About Us

"Thank you, Ms. Dean, for all of your work--a great service to the public."

FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra

Fake Review Watch is dedicated to exposing the massive corruption of online consumer review platforms with fake reviews and the culpability of the big tech companies in facilitating and covering up this fraud.  

Fake Review Watch is run by Kay Dean, a former federal criminal investigator.  Kay is an expert in researching, analyzing, and documenting online review fraud.  She has identified thousands of fake reviews across Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other platforms, and has compiled evidence of review fraud conducted by hundreds of businesses. Kay has uncovered three prominent aspects of online review fraud:  international and domestic brokers who sell reviews, businesses who trade reviews with each other, and networks organized by search engine optimization (SEO) companies or online marketers. The magnitude of the fraud is alarming, deceiving millions of consumers and creating unfair competition for thousands of honest businesses.

Online review fraud has become a popular method of false advertising in the 21st Century, and the failure of big tech, regulators, and law enforcement to take any serious action is eroding business ethics and harming the marketplace. A special focus of Kay's research has been on the role and culpability of the big tech companies in facilitating and concealing this fraud.

Kay's multi-year investigation has culminated in the founding of Fake Review Watch and the launch of an eponymous YouTube channel.