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UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

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61–70 of 232 posts

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#61
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I can't find even a hint of how to do this on the internet. If there is a way, you'd expect it to be documented given what surely must be widespread interest in the subject. Basically what we have here is an entirely unsubstantiated and unlikely accusation. (Unlikely because the incentives simply are not aligned.)

Saying "I wouldn't be surprised if..." is not an accusation, unless you count the implied "I don't trust Google" as an accusation.

If you said of someone, "I wouldn't be surprised if they were a thief," that would rightly be viewed as a pseudo-accusation of thievery or other dishonesty. It doesn't literally mean the same thing as "he is a thief," but saying you believe someone has a decent chance of being a thief is still a type of accusation -- one of dishonesty and distrust. If the belief is unjustified, then I think it's fair to call it an unsubstantiated accusation.

But if that doesn't work for you, pretend I called it an unsubstantiated implication instead. Either way, I think we all understood what the OP meant, and we all understood what I meant in my response. So at least we are communicating.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#63
The original article from Which? Magazine is here: https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/03/fake-google-reviews-boo...

(Which? is a charity which publishes a magazine with independent reviews. My parents were subscribers for years, and would always use the Which? ratings when purchasing a new appliance, insurance or similar.)

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#64
post #62

If you could opt-in to change Amazon and other online retailer's customer aggregated reviews to an authoritative nonpartisan review created by a professional product reviewer, would you do it? Why (not)?

That probably depends on how this nonpartisan reviewer was selected. Are they paid? By whom? By what standard are they considered authoritative?

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#65
post #25

I once wrote a negative review of a business on Google, and it went up, but when I went to look at the business's reviews under my wife's Google account, it was not there. I waited an hour and checked. Then a couple hours and checked. Then a day. It never showed up. I posted the review under her account and did the same checks for my account. It never showed up. I do not know why it didn't show up, but I wouldn't be…

I stayed in a hotel in Rotterdam one time (5-6 years ago). The entrance had a ramp for wheelchairs/prams. A bunch of a*holes parked their luxury cars blocking that ramp. On the second morning the cars were still there I called the concierge out to see this. Then I took a picture of him, of the cars, and their plates and told him I will call the Police in 5mins (yes I am THAT kind of guy). In two minutes all cars were gone never to reappear (I stayed there 10 days). I left a 1star review to the hotel, under my name, with photos of the cars (not their plates) and a comment about blocking the ramp, hotel staff was informed multiple times and didn't react.

I went to Rotterdam again 1 year ago. My review was still there. A half-baked apology was under my comment. I walked by, no cars were blocking the ramps. I call that a win.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#66

An interesting thing about paid reviews - you can prove that the reviews are fake, but you usually can't prove that the business itself actually paid for those reviews. In a hypothetical world where companies with fake reviews are regularly discovered and lambasted in public, it's easy to imagine a sinister metagame where unscrupulous small businesses can buy bad good reviews (i.e. 5-star reviews that are obviously f…

I'm convinced that something similar is happening to Boris Johnson's tweets at the moment. Every time he posts, many of the top responses are exact copies of each other saying something like "the country is behind you, my prime minister <3". It's clear to anyone that these are 'fake', and I'd imagine it has the effect of making people thing that the conservatives are trying to artificially bolster his reputation.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#67
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "I wouldn't be surprised if..." is not an accusation, unless you count the implied "I don't trust Google" as an accusation.

If you said of someone, "I wouldn't be surprised if they were a thief," that would rightly be viewed as a pseudo-accusation of thievery or other dishonesty. It doesn't literally mean the same thing as "he is a thief," but saying you believe someone has a decent chance of being a thief is still a type of accusation -- one of dishonesty and distrust. If the belief is unjustified, then I think it's fair to call it an un…

We are sort of communicating. I _am_ the OP. And I only meant it as "I don't trust Google."

I'll let you decide if that implication is unsubstantiated or not.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#68
post #25

I once wrote a negative review of a business on Google, and it went up, but when I went to look at the business's reviews under my wife's Google account, it was not there. I waited an hour and checked. Then a couple hours and checked. Then a day. It never showed up. I posted the review under her account and did the same checks for my account. It never showed up. I do not know why it didn't show up, but I wouldn't be…

> I wouldn't be surprised if the business had been able to pay money to Google to be able to check reviews There is no way to do this that I can find documentation of on the public internet. You'd think if it were possible, someone would have written a howto guide. Personally, I'm deeply skeptical that any such mechanism exists. The revenue it would generate would be negligible and the potential for reputation loss s…

As a business owner, you only need to claim the review is fraudulant and that will usually get it removed.

In theory a review hoster is supposed to evaluate claims and act on reasonable ones. In practice review hosters are terrified of getting sued and will take down reviews easily.

I suspect most local businesses hire "reputation fixing" firms to actually do this dirty work for them.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#69
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you said of someone, "I wouldn't be surprised if they were a thief," that would rightly be viewed as a pseudo-accusation of thievery or other dishonesty. It doesn't literally mean the same thing as "he is a thief," but saying you believe someone has a decent chance of being a thief is still a type of accusation -- one of dishonesty and distrust. If the belief is unjustified, then I think it's fair to call it an un…

We are sort of communicating. I _am_ the OP. And I only meant it as "I don't trust Google." I'll let you decide if that implication is unsubstantiated or not.

You should just say that, then. If I don't trust someone, that doesn't mean it's OK to go around and imply that they do some absurd malicious thing I have absolutely no evidence they actually do. It's fine not to trust them. Spreading unsubstantiated rumors and implications is not fine.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#70

I'm surprised more of these comments aren't focused on how glaringly flawed the 5-star democratic rating system has become. I felt like the rise of Uber made it abundantly clear that anything less than a 5.0 means you were not satisfied with the service and don't think the business should continue.

And then people act surprised Netflix moved to a thumbs up/down model for this very reason
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