Well obviously you are not concerned  with being the current or next " IT GIRL"  in the board rankings.   Anyone that believes that there is not a element  of that going on is living in stupid world.   With that said I assume you are doing just fine for yourself.  

The conversations I have with non TER Hookers are quite insightful.

... reappeared offering her services. I had her marked as a favorite earlier so every time she got a new review I would get an email notification of her new review. She was cute, Asian had a pretty open menu and was someone I hoped to see in the future. Within the last couple of months, she reappeared and I was notified of I think 4 new reviews she received in rapid succession. The reviews were all from different reviewers, not local and each reviewer had a handful, but not many, reviews listed of non local women. Each review followed a similar format; a brief, one sentence intro followed by a short one paragraph, maybe 4 or 5 sentences in total,  body of the juicy details. The reviews were positive but not over the top. I felt it was obvious that these were likely fake reviews and thought of reporting them. I didn't report them because I didn't have the time, at that time, to gather the info to make a good case. Besides, I know that there are many local hobbyists with sleuthing skills greater than mine who'd be right on this and properly report the fake reviews. I checked back a few days later and the Provider had been de-listed. Busted!!

The moral of the story is:  Be the Provider that provides great service and earns good reviews as a result! Don't try to cheat the system as the cheater will likely be found out.

1)  I don't know how common it is but it is not rare.
2)  I think it sucks because it undermines the value of the review system
3)  Yes, it is against TER policy.  When TER catch someone involved in this, TER bans them.

I mean why pay at all.  How hard can it be to create your own fake reviews.