With new plans to tackle bogus ratings online: How much can you trust reviews?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Government is planning a major crackdown on fake reviews. Under proposals, it will become illegal to pay someone to write, or host, bogus online ratings.

How much weight should we put behind buying decisions when it comes to reviews and ratings, and what exactly are the plans to prevent this kind of consumer manipulation?

This week, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost discuss this, along with the others measures the Government is planning, including on subscription traps and Christmas savings clubs, and how it'll be enforced.

How much are you saving? You might think a lack of a rainy day pot is solely an issue for those on low incomes, but you'd be wrong.

A quarter of Britain's wealthiest households do not have one - why is this the case?

That comes as fixed-rate deals nudge higher, but Lee warns listeners not to get too excited.

Are you paying for too much mobile phone data? And would you take part in a home swap in order to save on your summer holiday?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money podcast. I'm Georgie Frost and alongside me and editor Simon Lambert. Today is assistant editor Lee Boyce. And coming up, should fake reviews and subscription traps be made illegal? The government's outline plans to beef up consumer protections. But what does Simon and Lee make of them? We take a look at the high earners with insufficient savings and what you can do if this is you.
0:21.9	We have some better news for savers, though, but don't get too excited.
0:25.8	Also, are you paying too much for your data? Probably.
0:28.8	And don't fancy trying your luck holidaying abroad this year.
0:32.6	What about a home swap instead?
0:34.7	Nobody gets up to date with all the latest breaking money news.
0:36.9	Just go to
0:37.7	this ismoney.co.org or download the app but first. The government is planning a major crackdown
0:44.1	on subscription traps and fake reviews. Under the proposals, it will become illegal to pay someone
0:49.9	to write or host bogus online ratings. Businesses offering subscriptions as well will also have to make it very clear exactly what
0:59.0	people are signing up for and make it just as easy to cancel as it is to sign up in the first
1:03.9	place.
1:04.9	Lee, these are the two big plans from the government that have perhaps got the most headlines,
1:10.4	but there are other measures
1:11.5	in there as well. I see something about Christmas savings. So what is in there? But I guess more
1:16.7	importantly, why do we have this sort of government plan? The government is saying this is going
1:22.6	to help boost competition and basically try and end consumer rip-offs. And there are quite a lot of these things that kind of happen.
1:29.7	It's quite a mixed bag in this consultation.
1:32.0	So it's in a consultation phase at the moment.
1:34.2	So as you say, they're about fake reviews.
1:36.3	A lot of us these days, I think I would say the vast majority do overanalyze reviews
1:41.9	on all sorts of things that we buy,
	...

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