The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched five new consumer law investigations into UK companies as part of a crackdown on fake and misleading reviews.

Cases against businesses across sectors including funerals, food delivery, and car sales are now underway as the competitions regulator determines whether they have infringed consumer law.

The CMA said that online reviews play a “significant role in people’s decisions”, influencing billions of pounds of UK spending every year. Research from Which? has shown that 89% of people use reviews when researching a product or service – making it essential that the information they rely on is genuine and transparent.

The five companies under fresh CMA investigation are Autotrader, Dignity, Feefo, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists.

Motor marketplace, Autotrader, and reviews site, Feefo, are being investigated over whether a number of one-star reviews moderated by Feefo were not published on Autotrader’s platform, therefore denying consumers a fully rounded picture of other customers’ experiences.

Funeral director, Dignity, is being investigated over whether it asked staff to write positive reviews about the company’s crematoria services – giving people a potentially inaccurate picture of genuine feedback.

Just Eat is facing a probe over whether the food delivery company’s ratings system has inflated certain restaurants’ and grocers’ star ratings, also potentially giving consumers a misleading picture.

Fresh pasta chain, Pasta Evangelists is being investigated over whether customers were offered discounts on future orders in exchange for leaving five-star reviews on delivery apps, without this being disclosed.

Chief executive of the CMA, Sarah Cardell, said: “Fake reviews strike at the heart of consumer trust – with many of us worrying about misleading content when looking at reviews online.

“With household budgets under pressure, people need to know they’re getting genuine information – not reviews or star-ratings that have been manipulated to push them towards the wrong choice.

“We’ve given businesses the time to get things right. Now we’re deploying our new powers to tackle some of the most harmful practices head on.”

The CMA iterated that it has not yet reached any conclusions about whether consumer law has been broken while its investigations are ongoing.

Following the latest investigations, there are now 14 businesses in total under review by the CMA using its new consumer powers.

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