

Are paid or Fake Testimonials illegal? Hmmm, well yes but not really.

Astroturfing (posting fake testimonials/reviews) is outlawed in the United Kingdom and the United States, and there exists highly accessible ways to report such fake reviews. I would guess the situation to be similar in a lot of the other developed countries. Well not in Norway (Oh No Norway! 😒). It is strictly speaking illegal to write deceptive testimonials online in Norway. However, there are no ways to report deception of such kind (even though it is extremely easy to prove the authenticity of these written and signed testimonials), but the government does not care.

Back in 2016, there have been a failed attempt in highlighting this issue , with a half-arsed attempt to documenting the legalities around astroturfing on "the consumer authority" website. There is even an inactive email address (brukeromtaler@forbrukerombudet.no) somewhere on the consumer authority website you can send complaints to so that your complaint can be echoed back to you.

 

Well, no worries the Norwegian fagfolk has taken note and are on the case! The web is swarming with fake and "shaped" reviews both for small and large companies. Some of the larger companies has gotten attention from the newspapers, but the small business men and women are also active and cheating you non-stop.

Here is my top 3 (you can see [or not depending on if they have been successful in deleting my reviews by getting their bffs 👬 to mark them as spam] my 1 star reviews shining through all the other 5 star reviews for all 3 companies 🌈):

1. BVT Entreprenør AS: The wonderful excavation company that have their own employees and friends giving out 5 star reviews for them. The 4 people that I have confirmed without a doubt for submitting a 5 start review for their own workplace are 🥁

1. Jagn Arild Øye Myre, worked for BVT:
   
2. Stig Tommy Dahl works at BVT
3. Marius Moe, works at BVT
4. Ola Grendstad works at BVT 
   

 

2. Norgeshus Byggmester Johan Lundbo AS: Ah the man with an ego the size of a planet! Mr. Johan Lundbo's men had done an OK job at my place but he himself was subpar in many other grounds so I felt the need to give 2 stars with an honest explanation of all the pros and cons. After I submitted my review, I got an email from google 2 days later that my review is really popular! Wow really!? I thought no-one cared? Well it turns out the attention was from Mr. Lundbo's minions (most likely employees?), who visited my review just to mark it as spam so that it would disappear forever. Clever, no wonder the dude has all 5 star reviews! I tweaked my review submitted and got it online again, but a day later <wooosh> it's gone again! I used another account just to leave a 1 start review this time 😏. Let's see how long that stays? Removing my review was of course not enough and he got 5 new "customers" to give him stellar reviews all within the span of two days! And an immediate response from "the owner". Not bad 😉. Funny that some of those customers even share the same last name:

 

3. GK Rør AS: 🥁The award for the most slimy company goes to 🥁these guys! They have done both the openly fake reviews (employees reviewing their own company) and marking bad reviews as spam. Coincidentally the removal of my review did not happen right away, but after I left a bad review for Mr. Johan Lundbo! These two companies work closely, after all they built my bathroom together 😉. That's a good demonstration of teamwork! I wish they had worked so well when building my bathroom 😅.

I am impressed that the people of GK Rør Trondheim are willing to go so far given that GK Rør is a huge company and not a small 1 man owned kingdom (like the other two above). The dedicated plumbers who are willing to lie for their company, whom I have verified to have been involved with GK Rør are listed below:

1. Paal Gunnar Olsen, works for GK Rør: 
2. Per Nielsen, works for GK Rør:
   
3. Kristian Trøan worked for GK Rør at the time he provided his review: 
4. Fridtjof Faaness works for GK Rør: