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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

#91
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? People I know have TERRIBLE judgement when it comes to products. Who builds trust based on that characteristic?

But a web of trust based on, "I like this reviwer, so I trust who they trust" seems reasonable.

So now I have to spend time reviewing reviewers? This smells like the next bullshit job (or, since I'm not even paid for it, just a huge waste of time).

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another factor is reviews with pictures depending on what you are buying. In any case I cancelled Amazon prime. They wont be getting my money once my membership expires. I rather pay for a service thats worthwhile to me. I rather get my things at Walmart or BestBuy due to convenience and now BestBuy will price match Amazon.

For all the problems that Amazon has, there is a long history of Best Buy actively pushing consumer-harmful practises that I would still rate them a lower choice. The first one that comes to mind is forcing printer manufacturers to not bundle USB cables so they can separately sell them at a high markup

I usually only buy things they can't bully themselves into like Macs or Surface devices, or gaming consoles. However, I was not aware of such awful nonsense.

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

#93

I check Fakespot, and click on some reviewer profiles. The idiots doing full-time positive product reviewing are so easy to spot by their hilarious review history that you start to assume that Amazon doesn’t do anything against them on purpose. They also mainly flock on the crap within a single month or so (but this is one of many Fakespot metrics). I tried buying a new bicycle light last week and literally every pro…

Amazon rolled out the carpet for counterfeit when they mixed their inventory with seller inventory. Do not buy common automotive parts from Amazon. Really good chance you will get a knockoff part.

They have to clearly separate between Marketplace and Amazon again. Everything used to be fine when people knew from whom they bought at any time. They are removing the line in multiple ways right now (one of the worst being comingling).

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

#94
This sort of thing seems pervasive these days. I see it on Yelp, Google Reviews and Amazon. (hell, the NYT has had pieces on people buying their competitors products en-masse just to give them 1-star reviews and move the relative needle in terms of Amazon reviews).

It will have to be fixed though, it seems that buying things sight unseen only really works when you have a lot of evidence (reviews) that the product is good.

Seems like a good way for an upstart to differentiate themselves.

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

#95
post #19
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can leave a review without even using the service or product on Yelp? Without a verified purchase, why would anyway take the review seriously?

How would you even implement a verified purchase? For a hotel maybe you could forward an itinerary (which can be faked) but there’s probably no receipt for a random taco stand that only accepts cash. Granted the latter does not care as much as the hotel but whatever they do would need to cover everybody.

After thinking about this problem for... umm... 30 seconds...

Allow users to write reviews, and then send a message to the hotel owner saying "X has posted a review of your business. Do you accept that X was a guest on X date?"

The hotel owner is forced to verify the stay before he gets to see the review.

Of course he'll know all about the outliers who had a bad experience and complained at the hotel and might want to lie about the guest staying, but such guests are usually very motivated and willing to prove their stay with receipts, photos, etc.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

365,000 credit cards, 365,000 delivery addresses?

If bots worked, they wouldn't have had to resort to real humans on Facebook to get reviews.

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

#97
*-star reviews on all of the major review sites are 2-dimensional. They should be 3 dimensional (0-x stars) + time. This way if clusters of 5-star reviews show up in an extremely short period of time it's a red flag. Instead of seeing a static "this product/service got x stars", we should be able to see "this product/service, within the last 1 month, received on average x stars". And then you can extrapolate, oh they received on average 2 stars before they upgraded their product, and now the product is getting 4 stars. Or something like: "this restaurant was getting on average 1.5 stars last year, but recently they're getting glowing reviews. Maybe they fired the manager?".

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

#98
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.

Except the spam email problem was solved without opening the door to another place where uninformed consumers could get nickle-and-dimed? Aren't we all glad the pay-for-email push failed?

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

#99
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well clearly there is a reason for the lower prices.

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

#100
post #61
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say of unmoderated (or poorly moderated) review systems. E.g., we don't see this on Angie's List or Houzz. I've found that the only way to get useful information out of most Amazon reviews is to look at the 1- & 2-stars, trying to filter out the fake competitor hits, and see if there are any consistent issues that aren't DEU issues. Then look at the 3- & 4-stars and see what seems to be good. That said, I expect…

> Angie's List or Houzz. Ok sure, you can put it down to moderation, or you can put it down to size. What is the size of Angie's list to Amazon?

Not only that, but Angie's List covers services that only reach a small market. So a fake review for any individual product has a much small potential reach.
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