Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

Post by nothercastle » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:13 AM UTC

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69

colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

Post by 4b11b4 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:15 AM UTC

doppio19 wrote: post #24

pogue wrote: post #18

I did search around looking for alternatives and the landscape isn't great. There's ReviewMeta.com which doesn't work 100% of the time and is no longer actively maintained as far as I can tell. TheReviewIndex.com I didn't find to be very helpful, as it doesn't index all products and sometimes just refuses to check on listings you ask it to. It seems to have some kind of subscription model, but they don't list the pri…

I mentioned it briefly in the blog post, but this is exactly what I'm working on! Essentially, a spiritual successor to Fakespot that combines LLM analysis, more traditional ML techniques, and rule-based heuristics to detect fake reviews. I'll likely go the "subscription with generous free trial" route, to avoid meeting the same fate as Fakespot. I'm actively working on a prototype and have a landing page at https://…

Post by 4b11b4 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:16 AM UTC

4b11b4 wrote: post #75

doppio19 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned it briefly in the blog post, but this is exactly what I'm working on! Essentially, a spiritual successor to Fakespot that combines LLM analysis, more traditional ML techniques, and rule-based heuristics to detect fake reviews. I'll likely go the "subscription with generous free trial" route, to avoid meeting the same fate as Fakespot. I'm actively working on a prototype and have a landing page at https://…

Subscription seems wrong, will prevent adoption

Post by stronglikedan » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:21 AM UTC

dankwizard wrote: post #46

It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened…

Post by zdragnar » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 4:28 AM UTC

quitit wrote: post #77

Some online retailers (such as galaxus for those in Europe) include return statistics on the sale page against comparison brands as well as price history graphs. This helps stamp out two of the core complaints about amazon: fake reviews and fraudulent discounts.