On most review sites, a business can get a review removed sometimes for a good reason, sometimes because it asked the right way or paid the right company. The review you read may be the one the business chose to keep.
On Proofix, a business can never delete a review. Once a receipt-verified review is posted, it stays. The business can reply to it, but it cannot remove it.
I came across a Malwarebytes Labs finding from November 2, 2026 that stuck with me: underground sellers are now selling fake five-star reviews, and charging $100-$200 to remove a bad review around $1,100 for an Airbnb listing. So the problem is not only fake praise, it is also reviews being used as leverage.
That made me wonder what trust looks like now. When a business has a wall of five stars, do you still take it at face value, or do you look for something else first the detail in the review, whether it mentions what was actually bought, photos, a reply from the owner, or reviews spread out over time rather than all at once?
Right now a review shows a date, but not how it relates to the purchase. A review written the same day as a meal or a repair is fresh the details are still clear. One written six months later could be a real memory, or it could be someone settling a score long after the fact.
If a review is tied to a verified receipt, the time between the purchase and the review is knowable. Should readers be able to see that gap? Would it change how much you trust a review if you knew it was written the same day, a week later, or a year later? And would a long gap make you more suspicious, or just less interested in the details?
Right now, leaving a review takes seconds, and that is part of why there are so many of them and part of why so many are hard to trust.
If every review had to show proof first a receipt, an order, something that shows the person actually bought what they are reviewing would fewer people bother? Probably, at least at first. It adds a step, and some happy customers just will not go through it.
I keep going back and forth on this. Knowing that a reviewer really bought something feels like the most important first step it separates a real customer from a made-up account. But once that is settled, I still wonder how much detail a reader actually needs.
If someone says a restaurant was great, does it matter whether they had the tasting menu or just a coffee? For a hotel, a salon, or a repair shop, the specific service can change what the review means. On the other hand, showing exactly what was bought can feel too personal, and it might put people off leaving a review at all.
When you are choosing a business, what part of a review do you actually rely on?
A five-star rating on its own tells you someone was happy, but not why. A short review that says only "great service" leaves a lot unanswered too. The reviews I find most useful usually mention something concrete: what was ordered or booked, how long it took, how a problem was handled, or what the experience was like step by step.
For business owners: when a review comes in and you have no record of that person as a customer, what do you actually do today? Do you ignore it, reply to it, or report it? I am curious what feels most practical when you cannot tell either way.
Think of the review every business owner has seen: five stars and just two words, like Great service, or a short comment that never says what was actually good. The customer was real, the visit happened, but a future reader learns almost nothing from it.
If that review is verified tied to a real receipt, so you know the person really was a customer does that change how you should treat it? Is a short verified review more useful than a long unverified one, or does it still leave too much unsaid?
Right now, a business owner who gets a suspicious review usually has to start by arguing about whether the reviewer was ever a customer at all. That argument goes nowhere, and it leaves real customers reading a fight instead of an answer.
When a review must show its receipt before it publishes, that first argument disappears. The owner already knows the review came from a real transaction, so the reply can focus on the actual experience: what was bought, what went wrong, and what will be fixed.
