Buying Reviews Australia ACCC Act Guide 2027

If you're an Australian business owner asking whether it's legal to buy reviews, the honest answer is: it depends entirely on where those reviews come from. Since April 2025, Australia has had one of the clearest, strictest laws in the world on this exact question — and most businesses still don't fully understand it. This guide breaks down the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 in plain English, so you know exactly where the line sits before you spend a penny on review growth. ### Is It Legal to Buy Google Reviews in Australia? A café owner in Brisbane pays $150 for 30 five-star reviews. A plumber in Perth pays the same amount for a service that texts his last 200 customers and asks them for honest feedback. Both would say they chose to buy Google reviews. Only one of them has broken Australian law. Whether it's legal comes down to one question: who wrote the review? If it came from a real customer describing a real experience, you're fine. If it came from someone who has never dealt with your business, it's a fake review, and Australian Consumer Law treats it as misleading conduct. ### What decides whether a review is legal? The ACCC puts it simply. Reviews should only be written by people who have actually experienced the product or service, and they should reflect that person's genuine opinion. So the money isn't the issue. Paying a company to help you ask customers is ordinary marketing. Paying for words from strangers is where the law steps in. ## What does Australian Consumer Law prohibit? The rules sit in the Australian Consumer Law, mainly the bans on misleading or deceptive conduct and on false testimonials [VERIFY: sections 18 and 29]. In practice, these things will get a business into trouble: Paying for reviews from people who were never customers Writing reviews of your own business, or having staff do it Asking friends or family to post reviews as a favour when they haven't used your service Posting fake negative reviews about a competitor Removing or editing genuine negative reviews to lift your rating The friends and family point surprises people. The ACCC says fake or misleading reviews are illegal even when posted as a favour to friends or family. ## What are you allowed to do? More than most owners think. Nothing in the law stops you from asking for reviews, asking often, or paying someone to run that process for you. You can send review requests by SMS or email. You can put a QR code on your counter and your invoices. You can hire a service to contact your past customers. You can grow from 14 reviews to 100 in a few months, as long as every one of them comes from a genuine customer. Rewards are a narrower case. Australian law allows an incentive only if it applies equally to positive and negative reviews and is prominently disclosed. Google's own policy doesn't allow incentives at all, so for Google reviews we recommend offering nothing. ## How seriously does the ACCC take fake reviews? Seriously enough to go to the Federal Court. The franchisor of Electrodry Carpet Cleaning was ordered to pay $215,000 after posting fake testimonials and pushing franchisees to post them on sites including Google. Service Seeking was ordered to pay $600,000 over reviews that businesses had written about themselves. Removalist Citymove paid $30,600 in infringement notices over testimonials posted under invented customer names. Maximum penalties are far higher today than when those cases were decided [VERIFY current figures on the ACCC website]. ### How can you check a review service before you pay? Before you buy Google reviews from anyone, ask these five questions. 1. Who writes the reviews? The only safe answer is "your own customers". - Do you need my customer list? A genuine service can't work without one. If they don't ask for it, the reviewers aren't your customers. - Do you promise a number of five-star reviews? Nobody can promise what real customers will write. A guaranteed rating is a warning sign. - Where are the reviewers located? They should be wherever your customers are. - Can I see the messages you send? A real service will show you the exact wording. In our experience, question two settles it almost every time. ## How does BuyReviews work? If the sections above made you nervous, here's the good news: none of those risks apply when your reviews come from real customers. That's the only kind of review we work with, so you're in safe hands and you can buy Google reviews. We help Australian businesses collect Google reviews from their own customers. You give us the list of people you've served, we send a short request with a one-tap link, and we follow up once. Each customer writes their own review, in their own words, from their own Google account. We don't write reviews, and we don't use reviewers who haven't dealt with your business. Every step is built around Australian Consumer Law, the ACCC's guidance and Google's review policies, so you don't have to study the rules yourself. 1. What do you get from working with us? - Peace of mind. Your reviews come from genuine customers, so there's nothing for Google to remove and nothing for a regulator to question. - More reviews, faster. Most happy customers will leave a review when they're asked at the right moment. We make sure every one of them gets asked. - Your time back. We handle the messages, the follow-ups and the tracking. You keep running your business. - Reviews that last. Real reviews stay on your profile year after year, and they keep working for you. - Better local visibility. A steady flow of fresh, detailed reviews helps your profile show up when locals search for what you do. - More trust from new customers. People believe reviews that mention real jobs, real suburbs and real staff names. ### Frequently asked questions ## Is it illegal to ask customers for Google reviews? No. Asking genuine customers for honest feedback is legal and is exactly what the ACCC expects. The law is only concerned with reviews that don't reflect a real experience. Ask every customer, not just the happy ones, and don't tell them what to write. ## Can my business be penalised for reviews someone else posted? It can. If you paid for or arranged fake reviews, you're responsible even though a third party wrote them. The ACCC also says businesses and platforms that leave up reviews they know to be fake risk breaching the Australian Consumer Law, so report fake ones promptly. ## Do these rules apply to small businesses? Yes. The Australian Consumer Law applies to businesses of every size, including sole traders. Past ACCC cases have involved franchises, online platforms and a single removalist company. Being small doesn't reduce the duty to keep reviews genuine. ## What makes a review fake? A review is fake when the writer hasn't actually used the product or service, or when it doesn't reflect their real opinion. That includes reviews written by the owner, staff, paid strangers, or friends who were never customers. A real customer's honest review is never fake. ## Final Words The ACCC Act didn't ban buying reviews — it banned buying fake ones. That's a meaningful difference, and it's one most review-selling websites conveniently avoid explaining. buyreviews only ever requests reviews from your real customers, keeping you fully compliant from day one. If you want to legally buy Google reviews the way the law actually allows, contact Buyreviews.