Fake reviews in the news

[sockmonkeydave]

This was on TV a couple weeks back.

Amazon has admitted that the vast majority of reviews are in fact fake.

They did not say if it was their products, or other sellers.

But it seems there are people who write these all day.  (wonder about the pay)

I think the whole peer review is stupid.

If I want a review, I will read "consumer reports"

Also seeing lots of spots for Wally world,  2 day delivery to your door, and free shipping.

[kiraalt]

Some companies give reviewers free stuff to write a  (only positive?)  review I guess

I recently bought a carpet cleaner on WalMart's site and

several of the reviews stated:  I received this {item} to facilitate this review.

I guess by saying that they are at least trying to be upfront about it? 

[m60driver]

You are surprised?   The same thing came out with Yelp reviews years ago.  There are some honest reviews on Yelp.  When I had my store I was affectionately known on Yelp as Mr. Rude and I was indeed rude to those who crossed the line of decency.  So online you are most likely to see either fake positive reviews or negative reviews from snowflakes who could not get their way.

[duggmills]

I read reviews on Amazon looking for planted  or shill reviews using a decision matrix of sorts.

I look for similarities between four and five star reviews to try to determine if they are plants. 

Is the review by a Verified Buyer?  Some shill reviews are verified purchases to add an air of legitimacy.

Are the reviews about the same length?

Are the reviews well written with proper spelling, proper form of the word, good punctuation and sentence structure?

Does each refer to a different product feature?

Are all the basic features of a product covered? As an example,  if a product has four FABs (not the Fab Four from 1964) these are Features, Advantages Benefits.  Is each  FAB mentioned by four similar reviews?

Do any of the reviews mention some irrelevant little criticism?  Maybe something like: "The  instructions for plugging the toaster into the wall should have a clearer picture".  Uh-huh honey. If you don't know how to plug a toaster into an outlet, what are your plans for the toast when it pops up?

If I suspect a review is a plant, I read the other reviews by this person to see if this is a one time review. Or has this buyer posted reviews on other purchases?

I also look at one star reviews and compare the number of those one stars to the number of five stars looking for some arbitrary percentage between the  two.  One star reviews shouldn't exceed maybe six or so percent of five star comments. 

Yes, I do ramble on. Thanks for your time.

[rolenboy01]

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@m60driver wrote:

You are surprised?   The same thing came out with Yelp reviews years ago.  There are some honest reviews on Yelp.  When I had my store I was affectionately known on Yelp as Mr. Rude and I was indeed rude to those who crossed the line of decency.  So online you are most likely to see either fake positive reviews or negative reviews from snowflakes who could not get their way.

---

Not to mention people who have never visited the place they just see something in the media about it like the owner supposedly made a racist remark or was on a tv show protrayed as crazy and then people from all over start posting fake negative reviews that have nothing to do with the business, it also seems a lot of competitors friends and family members do a lot of false negatives or false positives, a lot of stupid stuff about decor or lighting as well, if I'm going to a restaurant I want to know if the food is good and the place is clean not what the waitress was wearing or how the painting on the wall looked.

[richard1rst]

I am not surprised.

Some time ago I took a trip to visit a particular resort area using an online hotel search engine for the reservations.

After I got back I got an email from the hotel company asking for my review of the resort. Seems simple enough.

BUT THEN they sent me additional requests to also review certain other named companies (in the same town) THAT I NEVER VISITED!

In other words the hotel company was actively seeking reviews for other companies on their list without regard as to whether or not I actually used them, At that point I stopped looking at any reviews regarding them all as phony.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I review books on the site all the time and use the book reviews. 

Sometimes the product reviews are iffy. I was looking at some breakfast sandwich maker the other week that looked like it would be hard to use and clean yet it had glowing reviews. 

[keziak]

We find that it seems all the time a gadget will have generally positive reviews, then a couple strongly negative. Just the other day I was considering an item and most of the reviews said it worked great. But the negatives also sounded like they made sense. In the end I gave up because I was too confused about whether it would be great or a piece of bleep. 

[onlineestateseller]

On Amazon it's amazing how many sellers send emails begging for feedback and they will even give you back your money and you get to keep the item just to give good feedback even on expensive items. Last year I got a free $385 tool and my wife and kids have received lots of other items for free.

[southern*sweet*tea]

https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/01/amazon-sues-sellers-for-buying-fake-reviews/

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/amazon-sues-1114-reviewers-some-selling-reviews-for-5/

http://fortune.com/2016/04/26/amazon-more-fake-review-lawsuits/

https://consumerist.com/2015/10/16/amazon-sues-1114-individual-reviewers-for-hire/

[membersinceaug2001]

I think Amazon itself has been rigged from the beginning.  I always wondered why anyone would freely review stuff so bigcorp can make even more money.

They are known for doing other shady dealings.

[ymeagainlord]

Regardless of fake or real the reviews for Tuscan Whole Milk are hysterical = )

[lewisburggold]

Sounds like fun.  We would write fake reviews all day and get paid for it.  Seems a little shady but whatever.  best regards

[fuzzface50]

I review reviews with a grain of salt.  i looked at a review of a product recently that i was thinking about buying and just by reading the negative reviews should have scared me away but i could tell all the negative ones no one knew how to use the product correctly so i still went and brought the store out of them to flip. I used one as a demo so i could show  my buyers that the reviews were wrong and to teach them the correct way to use that product. 

Kind of hard to get a real honest review when people are clueless on how to operate something  correctly to start with.

even breaking news is staged. Went to a sherriff sale one day and knew something wasn't right when we pulled in. Yep they were staging and taking different  takes of what was supposed to be live breaking news.