How to Spot a Fake Plumbing Review: Don’t Get Scammed!

Nearly 30% of online reviews are fake. And they’re not “harmless scams”- Capital One estimates they’ll cost people $771 billion in misguided purchases this year.

This problem is far too common in the plumbing industry- because it’s too simple(and too cheap) to create fake reviews. It’s easier than ever for bad actors and shady companies to post tons of bogus reviews- heck, sometimes the plumber you call for service isn’t a plumber at all.

At Mother, we want you to know exactly what our customers say about our service. Sometimes, that means we get a bad review- but we never “scrub those” from the Web. We learn how to improve, take steps to make it right, and become a better plumbing service.

Let’s show you how to spot three different types of fake plumbing review: reviews from fake customers, reviews for fake companies, and ones that pay people for 5-star ratings.

Need a plumber in Dallas? Call us anytime- let us prove to you how we’re transforming plumbing service in DFW.

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Why Is It So Easy to Write Fake Plumbing Reviews?

Posting dishonest reviews is low-effort and low-risk. As AI marketing tools become smarter, it’s easier for cheap out-of-town freelancers to churn realistic looking reviews for clients.

“Review farms” openly post ads for phony review writing. Their bots can set up fake profiles in seconds, and improved AI tools allow them to spin hundreds of real-looking “5-star scams” in two minutes.

We get several emails a week from overseas freelancers offering “bundles of guaranteed 5-star reviews” for a fixed price. If we’re getting them, so are our competitors.

And when a fake review is spotted and reported, the company can claim ignorance- “we didn’t know these reviews were fake, we’ve been busy working!” There often isn’t a real penalty attached to churning spam reviews and testimonials.

Why plumbing customers are targeted by fake reviews

When your pipes spring a leak, your water heater fails or there’s sewage backing up in your drains, it’s a pretty urgent situation.

Unfortunately, bad actors know this. They know you don’t have time to really question the validity of online reviews, let alone check if they’re real. You need a fast solution- and it’s easiest to call the company with a flood of recent 5-star reviews.

The Three Major Types of Plumbing Review Scams

Fake and unethical plumbing reviews can be broken down into three categories:

1. Reviews from fake customers: These are written by marketing firms who have never used the company for plumbing service.
2. Reviews for fake companies: Lead generation agencies pose as plumbers and post fake reviews. They then sell you as a lead to a real plumbing company in the area.
3. “5-stars for cash” reviews: While not fake, they’re certainly shady. Some companies offer cash in return for 5 star reviews from customers.

Thankfully, each of these review scams can be spotted by looking for several key warning signs. Let’s break down each spam review, and show you how to recognize them.

Plumbing Reviews from Fake Customers

The most common type of scam review comes from people who aren’t customers at all. Instead, they’re written by freelance marketers and PR agencies who offer “bulk reviews at discount rates”- even though they’ve never hired the plumber.

Here’s why these fake reviews are so prevalent and easy to create:

• Automation: AI content farms make it easy to generate these reviews by the thousands in minutes. Even non-native speakers can craft grammatically correct reviews by plugging in simple terms, company names and locations.
• Low cost, high reward: We’ve seen offers from content farms for $5-6 per review. If a plumber makes $500 profit on a job booked off that review, that’s 100x profit.
• Easy profile creation: How many profiles have you seen on Yelp, Google and Thumbtack with no picture, location or last name? It takes 30 seconds to create a profile that can spam hundreds of fake reviews.
• “Clean hands”: It’s easy for the plumbing company to claim ignorance if the spam review is spotted. They can point the finger at a faceless marketer in a foreign country and suffer little to no penalty for it.

Is this plumbing review real? How to spot a fake

The one upside to these fake reviews being so widespread: it’s becoming easier to spot them.

If you suspect a review (or reviewer) is fake, look for trends in non-specific language, extremely short reviews and “date flooding”. Here are four warning signs:

1. Not location specific: If the reviewer says “in my house” and never mentions their neighborhood or a problem that’s specific to your area, that’s a red flag.
2. Really vague review: “Great!” “On time!” “Fixed my problem!” If the reviewer can’t say anything about the specific plumbing service, plumbing issue or a single plumber who worked on the project, that should set off alarm bells.
3. “Date flooding”: Look at the company’s other reviews on Yelp and Google. If you see no reviews for 3 weeks, then seven 5-star reviews on the same day, they’re likely spam.
4. One-hit wonders: Real people who post online reviews usually write them for multiple businesses in different industries. If that weird-looking review comes from a faceless account with no other reviews, question it.

