We all do it. When we're planning a trip to an unfamiliar city or we're looking for a new hole-in-the-wall for a dinner date near home, we poke around online for reviews of local restaurants.

But on some sites, reviews are serving up a steaming plate of B.S.

WalletPop told you about the hugely popular Yelp, which has been accused of extorting restaurants and shops that got received bad reviews. For a price, says a San Francisco CBS affiliate, Yelp will move the badmouthing blurb lower down the page, potentially out of sight. One sofa store owner paid Yelp $350 a month to bury her embarrassing reviews.

Last year, one New York City hotel was awarded a five-star review by an effusive reader of TripAdvisor. Except the hotel hadn't even completed construction yet. Public relations flacks were suspected.

This sort of stuff happens all the time. TripAdvisor says it tries to weed out these obviously false postings. But some readers allege it swerves too far even in that. One travel expert about Hawaii accuses TripAdvisor of twice killing reviews that conflicted with its paid sponsors. For sites like these, integrity is everything. Many publications, though, don't have the resources to do the follow-ups necessary. Increasingly, the phonies are not apparent.

One woman spent it on training her puppy. Another couple spent theirs fixing their car. One woman bought a fancy Dyson vacuum cleaner and commented, (I paraphrase here) "I hope it sucks as good and long as this president and administration has." Ouch. But, you know, a valid observation, nicely tied into the current political/economic morass which produced such notions as economic stimulus checks in the first place.

How'd you spend your stimulus check? Before you tell us, check out others who've gone before you. It's all here at Howispentmystimulus.com.

Started by a Park Slope (Brooklyn) resident Rudy Adler, the site is a collaborative effort to collect the stories of ordinary Americans and their decidedly un-ordinary windfalls. It's fascinating reading. And everyone is invited to post their own tale, along with a photo of the purchase.

Even more interesting are the category breakouts. There are 40 entries for Gifts and Donations, 63 for Invest/Savings, and 104 for Travel/Vacation. There are 80 posts under the Debt/Credit Card category. And 95 classified as "other." What's the story here? You'll just have to go investigate yourself.