For three consecutive days, employees from a roast duck restaurant in Beijing bombarded me with 22 private messages on Dianping, a Yelp-like platform in China. It began after I left them a 3.5-star rating after dining there. While the platform categorized my feedback as “neutral,” the company saw it as a negative review. The potential impact was far greater than I had anticipated — every employee at the restaurant risked having their salary docked and losing their monthly bonus. In desperation, the staff offered to refund the cost of my roast duck meal and begged me to delete the review.

Such incidents are not isolated. In China, hundreds of millions of consumers rely on review platforms to choose where to eat, shop, and much more. But as merchants increasingly rely on paid-for traffic and fake reviews to generate profit, misleading and sometimes defamatory feedback is increasingly drowning out genuine discussion and shared experiences, undermining the credibility of these rating systems.

On July 20, a customer in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, posted a video revealing that the milk tea chain Chagee had sent an employee to his home after he left a negative review. After finding that the milk tea he bought lacked the usual creamy flavor, he had written a critique on a delivery platform. The following day, a barista from the shop arrived at her doorstep with a fresh cup of milk tea, admitting their mistake and offering it as compensation in exchange for deleting the review.

The incident sparked widespread controversy online, with many sharing similar stories of being confronted after posting negative reviews and raising concerns about personal privacy. Others questioned the ethics of such practices, commenting that negative reviews are a consumer’s right and that demanding they be removed defeats the purpose of honest feedback.

Allegations from former Chagee employees also surfaced online, claiming the chain imposed strict limits on negative reviews, allowing just three per 10,000 orders — any more and the employees’ salaries would be docked. Chagee’s franchise department denied enforcing such mandates, stating that while the headquarters does reward stores for high service quality, it does not require the removal of negative reviews. However, it added that some store managers, motivated by performance bonuses, might pressure employees into asking customers to delete critical comments.

Wen Qian, who worked for two years at a Chagee store in Ganzhou, in the eastern Jiangxi province, says her store manager closely monitored reviews. On one occasion, while taking an order, Wen wore a hat and didn’t look up, which a customer perceived as unfriendly, prompting a scathing review that even noted the exact time of the order. Her manager demanded that Wen personally resolve the issue, warning that failure to do so would result in a 15% deduction from her daily wages, equal to about 30 yuan ($4). The company’s policy technically allows for three negative reviews a month, but Wen says her former boss insisted on persuading customers to remove all unfavorable feedback.

Wen found the complaint deeply unfair, saying, “My mouth naturally turns downward — I can’t change how I look, even though I’ve tried to control my expression.” Working for more than 10 hours a day was already wearing her down, and she found the constant demand for “service with a smile” physically and mentally taxing. After making multiple apology calls, paying out of her own pocket to send the customer a bubble tea, and gifting two discount coupons, she finally persuaded the customer to delete the review.

Many store owners concede that they are unsure what influence negative reviews actually have on a business. Zhang Wenyan, who runs a deli in China’s southwestern megacity of Chongqing, starts every day by checking for bad reviews. While her business offers both dine-in and delivery services, she finds the latter particularly vulnerable to criticism. From her observations, a single negative review can lower her store’s search ranking, leading to fewer page visits and orders. This decline in activity further worsens the ranking, creating a vicious cycle that harms brand awareness and performance.

According to a domestic media report, Dianping had 114 million monthly active users in April 2023, making it the market leader for such platforms. This means it can wield immense influence in shaping a business’s reputation, explaining why store owners feel compelled to erase negative reviews.

High praise

This year, Shanghai police uncovered a case in which a man was extorting restaurants by intentionally leaving negative reviews. The perpetrator targeted businesses on several platforms between March 2023 and February 2024, alleging issues such as food poisoning and poor service, despite never having visited their outlets. He then demanded payments of 100 to 200 yuan to delete the reviews, which many restaurant owners reluctantly agreed to. By the time the scam was exposed, he had pocketed more than 7,000 yuan.

Wang Liwen, who works for an online company that specializes in removing negative reviews, says that one bad review doesn’t directly determine a store’s overall rating. What really matters is the ratio of positive to negative reviews, and the cumulative number of reviews, especially five-star ratings. Platforms like Dianping calculate store ratings and rankings based on various factors including the user’s level, the store’s credit score, and the number of recent reviews.

