Real customer reviews provide an inside look at the quality and value of a company’s products and services. Legitimate businesses pay (and it’s expensive) to contract with a third-party, Google-authorized review service such as Shopper Approved, TrustPilot or Yotpo to collect reviews for them.

These services collect reviews from verified purchasers only and take the review process completely out of the hands of the website owner to ensure the absolute integrity of every review.

I contract with Shopper Approved and have absolutely no access to any customer review. Shopper Approved won’t even change misspellings of my name in reviews. I know this because I called and asked them to. They refused and said a stipulation of being a Google-authorized service is that all reviews must remain exactly as the customer wrote them—misspellings and all.

Here’s how to tell if the reviews on a website are fake and written by the website owner themselves.

Any review you see on a website that is not clearly marked as having been collected by one of these Google-authorized services that verify purchasers is likely fake (at the link, scroll to the heading “Where ratings come from” for the full list of Google-authorized review services).

Dishonest speechwriters will post fake reviews they’ve written themselves on their site then try to make you believe they’re real by signing them with things like, “Julie C.” or “S. Brown, Denver.” Don’t believe it. There’s no way for you to verify these are actual customers other than taking the word of the website owner who you don’t know.

Also be aware that most, if not all, reviews on websites like Wedding Wire, The Knot and others are fake. That’s because these sites don’t have any customer verification process in place—all you need is an email address to post a review. And you can post more than one review. So most reviews on these sites are posted by either the speechwriter him/herself or their family and friends.

Another telltale sign a review is fake is that it’s overwritten with over-the-top things like “I highly, highly, highly recommend working with Weddings “R” Us…” or “I cannot recommend this fabulous, amazing, outstanding service enough!” Fake reviews also tend to have stuffy overwritten phrases not used in everyday conversation like “Before discovering Weddings “R” Us I felt utterly lost like I was drowning in a sea of memories.” Real people don’t talk like that.

The bottom line: any competent, legitimate speechwriter is going to pay a Google-authorized review service that collects reviews from verified purchasers only to earn your trust and give you complete peace of mind. See my Shopper Approved reviews.