B.E.S.T. GDR, LLC

What is alleged

On 11 May 2026 the Department of Justice, acting on notification from the FTC, together with the People of the State of Illinois by Attorney General Kwame Raoul, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against B.E.S.T. GDR, LLC, which does business as Premium Home Service, and its owner Yosef Bernath.

The complaint alleges that since at least 2018 the company has operated across the country using scores of fabricated company names, and has created thousands of online business profiles for home-repair companies that do not exist.

Each fake profile, according to the complaint, carries a physical address near the consumer, a phone number with a local area code, and often multiple positive reviews and five-star ratings. The company names are invented. The businesses are not at the listed addresses, which belong to unrelated third parties or are made up entirely.

The review manipulation

The complaint alleges Bernath and the company posted fabricated five-star reviews appearing to come from customers of the fake companies, and used them to dilute genuine one-star reviews from actual customers, lifting the overall ratings of the listings.

That is a specific and repeatable technique, and worth naming plainly: the fake reviews were not there to persuade on their own. They were there as ballast, to push real complaints down the average.

Alleged violations

• The FTC Act, for deceptive claims about being a local home-repair business at a specific address, about dispatching technicians from a local business at a stated date and time, and claims relating to fake reviews
• The Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 C.F.R. Part 465), for writing, creating, buying, or selling fake reviews and for seeking and using fake reviews from employees and relatives
• The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, for false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements made to obtain consumers’ financial information
• Illinois consumer protection law

The Commission vote to refer the civil penalty complaint to the DOJ was 2-0.

What is not established

This is a filed complaint, which states the plaintiffs’ case rather than a finding of fact. The matter had not been decided at the time of writing.

We have not yet contacted B.E.S.T. GDR, LLC or Mr Bernath for comment. When we do, the attempt and any response will appear on this entry.