Your commercial news round-up: fake reviews, rail sale, poverty gap, Amazon, military service

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Fake reviews are being banned, the Great British Rail sale is in full swing and the poverty gap is widening. Plus, Amazon is in trouble in France and the idea of compulsory military service is being floated in the UK. Read on for this week’s top stories.

• Do you ever wonder whether the reviews you read online are genuine? According to analysts, as many as one in seven reviews in the UK are fake and yet 90% of shoppers rely on reviews before deciding on a purchase. But fear not, the Department for Business and Trade is stepping in with new rules to ban fake reviews as part of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. The changes will also encompass a ban on unavoidable hidden fees, often known as ‘drip pricing’, that are sometimes added on at checkout. According to the government, 56% of the hospitality industry, and 72% of transport and communication sectors are guilty of ‘drip pricing’, costing consumers £2.2 billion a year. 
   
• Speaking of the transport industry, if you’re planning on travelling by train between 30 January and 15 March, you can currently purchase advanced train tickets at a significantly discounted rate. The Great British Rail sale will run between 23 January and 29 January, offering up to 50% off advanced tickets on trains across England and Wales. Since the pandemic, revenue generated from commuting has plummeted by 20%, resulting in taxpayers subsidising train travel by an additional £2 billion each year. The government hopes this sale will encourage people to utilise rail travel once more.
   
• Discounts may be more needed than ever as, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the UK poverty gap is widening. The foundation’s UK poverty 2024 report found that poverty has increased, with more than one in five people in the UK being in poverty in 2021/22. According to the report: “It’s been almost 20 years and six prime ministers since the last prolonged period of falling poverty.” Since the Conservative Party gained power in 2010, the overall level of poverty has hardly shifted. The last significant decline in poverty was during the first half of Labour’s administration between 1999 and 2000, and then again between 2004 and 2005.
   
• Shifting our focus to France, Amazon has been fined £27 million for “excessive” surveillance of workers. France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) stated the company had been tracking workers through its handheld scanners. France’s data protection agency found Amazon to be acting illegally, in breach of General Data Protection Regulation. The CNIL found Amazon to be illegally tracking:
  • whether an item was scanned too quickly;
  • breaks of 10 minutes or more; and
  • breaks between one and 10 minutes.
     
• Head of the British Army, General Patrick Sanders, has called on British authorities to “mobilise the nation” to prepare for a war against Russia. Sanders stressed the need for Britain to train a “citizen army” in a speech at the International Armoured Vehicles exhibition in London yesterday (24 January). He argued that Britain needs to be mentally prepared for military conflict with Russia. Both Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence have distanced themselves from this statement. Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson stated “hypothetical scenarios” of future wars were “not helpful”.

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