<p>Previous studies investigated manipulated reviews in a context where reviewers need to be validated purchasers, and posting fake reviews could be very costly. It was found that review manipulation is usually associated with low-quality or low-reputable companies, and the number of helpful votes a review received could be applied as the objective measure of the perceived helpfulness of that review. Our study, on the other hand, seeks to characterize manipulated reviews in a different context, an emerging industry that is less regulated (i.e., P2P lending online review platforms). The hypotheses are tested using regression models and path analysis method based on archive data of 88,973 reviews from the largest online lending review portal in China. The results indicate that high-quality P2P lending platforms have a higher percentage of positive fake reviews than low-quality lending platforms. The results also suggest that P2P lending platforms not only post strong positive reviews but also manipulate their helpfulness votes. We enrich the research on review manipulation and identify the evidence that helpfulness ratios may not be a valid objective measure of review helpfulness.</p>