Can a restaurant get in trouble for fake reviews?
Short answer: yes. Since April 2025, writing fake reviews, paying someone else to write them, and publishing reviews without taking reasonable steps to check they are genuine have all been automatically illegal under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The Competition and Markets Authority can fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover, and it has already put five household names under investigation, including two food businesses, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists. For a restaurant the practical rules are simple: never buy or trade reviews, disclose any incentive, and reply honestly to the reviews you get.
What changed in April 2025
Reviews used to sit in a grey area of consumer law. The new Act ends that. A set of review practices became banned practices, which means they are automatically unfair and illegal. No proof that anyone was actually misled is needed:
- Writing or commissioning a fake review. That includes a friend, a family member or an agency posting as a happy customer who never ate with you.
- Hiding a paid or rewarded review. If a diner got something in return, a free course, a discount, an invitation, and the review does not say so, that is a concealed incentivised review, and it is banned.
- Publishing reviews carelessly. A business that hosts reviews must take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent fake ones appearing, and to stop its ratings being distorted by them.
The CMA's own research, published alongside its enforcement, found that 89% of people use reviews when researching a product or service. That is why the regulator cares, and it is why your reviews page is worth protecting.
The enforcement is real
In March 2026 the CMA announced investigations into five businesses over fake and misleading reviews: Autotrader, Feefo, Dignity, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists. Two of the five sell food. These are not warning letters to anonymous sellers on a marketplace; they are named, public investigations into substantial companies, and the maximum penalty is a fine of up to 10% of global turnover.
Competition and Markets Authority. Sources at the bottom of this page.
Nobody starts with the maximum, and the CMA has been clear that it expects most businesses to fix things once told. But "we did not know" stopped being a defence in April 2025.
Where restaurants actually get caught out
Most restaurateurs would never buy reviews. The traps are the ordinary ones:
| The habit | The problem |
|---|---|
| "Leave us a five star review and get a free dessert" | An incentive tied to a positive rating, banned outright |
| A review card that offers a discount for any review, undisclosed | Incentivised reviews must be clearly disclosed |
| Asking staff or family to post as diners | Fake reviews, however warm the intention |
| An agency that promises to "boost your rating" | If the reviews are not from real diners, you commissioned fakes |
| Quietly flagging every bad review for removal while soliciting good ones | Distorts the overall picture the rating presents |
What remains completely fine: asking a genuinely happy table to leave a review, with no strings attached. That has always been the best route, and it is now also the only compliant one.
Replying is the half of reviews the law does not require, and the half that pays
The Act governs how reviews get made. It says nothing about answering them, and answering them is where a restaurant earns back control of its own page. An honest, prompt, personal reply to a bad review is read by every future diner who scrolls past it. A generic paste, or silence, is read just as clearly.
The operational problem is the same one as the phone and the DMs: replies take time someone on the floor does not have, so they happen late or not at all. This is the part Sorino covers. It answers your phone, email, chat and social from your own written record, in your voice, and it drafts honestly from what actually happened, because the same record that answers a booking enquiry knows your menu, your rooms and your policies. Nothing invented, nothing generic, and anything sensitive handed to a person.
What to do this month
- Read your own review-request wording. If any reward touches it, rewrite it so the ask is unconditional, or disclose the incentive plainly.
- Brief the team: no posting, no asking friends, no agencies that promise ratings.
- If a third party manages your reviews, ask them in writing how they comply with the CMA's guidance on unfair commercial practices.
- Set a standard for replies: every review answered, honestly, within a few days.
- Keep your written record current, so whoever or whatever answers for you is telling the truth.
Frequently asked questions
Are fake reviews actually illegal now, or just frowned on?
Illegal. Since April 2025 they are banned practices under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, automatically unfair, no proof of harm needed.
Can we offer a free coffee for a review?
Only if the offer is not conditional on the review being positive, and the incentive is clearly disclosed wherever the review appears. Tying any reward to a five star rating is banned.
What is the maximum fine?
The CMA can fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover for breaching consumer protection law.
Do we have to reply to reviews?
No law requires it. But replies are read by every future diner who scrolls past, and answering honestly and promptly builds trust in a way no advert can.
What does Sorino cost?
Plans from £299 a month, first month free.
Sources
Every legal claim on this page traces to a primary source:
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, c. 13. legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13
- Fake and misleading reviews: 5 businesses under CMA investigation. Competition and Markets Authority, March 2026. gov.uk/government/news/fake-and-misleading-reviews-5-businesses-under-cma-investigation
- Unfair commercial practices guidance (CMA207). Competition and Markets Authority. gov.uk/government/publications/unfair-commercial-practices-cma207
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