Australian removalist company CityMove has been made to pay a $30,600 fine after it was alleged to have posted fabricated user reviews online, the second time the company has been fined for this reason in five years.

The latest fine comes after CityMove was issued three notices by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission which alleged it was fabricating positive reviews on YouTube and Google+. Google+ reviews are favoured by companies creating or paying for their own testimonials — which is against Australian law — because the reviews then show up in Google search results. CityMove previously paid a similar fine in 2011.

The CityMove website.

Removalists are some of the most common purveyors of fake reviews and dodgy search engine manipulation, and for consumers fake reviews or manipulated results can be very difficult to detect. In fact, ACCC only caught CityMove this time because it used the same testimonial on different sites attributed to different fictional customers.

"Fake testimonials can mislead consumers and disadvantage competing businesses. Falsely generated ratings may lead a consumer to purchase a business's product or service under a mistaken belief about the popularity and perceived quality of the business, in preference to other businesses," ACCC's Michael Schaper said.

"The ACCC encourages consumers to seek information from multiple sources before making a purchasing decision."

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