The Relationship of Negative Fake Online Reviews with Customer Product Trust and Product Perception
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11594/ijmaber.07.09.28Keywords:
Consumer behavior, Customer product trust, Negative fake reviews, Online consumer reviews, Online marketplace, Product perception, Quantitative correlational studyAbstract
Consumer reviews are important sources of information for purchase decisions in online marketplaces. The increasing number of negative fake reviews – false or exaggerated comments that are intended to damage a product or business – raises questions regarding the relationship between them and customer product trust and product perception. The present study used a quantitative correlational design to examine these relationships among 337 university students in Cebu City, Philippines who purchased products online at least once a month. Perceptions of negative fake reviews, customer product trust and product perception was measured by a structured questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale. Descriptive statistics and simple linear regression were applied to analyze the data. Respondents generally concurred on the existence of negative fake reviews that can be harmful and difficult to differentiate from authentic reviews. Regression analysis revealed that negative fake review perception was a significant predictor of customer product trust (R² = 0.26) and product perception (R² = 0.28). The findings reveal that the perceptions of negative fake reviews are significantly linked to consumers’ trust-based reactions and their assessments of product quality, dependability and worth. The findings emphasize the significance of review authentication, credibility indicators and consumer digital proficiency in reinforcing the integrity of online marketplaces.
Downloads
References
Al Asheq, A., Tanchi, K. R., Akhter, S., Kamruzzaman, M., & Islam, K. M. A. (2022). Examining university students’ behaviors towards online shopping: An empirical investigation in an emerging market. Innovative Marketing, 18(1), 94–103. https://doi.org/10.21511/im.18(1).2022.08
American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/ethics/code
BBB. (n.d.). How to spot a fake review. Better Business Bureau. Retrieved December 2025, from https://www.bbb.org/all/spot-a-scam/how-to-spot-a-fake-review
Duma, R. A., Niu, Z., Nyamawe, A. S., Tchaye‑Kondi, J., Jingili, N., Yusuf, A. A., & Deve, A. F. (2024). Fake review detection techniques, issues, and future research directions: A literature review. Knowledge and Information Systems, 66(9), 5071–5112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-024-02118-2
Gandhi, A., Hollenbeck, B., & Li, Z. (2025). Mis-information and mistrust: The equilibri-um effects of fake reviews on Amazon.com (NBER Working Paper No. 34161). Na-tional Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w34161
Gonzales, H. N. V., Laraga, R. C. M., Lopez, N. F. R. B., Paug, M. F. R., Pegarido, S. A. L., Yanson, K. A. A., Narsico, L. O., & Narsico, P. G. (2026). The influence of psychologi-cal triggers, content engagement, and self-regulation on the relationship be-tween social media ads and impulsive buying. International Journal of Multidis-ciplinary: Applied Business and Education Research, 7(5), 2228–2245. https://doi.org/10.11594/ijmaber.07.05.28
Huang, Y., Villas-Boas, J. M., & Zhao, M. (2023, October). Unmasking the deception: The interplay between fake reviews, rating dispersion, and consumer demand. Presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting. Retrieved from https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/VILLAS/Unmasking_the_Deception.pdf
Lauron, K. G. M., Malinao, B. R. E., Detecio, C. J. T., Abejero, E. L. Y., Genon, P. A. A., Abarquez, P. F., Malubay, R. B., & Narsico, P. G. (2026). Online fraud risk and its im-pact on student trust in digital financial services. International Journal of Multi-disciplinary: Applied Business and Educa-tion Research, 7(4), 1787–1800. https://doi.org/10.11594/ijmaber.07.04.25
Lim, W. M., Agarwal, R., Mishra, A., & Mehro-tra, A. (2025). The rise of fake reviews: Toward a marketing-oriented framework for understanding fake reviews. Australa-sian Marketing Journal, 33(2), 178–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/14413582241283505
Luca, M., & Zervas, G. (2016). Fake it till you make it: Reputation, competition, and Yelp review fraud. Management Science, 62(12), 3412–3427. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2015.2304
McKnight, D. H., Carter, M., Thatcher, J. B., & Clay, P. F. (2011). Trust in a specific technology: An investigation of its components and measures. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, 2(2), Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1145/1985347.1985353
Menfors, M., & Fernstedt, F. (2015). Consumer trust in online reviews – a communication model perspective (Bachelor’s thesis). Retrieved from https://kipdf.com/consumer-trust-in-online-reviews_5ab0ce7b1723dd349c80db59.html
Mukherjee, A., Venkataraman, V., Liu, B., & Glance, N. (2013). What Yelp fake review filter might be doing. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 7(1), 409–418. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v7i1.14389
Ott, M., Choi, Y., Cardie, C., & Hancock, J. T. (2011). Finding deceptive opinion spam by any stretch of the imagination. In Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (pp. 309–319). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://aclanthology.org/P11-1032.pdf.
Pedersen, S., & Li, Y. (2024). How does displaying fake reviews impact consumers’ purchase intention? The mediation effects of perceived trust, risk, and quality. In Proceedings of the EMAC Conference. Retrieved from http://proceedings.emac-online.org/pdfs/A2024-119493.pdf
Pooja, K., & Upadhyaya, P. (2024). What makes an online review credible? A sys-tematic review of the literature and fu-ture research directions. Management Review Quarterly, 74, 627–659. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-022-00312-6
Sahut, J. M., Laroche, M., & Braune, E. (2024). Antecedents and consequences of fake reviews in a marketing approach: An overview and synthesis. Journal of Business Research, 175, Article 114572. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114572
Salminen, J., Mustak, M., Jung, S.-G., Makkonen, H., & Jansen, B. J. (2025). Decoding deception in the online marketplace: Enhancing fake review detection with psycholinguistics and transformer models. Journal of Marketing Analytics. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41270-025-00393-8
Thilagavathi K, Thankamani K., P. Shunmugapriya, & D. Prema. (2024). Navigating fake reviews in online marketing: Innovative strategies for authenticity and trust in the digital age. The Scientific Temper, 15(03), 2854–2858. https://doi.org/10.58414/scientifictemper.2024.15.3.56
White, E. (2025, June 30). How to manage fake, negative reviews for your products or services. SmallBizTrends. Retrieved from https://smallbiztrends.com/managing-fake-negative-reviews/
Xia, R., Dong, X., An, J., & Wang, H. (2025). The impact of fake online reviews on custom-er satisfaction: An empirical study on JD.com. Electronic Commerce Research, 25(6), 4689–4716. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-024-09865-y
Yin, D., Bond, S. D., & Zhang, H. (2025). The illusion of authenticity in online reviews: Truth bias and the role of valence. Information Systems Research. Advance online publication. https://dennyyin.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/yin_bond_zhang_truthbias_forthcoming.pdf
Yoo, K.-H., & Gretzel, U. (2009). Comparison of deceptive and truthful travel reviews. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2009 (pp. 37–47). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-93971-0_4
Zhang, W., Wang, Q., Li, J., Ma, Z., Bhandari, G., & Peng, R. (2023). What makes deceptive online reviews? A linguistic analysis perspective. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, 1–13. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02295-5.pdf
Zhuang, M., Cui, G., & Peng, L. (2018). Manufactured opinions: The effect of manipulating online product reviews. Journal of Business Research, 87, 24–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.02.016
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Leiff Laurence M. Sedentario, Deanne John E. Lascota, Jraldine Amotan, Jramae Amotan, Mary Jorica L. Ardinez, Mary Jorica L. Ardinez, Neogin Gil A. Sollano, Nicole M. Cantil, Peter G. Narsico
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See the Effect of Open Access).