“Plumbers” That Aren’t Real Plumbing Companies

Some “lead gen” companies- like Angi- are upfront and ethical about their service. You know they source customer leads, and contractors pay them for the right to bid on those jobs.

But what happens when other lead generation agencies pretend to be licensed contractors? It’s a growing trend- even where we live and work in Dallas- and it’s perhaps the most unethical of all review scams.

These companies- with no licensed plumbers on staff- create Google business profiles under vague “plumbing service names” with a fake address. (You can drive by the address, and see an empty unit with no one working there.)

These agencies pay outsourced marketing pros to write fake reviews about the “amazing service” their fake plumbers provided. These 5-star reviews are posted online- then, they pay another SEO company to artificially boost them on Google.

How to spot reviews for a fake plumbing company

The problem with these scams is it takes a little bit effort to uncover them. You actually have to pick up the phone, get in the car, or dig a bit online to reveal the fraud.

We went through the legwork so you don’t have to- here’s how to uncover a lead generation agency posing as a plumber:

1. No Master Plumber: A company cannot legally operate as a plumbing contractor without having a Master Plumber to assume legal responsibility. Ask the company for the exact name of their Master Plumber(s)- if they can’t answer you, hang up.
2. No licensing info: Ask the company for their plumbing license number. If they don’t provide one or beat around the bush, they’re not licensed- hang up.
3. Fake address: Plug the company address into Google Maps, and turn on street view. You may see a PO Box, UPS Store, or empty warehouse. Sometimes, it’s a unit in an industrial building- a quick car ride will reveal the unit is empty.
4. Weird phone call: Call the business. If they answer as “Home Plumbing” or another generic name, that’s a red flag.
5. Third party phone call: If you submit your info to the company, and a different one calls you back, your information was sold second-hand.

“Cash for 5 Stars”: Paying for Good Reviews

If your plumber gave you a discount for an unbiased review of their service, that’s one thing.

But if they offer you “10 bucks for a 5-star review”... that’s not ethical.

Let’s be clear: we’re not calling customers unethical for taking the money or the discount. We think the plumbing company is wrong for offering it.

Online reviews are often the only source that plumbing customers have to determine how good a company is. When those reviews are inflated by the promise of money, it harms the next person who hires that plumber.

The problem: there’s no good way to identify these reviews

The real trouble with paid reviews is they’re impossible to identify on platforms like Google, Yelp- and even the BBB.

We’re optimistic- we like to think they don’t happen too often. But if they do, there are a few ways you can try to identify them:

1. 5 stars only: If a company has nothing but 5 star reviews, something has to be up. Even good plumbers get 4-star reviews for one reason or another- and there’s always a review or two from customers who weren’t satisfied.
2. One platform reviews: A telltale sign of “cash for reviews” is a bunch of 5-star reviews on Yelp, and zero reviews on Google- or vice-versa.

16 Red Flags of a Fake Review or Plumbing Service

The takeaway: here’s the red flags to watch for that may indicate you’re dealing with a fake review, AI or bot-generated review, or fake plumbing company:

Red flags of a fake plumbing review or company:

🚩 No location details

🚩 Vague review with no details

🚩 No specific service review

🚩 No mention of plumber names

🚩 Lots of reviews published on the same dates

🚩 The only review from a faceless account

🚩 Large areas, not your neighborhood (e.g. Dallas, not Lake Highlands)

🚩 No Master Plumber on staff (or can’t name them)

🚩 Can’t provide plumbing license number

🚩 Address is a PO Box or empty industrial unit

🚩 Vague phone call greeting from customer rep

🚩 A different company calls you back

🚩 No specific service review

🚩 Only stock photos on website (no truck wraps or real plumbers)

🚩 No photos of real staff on website’s About page

🚩 Only reviews on one platform (e.g. Yelp but not Google)

Real Plumbers, Real Reviews (Even the Bad Ones)

You deserve to hear what every plumbing customer has to say in their reviews- even the ones that don’t make us look so great.

You can learn as much about a plumber from how they respond to bad reviews, and the steps they take to make things right.

Fake plumbing reviews (and plumbing companies) erode the trust that homeowners need when making a hiring decision. You don’t just want a great plumber- you want someone you feel safe and confident letting in your house.

At Mother, we want to change the way Dallas homeowners experience plumbing service. That means total transparency- so hey, here’s where to find all our reviews and feedback:

• Mother Modern Plumbing: Google Reviews
• Mother Modern Plumbing Reviews on Yelp
• Mother Modern Plumbing Reviews on Facebook
• Mother Modern Plumbing: Better Business Bureau

Need a plumber in Dallas? Call us anytime- let us prove to you how we’re transforming plumbing service in DFW.

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