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Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

theguardian.com

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Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#81

Post by tedunangst »

amelius wrote: post #20
dragontamer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met a family member (like 2nd cousin or further away) at some wedding a few years ago. I only talked to him once, but he was very clear about this situation. He owned a hotel, and was trying to track down the writers of bad reviews on Yelp. Primarily, as the owner of the hotel, it was his job to find out what's wrong about the hotel and improve it. But he started to investigate some of the 1-star reviews, and came…

Wouldn't fake reviews reduce the credibility of Yelp eventually, thus letting the problem take care of itself?

If you avoid a hotel because of fake bad reviews, you are unlikely to learn the reviews were fake.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#82

Post by antidesitter »

kaffee wrote: post #75

Let's not forget that these fake reviews are being paid for. That's clearly better than non-paid-for fake reviews. That is, there's some friction for the malicious actors. Imagine how much less spam we would have if it cost 1 cent to send an email. Friction can do a lot of good. This is all to say that it looks like Amazon and others (e.g., Steam) are doing the right thing in requiring a verified purchase in order to…

> Imagine how much less spam we would have if it cost 1 cent to send an email. Friction can do a lot of good.

Incidentally, this was the motivation behind a PoW system called Hashcash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#83

Post by abruzzi »

A bit off topic, but companies/organizations that use punctuation in their name make sentences look screwy. The organization in this article is “Which?” which the Guardian faithfully reproduces (without the quote I used). As a result, every time the name of the organization comes at the end of a sentence, the Guardian doesn’t end it with a period, they end it with a question mark. This made me go back and reread at least one sentence because I thought I misread it. I read the sentence as a statement, not a question (and it was a statement.)

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#84

Post by iliis »

maximp wrote: post #46
acjohnson55 wrote: post #35

The fantastic podcast Reply All did an episode on this a few months ago: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124

I just heard this yesterday! Can second, great episode.

So... Five stars then? ;)

(But seriously, HN comments are actually great at recommending things.)

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#85

Post by howenterprisey »

abruzzi wrote: post #83

A bit off topic, but companies/organizations that use punctuation in their name make sentences look screwy. The organization in this article is “Which?” which the Guardian faithfully reproduces (without the quote I used). As a result, every time the name of the organization comes at the end of a sentence, the Guardian doesn’t end it with a period, they end it with a question mark. This made me go back and reread at l…

Completely agreed. I think Wikipedia has the right idea for dealing with company names like this - use title case and omit anything that isn't pronounced. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Trad...

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#86

Post by markdown »

abruzzi wrote: post #83

A bit off topic, but companies/organizations that use punctuation in their name make sentences look screwy. The organization in this article is “Which?” which the Guardian faithfully reproduces (without the quote I used). As a result, every time the name of the organization comes at the end of a sentence, the Guardian doesn’t end it with a period, they end it with a question mark. This made me go back and reread at l…

Joomla!

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#87

Post by vehementi »

drb91 wrote: post #69
bingbingo wrote: post #4

Shit like this is what made me lose confidence in Amazon and I stopped my prime subscription. My wife bought me “luxury” branded jackets and clothing for fall. Half of them were counterfeit. I called Amazon and they said I can return them and they’ll send me new ones. Ok. How will I know those won’t be counterfeit? Worse, I found a jacket was counterfeit after the return period when it literally started to fall apart…

Why aree you ordering brands off amazon rather than from the brand? You get what you pay for. Good luck on the fraud charge.

> Why aree you ordering brands off amazon

WTF? Because fraud is illegal and amazon often has lower prices on goods.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#88

Post by z3t4 »

Markets where you can not tell how good a product is simply by reading the technical spec or scientific tests, eg markets where fake reviews will have a strong impact is not a market you want to enter, because everyone is hustling and the price people are willing to pay will keep dropping.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#89

Post by markdown »

nkozyra wrote: post #44
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, the pervasive Amazon counterfeit problem is unrelated to the fake review problem. Both are serious problems that Amazon does little to combat, but they're not the same. The counterfeiting is more insidious because Amazon is entirely at fault for mixing legit merchandise with counterfeits. Fake reviews on the other hand aren't Amazon's fault. That's just the world being filled with heinous assholes out to…

> Actually if they did that I'd probably start buying from them again Not that it would inherently solve the problem or prevent pay for play, but it would be a great strategy for Amazon to have an independent review company. There are problems, though: 1. How do we trust that there's some objectivity, particularly as it relates to things that compete with Amazon products? 2. How could reviewers possibly cover any sig…

I'd bet a lot of the fake reviews would disappear if they just:

1. Limited users ability to post reviews to say, 3 per year and no more than 1 in any given month.

2. Limit users ability to post more than one review per vendor, per year.

3. Only allow reviews by verified purchasers.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#90

Post by JoeAltmaier »

markdown wrote: post #89
nkozyra wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually if they did that I'd probably start buying from them again Not that it would inherently solve the problem or prevent pay for play, but it would be a great strategy for Amazon to have an independent review company. There are problems, though: 1. How do we trust that there's some objectivity, particularly as it relates to things that compete with Amazon products? 2. How could reviewers possibly cover any sig…

I'd bet a lot of the fake reviews would disappear if they just: 1. Limited users ability to post reviews to say, 3 per year and no more than 1 in any given month. 2. Limit users ability to post more than one review per vendor, per year. 3. Only allow reviews by verified purchasers.

I think they'd just put in 365000 fake accounts, and continue posting 1000 fake reviews a day
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