The Wacky World of Online Reviews

 Online reviews can be very helpful for customers to determine what a product is actually like. But unfortunately, a large percentage of reviews are not genuine, making it challenging for consumers to discern what the best products are. Here is a more detailed look at the wacky world of online reviews.

There are various methods you can use to spot a large percentage of fake online reviews. For example, genuine reviews are usually posted over weeks, months, or even years. If you see an abnormal number of product reviews appearing over the course of a day or two, it is likely the reviews are not legitimate. So, check when reviews were posted. Another way of spotting fake-reviews is to look at the reviewers’ profile accounts. If they have posted a large number of glowing reviews in a short amount of time that use generic language, and if the profile does not have an accompanying photograph, you can bet the reviewer is not for real. You can also spot fake reviews by looking at the spelling, grammar, and phrases used. If lots of reviews use the same vocabulary and spelling mistakes, they are almost certainly not legitimate.

If you are thinking of buying a product but you believe the reviews are not trustworthy, you can look at reviews elsewhere on the web. Engage with forums to find out what people really think of products, and use review sites like BuyersGuide.org to compare different products that have been scrutinized with data-driven algorithms.

Although most everyone is aware that fake reviews have become pretty common on platforms like Amazon, you may be surprised by the tactics that sellers use to gain more ingenuine reviews and thereby increase their products’ presence on shopping platform listings. One such tactic involves product variation misuse. Legitimate sellers on Amazon use variations to group different varieties of the same products together, such as coats of the same color. But scammers have found a loophole in Amazon’s group variations, enabling five-star reviews from one profile to be posted on hundreds of different variations of a product. Variation abuse is not the only unscrupulous method being used to manipulate product codes on Amazon to generate positive reviews. Sellers are also merging unavailable products with new product listings as a way of transferring positive reviews from one product to another.

 Posting fake product reviews is big business. If you think a business simply asks a few friends to post some fake glowing reviews, you need to think again. Facebook review groups consist of tens of thousands of incentivized reviewers who post hundreds of reviews every hour. Even though Facebook has vowed to clamp down on such groups, many are still active on the social media platform. Businesses can simply approach the individuals and offer them monetary incentives to review their products.

Although not as common as other fake review methods, many customers on Amazon and other platforms have their accounts hacked and used to post hundreds or thousands of fake reviews. According to Which?, one person whose account was hacked saw more than 2,500 reviews being posted across a wide variety of products.

Sometimes, sellers contact genuine reviewers asking them to change their negative or average reviews in return for incentives. Examples include a Chinese manufacturer offering a partial refund on solar flood lights to change a three-star rating to a five-star one, and one person being offered a $25 gift card for changing their review to five stars.