The FTC review rule has been law since October 2024. Most small business owners have never read a line of it. Then, in December 2025, the Commission sent warning letters to ten companies. The subject was fake reviews and rewards tied to five-star ratings. The fine can reach $53,088 for each violation. So the quiet stretch looks over.
What the FTC Review Rule Bans
The rule reads quickly, which is rare. It bans writing, buying, selling, or spreading a review that gets the reviewer wrong. The same goes for a review that gets their experience wrong.
It also bans paying for a review that leans a set way. Read that twice. A thank-you for any honest review is one thing. A gift card for five stars is another.
Two more parts catch small firms often. A review from an owner or a manager has to say so, clearly. And the rule bars empty legal threats aimed at scrubbing a bad review.
The Habits That Quietly Crossed the Line
None of these began as fraud. They began as hustle. Then the rule changed what they mean.
A contractor asks the crew to post reviews. An owner offers a discount for five stars. A clinic hands the listing to a vendor, and the vendor writes the words. Each one now sits inside the ban rather than beside it.
Intent does not carry much weight here either. The test is what the review says, and whether that is true. A five-star post from a cousin who never walked through the door fails it, however kindly the cousin meant it.
- Paying staff a bonus for gathering five-star ratings from friends.
- Discounts, raffles, or gift cards offered only for happy reviews.
- Reviews from people who never bought a thing from you.
- Owner or manager reviews posted with no word about the link.
- Legal threats sent only to make one bad review go away.
Why Ten Warning Letters Matter
A warning letter is how an agency signals a shift. It costs the business nothing on the day. Still, it puts the owner on notice, and notice is what turns a slip into a knowing violation.
The Commission named two things in those letters. Fake reviews, and money or rewards offered only for positive ones. It also said that if the conduct keeps up, cases and large fines can follow.
Nobody should read that as a promise about next quarter. The point is smaller and more useful. The power exists, the fine counts per violation, and fifty solicited reviews is not one problem.
What You Can Still Do
Quite a lot, and this is the part owners miss. The FTC review rule goes after deception, not after asking.
Ask every customer for a review. Ask while the job is still fresh in their mind. Make it easy with a link, a card, or a text. None of that misstates anything, so none of it is a problem.
- Ask every customer, not only the ones you expect to smile.
- Offer the same small thank-you for an honest review of any rating.
- Reply in public to a bad review instead of trying to bury it.
- Say plainly when an owner or a manager wrote the words.
- Keep a simple record of how and when you asked.
What to Do About a Bad Review
The rule leaves you one real tool for a bad review. Answer it.
A calm public reply does more work than a deletion ever would. Future customers read the reply, not just the star count. They are watching how you handle a complaint, because that is what they may need from you one day.
Keep it short. Thank them, state the one fact you can state, and offer a way to sort it out offline. Never argue the details in public, and never hint at a lawyer.
Your Own Testimonials Page Counts
Owners tend to think of reviews as a Google matter. The rule reaches further. Your own website sits inside it.
So the quotes on your homepage have to be real. They have to come from a named customer. And they have to describe what that one customer went through, rather than a blend of several.
The rule also speaks to a business that shows a filtered set of reviews as if it were the whole list. If your page shows only the kind ones while hinting that it shows them all, read that part with care.
Where Vendors Create Risk
Many owners picked up these habits from a marketing vendor. That does not help much. The business whose reviews they are carries the risk.
Ask your partner three plain questions. Who writes the review requests? What, if anything, do we offer in return? Has anyone ever posted a review for us? Any pause there is your answer.
Then put the answer in writing. One short line in the scope of work, naming what is allowed, guards you better than a chat nobody wrote down.
Look at the software too. Some review tools still route unhappy customers to a private form and happy ones to a public listing. The rule does not name that setup outright. Still, it is the design most likely to collide with the part about showing a filtered set as the whole list.
A One-Hour Cleanup
Start with the Commission’s own questions and answers on the rule. It runs a few pages, and it speaks to owners rather than to lawyers.
Then open your listings and your site. Pull any review you cannot trace to a real customer. Add a plain line of disclosure to anything an insider posted.
Last, rewrite the ask itself. Request an honest review rather than a good one. That one edit removes most of the risk, and ratings rarely drop.
If you would rather have someone look at the whole picture with you, start with a free website analysis, or see how we handle social media marketing.
