Every service manager has felt the temptation. A customer is standing at the counter, keys in hand, clearly happy — and it's tempting to say something like "if we did a good job today, would you mind leaving us five stars?" It feels harmless. It's also exactly the kind of request that can now cost a dealership real money.
The Federal Trade Commission's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials took effect in October 2024, and it isn't a vague guideline sitting on a shelf. It gives the agency the authority to seek civil penalties — currently over $53,000 per violation — against businesses that mishandle how they collect, display, or incentivize reviews. And as of this year, auto dealers specifically are back under the microscope: in late 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to companies over review practices, and separately this spring it sent letters to nearly 100 dealerships over advertising and pricing issues. The message from Washington is consistent — dealer marketing practices are getting a second look, and reviews are part of that picture.
None of this means dealerships should stop asking for reviews. It means the ask has to be built the right way.
What the rule actually prohibits
Strip away the legal language and the rule comes down to a handful of practical prohibitions that matter for a dealership's day-to-day operations:
- No fake or fabricated reviews. A review has to come from someone who actually used your dealership — no AI-generated reviews, no reviews written on a customer's behalf that overstate their experience, no reviews from people who never set foot on the lot.
- No paying or incentivizing for a specific sentiment. You can offer a gift card for "leaving a review." You cannot offer a gift card for "leaving a 5-star review," whether that condition is stated outright or just heavily implied.
- No undisclosed insider reviews. If a manager, employee, or their immediate family member posts a review, the connection to the business has to be disclosed.
- No suppressing negative feedback while implying your review page is complete. If you're filtering out negative reviews from a page that claims to show customer feedback, that's a problem — even if you never touch the underlying rating.
"Gating" — the one that catches dealerships most often
Gating is the practice of routing customers to leave a public review only after they've indicated a positive experience — for example, a kiosk or text message that asks "how was your visit?" and only sends the unhappy responses to a private feedback form while the happy ones get funneled straight to Google or Facebook.
It's an understandable instinct. Nobody wants a bad day at the service counter turning into a public one-star review. But gating manufactures a review profile that no longer reflects your actual customer base — it's now a curated highlight reel, not a representative sample. That's precisely the kind of "review suppression" language the FTC rule calls out, and it's one of the easiest patterns for a regulator or a competitor to spot, because the review platforms themselves can often see the split.
The trap isn't usually a single bad actor writing fake reviews. It's a well-meaning process — a kiosk flow, a script the front desk repeats by habit, a "5 stars = $10 off next service" flyer taped near the register — that quietly conditions the review on sentiment. Audit your actual review-request workflow, not just your written policy.
What you can still say — and what to drop
The good news: a compliant ask is barely different from a good one. It just can't pre-select for happy customers or tie a reward to the star rating.
"If you had a great experience, we'd love a 5-star review! If not, please let us know here first so it doesn't go public."
"We'd really appreciate your honest feedback — good or bad. It helps us and helps the next customer walking in."
"Leave us 5 stars on Google and we'll enter you into our monthly gift card drawing."
"Leave us a review on Google and we'll enter you into our monthly gift card drawing." (No sentiment condition, disclosed clearly.)
A short compliance checklist
- Ask every customer the same way, regardless of how the visit seemed to go.
- Never require or imply a specific star count in exchange for a reward.
- If staff or their relatives post reviews, disclose the relationship.
- Don't filter, delete, or hide reviews based on sentiment alone — only for genuine policy violations (profanity, personal information, spam).
- Keep a record of your review-request process in case you ever need to show it was applied consistently.
Where video testimonials fit in
This is one reason a growing number of dealerships are shifting some of their social proof strategy toward video testimonials captured in the moment — on a kiosk in the showroom or service bay, right after the transaction, before the customer has left the building.
Done correctly, this sidesteps most of the gating problem entirely: every customer who's asked gets the same prompt, on camera, with no pre-screening for sentiment and no reward tied to what they say. The recording itself — with the customer speaking in their own words — is also a far harder thing to fake or manufacture than a typed star rating, which is part of why it holds up better both with regulators and with skeptical shoppers.
A kiosk that prompts every customer with the same rotating questions, records their unscripted answer, and lets the dealership choose which stories to share publicly — without ever conditioning the ask on how the visit went — is the review-collection equivalent of doing this by the book.
The bottom line
The FTC isn't trying to stop dealerships from asking happy customers to say so publicly — generalized, ungated requests for feedback are explicitly fine under the rule. What it's targeting is the shortcut: funneling only the good stuff forward, dangling a reward for a specific rating, or dressing up marketing as spontaneous customer opinion. Fix the workflow, keep the ask honest and universal, and reviews stay exactly what they're supposed to be — proof, not performance.
This post is provided for general informational purposes and isn't legal advice. If you have questions about how the FTC's Consumer Review Rule applies to your specific review or referral programs, consult an attorney familiar with FTC advertising law.