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I write fake online reviews

bbc.co.uk

11–20 of 91 posts

Re: I write fake online reviews

#11
post #3

I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway, I tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied.

The problem is that bad reviews can be just as fake as good ones, as they could be written by the product's competitors. Also, if a product is popular enough, odds are that even with a great product there'll be a small fraction of people who'll just happen to get a dud, while most of the rest will be satisfied. Because of this, I tend to read both good and bad reviews, and give more weight to the longer reviews that…

For me, it's the 4-star and 3-star reviews, and distribution of them compared to the rest (this can be gamed though). I see no reason that somebody would pay for 4 or 3 star reviews, and also competition would pay for 1 or 2 star ones instead. Primitive logic, but worked +-OK for me even on Amazon.

Re: I write fake online reviews

#12
post #3

I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway, I tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied.

There are some useful good reviews. When author goes into details, comparisons with other stuff, some pros/cons, have photos etc. It's just too much work to do for the sake of fake review. Also if the author could be traced to such good reviews, their other reviews might be more trustworthy as well.

Re: I write fake online reviews

#16
post #3

I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway, I tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied.

The problem is that bad reviews can be just as fake as good ones, as they could be written by the product's competitors. Also, if a product is popular enough, odds are that even with a great product there'll be a small fraction of people who'll just happen to get a dud, while most of the rest will be satisfied. Because of this, I tend to read both good and bad reviews, and give more weight to the longer reviews that…

This happened to me once, I added my product to a sales channel and a competitor instantly gave it a fake review and lowest possible rating. I guess that was enough to keep people away, as that was the only review for several years.

Re: I write fake online reviews

#17
post #3

I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway, I tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied.

This. I tend to match the reported issues with a product across bad reviews to see if they are just glitches or something particular about it.

When a product has way too many good reviews I usually try to see if similar products show the same reviews. It's outrageous how much copy paste is used.

Re: I write fake online reviews

#18
post #3

I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway, I tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied.

[deleted]

Re: I write fake online reviews

#19
The title should be "Why bbc reads Hacker News comments to get ideas for its next article." I could swear I just read a discussion on HN (just hours ago) in response to an article about Amazon getting flooded with fake reviews. Some suggested how they write fake reviews for money and how one could monetize fake reviews. Then here comes this BBC article. Coincidence. I think not.
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