Fake Review Checklist (Fakespot Alternative)

Free to use, print and share. Last checked: 4 November 2026.

For years, the usual advice was to paste a product link into Fakespot or ReviewMeta and let it grade the reviews.

Neither option works any more. Mozilla closed Fakespot on 1 July 2025, along with its website, apps and browser extensions, and switched off the Review Checker built into Firefox on 10 June 2025 [1]. ReviewMeta's website has been unavailable whenever we have checked, most recently on 4 November 2026.

The good news is that you can do most of what those tools did by hand. This checklist takes about two minutes and works on any shop or review site, including Amazon, eBay, Trustpilot and Google.

The 2-minute checklist

Work through the seven checks in order. Each one that fails counts as one red flag.

Read the middle ratings first

Skip the 5-star and 1-star reviews and read three or four 2-, 3- and 4-star ones. They are the hardest to fake usefully and tend to describe real trade-offs [2].

Red flag: almost no middle ratings, or the middle ratings describe a different problem from the one the 5-star reviews praise.
Sort by newest and look at the dates

Switch from "top reviews" to "most recent". Real feedback arrives unevenly over time.

Red flag: a burst of 5-star reviews in a few days, especially straight after a run of complaints.
Check the reviews are about this product

Some marketplaces group reviews across several versions of a listing, so reviews for one item can appear under another [2].

Red flag: reviews that mention a different colour, size, model or a different product altogether.
Look for detail only a real owner would know

Genuine reviews mention specifics: how it fitted, what broke, how long delivery took, what the seller said.

Red flag: lots of short, generic praise ("great product, highly recommend") or the same phrases repeated across different reviewers.
Search the reviews for signs of incentives

Use the search box on the reviews (Amazon has one) and try words such as free, refund, gift card, discount and asked me.

Red flag: reviewers mention being given the product, a refund or a reward, or being asked to change a negative review. In the UK, a review that hides an incentive is now illegal [3].
Open two or three reviewer profiles

Click the names on a few of the most glowing reviews.

Red flag: profiles that only ever leave 5-star reviews, review dozens of unrelated products in a short time, or have reviewed just this one business.
Check the seller outside the listing

Look for a proper website, a UK or clear trading address, real contact details and a returns policy you can actually find. Then search the brand name with "complaints" or "reviews" on a site the seller doesn't control.

Red flag: no way to contact the seller, no clear returns policy, or independent sources that tell a very different story.

What your score means

0-1 red flagsReviews look normal. Read a few more and decide on the detail.

2-3 red flagsSlow down. Look for independent reviews or buy somewhere with easy returns.

4 or moreTreat the rating as unreliable. Consider a different product or seller.

This is a rule of thumb, not a measurement. No checklist or tool can prove a review is fake. What it can do is tell you when the star rating deserves less weight than it appears to have.

What tools like Fakespot could and couldn't do

Automated checkers looked for the same patterns at scale: timing, repeated wording and reviewer behaviour. They were useful, but they gave you a grade without the reasons, and they could be wrong in both directions.

Checking by hand takes a little longer, but you see the evidence yourself. That matters, because a review can be genuine and still unhelpful, and a product with a few suspicious reviews can still be a good product.

Your rights in the UK

Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has banned fake reviews and reviews that hide an incentive, such as a free product or payment [3][4].

Businesses must not write, commission or pay for fake reviews, positive or negative.
Incentivised reviews are allowed only if the incentive is made clear.
Websites that publish reviews must take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove fake ones.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) enforces the ban and can fine businesses up to 10% of their global turnover. In March 2026 it opened investigations into five businesses over fake and misleading reviews [5].

How to report a fake review

On the site itself. Most shops and review platforms have a "report" or flag option on each review. Amazon, eBay and Trustpilot all do [2].
To Citizens Advice. If a business seems to be faking reviews, report it through the Citizens Advice consumer service, which passes reports to Trading Standards [6].

Sources

Mozilla, "Investing in what moves the internet forward" (May 2025): Fakespot shutdown dates.
Which?, "How to spot a fake review": review merging and how to report reviews on major sites.
Competition and Markets Authority, "Fake reviews" guidance (CMA208), 4 April 2025.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20, paragraph 13.
Competition and Markets Authority, "Fake and misleading reviews: 5 businesses under CMA investigation", 27 March 2026.
Citizens Advice, "Report to Trading Standards".

About this checklist

Review-It wrote this checklist from the patterns we look for in our own assessments and the official guidance above. It contains no affiliate links or adverts. Our ethics page explains how we work and who owns Review-It.

You're welcome to link to this page or print the checklist for others. If something here is out of date, please email enquiries@review-it.co.uk and we'll correct it.