Despite the complexity of the algorithms, merchants have overall reached a conclusion: enough five-star reviews can offset the impact of a few negative ones. Wen says that her former boss often encouraged employees to find creative ways to attract positive reviews. She frequently invited friends to place orders and leave glowing reviews, particularly ones that mentioned her name. “If they praised me specifically, the manager would be happy, and our usual commission of 0.1 yuan per cup might even be doubled,” she explains. Maintaining a 4.9 rating for a month could earn her an additional bonus of 100 to 150 yuan.

Increasingly tied to financial incentives, positive reviews have gradually become a commodity. An Qi, a loyal Dianping user since 2018, has written more than 8,000 reviews and achieved the coveted LV8 status, the platform’s highest membership level, signifying greater authority and credibility. With her status, An can enjoy free meals and earn 100 yuan for a positive review with at least 100 words and nine photos. She discovered that a single negative review from a user of her level can lower a store’s rating by 0.1 points out of a maximum five. A former marketing analyst based in the southwestern Yunnan province estimates that it takes about 25 positive reviews to offset the impact of one negative review from an LV7 or LV8 user.

Tough competition

For many merchants, removing a malicious review by filing an appeal with the review platform is just too hard.

Chen Junhao, a gym manager in Beijing, faced a dilemma in August when three negative reviews appeared on its Dianping page in a single day, all targeting a recently hired personal trainer. Two anonymous reviews accused the gym of “not having a single trainer in good shape,” while a named reviewer claimed they paid 850 yuan for a trial session, but the trainer was unprofessional and failed to provide tailored guidance.

In reality, the trainer had been on leave during the period in question and hadn’t conducted any sessions. Chen confirmed with the three clients who had attended trials with that trainer — all left positive reviews and even purchased further classes. Convinced the claims were false, he filed appeals with Dianping, but all of them were rejected.

Determined to resolve the issue, Chen visited the platform’s headquarters twice with surveillance footage and the trainer’s leave record, but the response was the same: “We understand your situation, but we can’t remove the reviews because the accounts haven’t violated user rules.”

The platform specifies eight types of reviews that businesses can appeal to have removed, including those left by competitors or employees, users who have never experienced the service, and customers who had earlier threatened to leave a bad review. Merchants are required to submit chat logs, onsite audio or video, and proof that the person identified in the evidence is the user who wrote the review. For Chen, this was impossible, as most reviews are anonymous. After multiple failed appeals, the fitness trainer reported her case to the police. Only after Chen submitted the police report did the platform finally remove the review posted under a real name; the two anonymous reviews remained untouched.

A study published in the journal Psychology & Marketing found that anonymous reviewers typically give lower ratings and express stronger negative emotions than those who post under their real name. The report concludes that while anonymity enables free expression, it can also encourage impulsive or aggressive remarks, highlighting the need for thoughtful regulation.

Anonymity can also be used to cover more nefarious practices. Yu Wei, who owns a spa in Jinjiang, in the eastern Fujian province, lost sleep in August after an unnamed customer complained that her beautician “had long nails” and that the spa treatment had worsened her headache. Yu felt the review was suspicious — her beauty salon, which has been operating for over a decade, had never received a negative review online. On that day, there were two customers whom she identified later as competitors after adding them on the WeChat messaging platform. Despite reminding her employees to be extra cautious and to deliver a satisfactory service, a negative review appeared shortly after.

After searching online, Yu found that the two “customers” had taken photos of her salon and used them to promote their own brand as if it were one of their stores. However, when she presented this evidence to Dianping, the appeal was repeatedly rejected. Frustrated, she decided to confront the people responsible directly. Under pressure, her competitor deleted the review but offered no apology, instead calling her “aggressive.”

In 2019, the Shanghai High People’s Court addressed the question of whether online platforms bear responsibility in disputes over negative reviews in an analysis of a defamation case involving a beauty salon and Dianping. The salon had sued Dianping for refusing to delete feedback that accused the business of “using counterfeit products and having fake reviews.” The court ruled in favor of Dianping, reasoning that consumer experiences are subjective, and that the evidence provided was insufficient to prove the review in question was false or defamatory.

The judge emphasized that reviewers serve as “whistleblowers,” monitoring the quality of goods and services. However, freedom of speech is not absolute; it must comply with the law, respect the legitimate rights of others, and uphold public interest. Business operators have a duty to tolerate negative reviews, while platforms should protect merchants’ rights without suppressing consumer rights, the judge added.

Dianping has publicly stated its commitment to cracking down on the underground economy of fake reviews, aiming to build a trustworthy content platform for users and businesses. But for many merchants, the issue extends beyond malicious reviews to cases where legitimate customer feedback fails to appear.

