Archive: The Craigslist Ad That Paid for Fake Yelp Reviews

From the TI archives — originally published October 2014.

Yelp's motto was "Real People, Real Reviews." We'd always wondered how true that was. Then we saw a Craigslist ad that answered the question.

The ad, posted on Los Angeles Craigslist, was looking for "Yelpers interested in making money part time working from home publishing Yelp Reviews." The job: the company forwards you the business page, the comments, and the pictures — you copy them into 5-star reviews. Pay was via PayPal, per review, and only for reviews that got "recommended" instead of filtered. There was even a Google Form to sign up.

It was remarkably brazen — not a whispered offer, but a job posting. And it confirmed what the 5-star-to-disappointment pipeline had already suggested: some of those reviews were purchased.

The fake-review economy has only grown since. In 2023, the FTC banned fake consumer reviews and testimonials outright — a rule that took effect in 2024. But in 2014, the whole transaction ran on Craigslist and PayPal, out in the open, for a few dollars a review.