Canada's Competition Bureau is imposing an almost $1 million fine on Bell Canada for posting online reviews of its products and services. The posts were allegedly made by the company's own employees who did not disclose their relation with the company.
It is the first time that the bureau imposed such a penalty as a response to fake online reviews.
Bell employees were said to be encouraged by the company to post good reviews and give five star ratings to the MyBell Mobile and Virgin My Account apps. Bell Canada said that they have already removed the ratings.
The alleged fake posts were found out by Scott Stratten who already knew how the apps performed poorly in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Then suddenly, he noticed how the apps started to increase its rankings which made him curious. He decided to do some research at LinkedIn and learned that most of the reviews came from various staff members of Bell such as the company's IT Executives, Marketing Managers and Project Managers.
Bell admitted that they have encouraged certain employees to post the reviews and ratings. However, they also said that the practice was soon ended after it has caught the attention of the bosses.
"It's certainly not Bell's practice to encourage employees to rate our products, and we're sending a clear message out to the team to that effect," said Paolo Pasquini, Director of Communications and social media for Bell.
Last year, the Competition Bureau published a bulletin which reminded consumers not to patronize products that were given fake online reviews and to also report such cases to their office.
According to the bureau, the reviews that were made by Bell's employees gave the impression that they actually came from independent consumers. As a result, the total star rating for the company's apps was temporarily affected.
Apart from the payment of fine, Bell will also have to work on enhancing its "corporate compliance program" which places a huge focus on assuring that its employees and company contractors will not be engaged in future reviews of its products online. This type of move will be highlighted in a workshop on "Canadians' trust in the digital economy" which shall be conducted by Bell.