The owner of a private kitchen in Dali, Yunnan, says that during the peak tourist season in July, his establishment received only four reviews. He realized there was a problem when he watched a guest write a five-star review that never appeared on his page. He reached out to Dianping, and the customer service operator said that the review had been hidden because it contained a sentence used in feedback from another reviewer and was considered plagiarism. “What do you mean by plagiarism? She liked the wording and quoted it — what’s wrong with that?” he recalls asking in astonishment.

It’s worth noting that platforms also profit from their review systems. To mitigate the impact of negative reviews and boost their reputation, merchants on Dianping like Yu pay an annual fee of 3,800 yuan to enable them to sell group-buying vouchers and customize their pages. She says her store’s page rarely receives organic views, forcing her to also spend 100 to 200 yuan daily to buy traffic.

Mutual understanding

Five years ago, Qian Yu founded a chain of Chongqing noodle shops in the southern city of Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Reflecting on her expansion strategy, she now regrets imposing rigid targets on her employees: each store had to secure at least six positive reviews daily on Dianping and maintain a rating of 4.5 out of five. At the time, Qian had just received angel investors, and increasing the brand’s visibility was crucial to attracting further investment. “We were effectively being held hostage by the platform, but any traffic is better than none,” she says. Positive reviews propelled her outlets into popularity rankings like “Top Seller of the Month” and “Top 10 Noodle Shops in Shenzhen.”

Yet, securing fresh investment grew increasingly difficult. “Honestly, for a small noodle shop like ours, most customers are regulars from the neighborhood. These titles mean nothing to them; they were really just to satisfy my own ego,” Qian says.

More importantly, she began to feel like the platform had too much control. The agreed commission paid to Dianping was 23% for group-buying coupons, but Qian found it was often much higher in practice. Sales data shows that, one morning, her shop earned 298 yuan in revenue, but her actual income was only 105 yuan. On top of this, merchants are expected to shoulder the cost of promotional discounts, often leaving them with minimal profits, or even losses. “If you cancel orders, the platform will downgrade your ranking, and next time customers search for nearby restaurants, you’ll be buried pages deep,” she says with a resigned sigh.

Qian’s frustration peaked when a customer repeatedly used the same photo to claim there were foreign objects in their food. After several failed appeals, she shut down her delivery service in April and adopted a “let it be” attitude toward ratings. “I don’t want to disrupt my customers’ dining experience just to chase good reviews, and I’ve stopped including positive reviews in employee evaluations,” she says. Her shop’s rating has since dropped from a peak of 4.8 to 3.8, but Qian feels much more relaxed. Now, she focuses on her one remaining location and maintains sales by connecting with regulars through a self-moderated chat group.

Occasionally, she still receives negative reviews, like when a woman sent her a photo complaining that one dish was too spicy. Qian offered a refund, but the customer declined and suggested a discount toward her next visit instead. After years of obsessively chasing rankings, such mutual understanding felt rare, Qian says.

These days, review platforms seem to be shifting from spaces for free discussion to marketing tools for businesses. Veteran reviewer An recalls that in 2019 she took part in only one or two free trials a week. Over time, these events became more frequent, sometimes fitting in four or five in a day, varying by season: daily visits to ice cream shops in summer, and hopping between foot spas and hot pot restaurants in winter. “It felt manufactured,” An admits. “I felt completely controlled, like a puppet. I’ve become an accomplice in making this review system more fake.” In fact, after reflecting on my decision to accept the compensation from the roast duck restaurant and erase an authentic review from the internet, I was guilty of the same.

The credibility of online reviews is increasingly under scrutiny, and the “review economy” is deepening distrust between all three parties: businesses, those writing reviews, and those reading them.

For more than a month after the stealth visit from her competitors, spa owner Yu and her employees were constantly on edge. “Every customer who walked in felt like a competitor in disguise,” she recalls. Wen, the former Chagee barista, began wearing a mask at work after her negative experience. “It was stifling, but it made me feel safer,” she says, adding that her politeness to rude customers was purely for show. “I was wearing a mask, right? Underneath, I was secretly cursing them out.”

(Due to privacy concerns, Wen Qian, Zhang Wenyan, Wang Liwen, An Qi, Chen Junhao, and Qian Yu are pseudonyms.)

A version of this article originally appeared in Beijing Youth Daily. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

Translator: Chen Yue; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao.

(Header image: Visuals from Teera Konakan/Getty Creative/VCG, reedited by Sixth Tone)