Fake online reviews tell you less than you'd think, and the surveys that were supposed to fix the problem are built the same way. Before a one-star answer makes it anywhere public, a business can subscribe to a system that reroutes it. Good ratings post. Bad ones get managed. The feedback you never saw might be exactly the feedback you needed.

Somewhere along the way, five stars stopped meaning excellent and just started meaning safe. The restaurant with a 3.8 might be the best one on the block, but the algorithm doesn't know that. A 4.9 on a charging cord from Amazon might come with a business card in the box and a discount for a future purchase. The score and the product it describes are two different things, and the system was never designed to surface that gap.

Next time: is the score showing you everything, or just the part that somebody decided you should see? That question applies to star ratings, to surveys, and to the news cycle that moved on before anyone quite finished the conversation.

Topics: fake online reviews, star rating manipulation, Freedom Convoy Emergencies Act, customer service trust, five star fraud, RCMP policing reform

GUEST: Jamie Ellerton | http://conaptus.com and Lindsay Broadhead | http://broadheadcomms.ca

Originally aired on 2026-03-18