Yes - there are fake reviews, but there are also bunch of discount-for-review. Most of these reviewers are leaving disclaimer and often leave 1-3 star review in my experience.
Now the reason for that is because it super hard to get going with your product without sending discounted samples to reviewers. Because even if you spend tons of money on ads and somehow convince customer to buy your product without reviews, that customer in 99.9% will never leave a review. And if you dare to email this customer to ask for feedback - they will curse you, complain, report to amazon.
That's where things currently are - it is two way street. Without any traffic on it you will end up with very few shitty products by big companies who will have no reason to improve quality or innovate.
> Aren't many (maybe most) of these fake reviews done through Amazon Mechanical Turk? It's like instead of taking the cost to moderate the reviews, they decided to monetize them. Why pay money, when you can earn it?
I know a lot of them come though Facebook. There hundreds of groups (like this one https://www.facebook.com/groups/amznlove/), where sellers are soliciting fake reviews in exchange for free product and PayPal refunds and commissions.
I can't _stand_ the reviewkick sourced reviews, and there is a substantive difference between those and those from "product niche experts". The person who subscribes to reviewkick to "get free stuff" is building a profile to increase their value, so that they can get more expensive free stuff which they can in turn sell on ebay (or, I guess, hoard.) The reviewer who actually _uses_ the product, on the other hand...
Personally, given the choice between products I'll definitely avoid those with obvious fake reviews. I bet it's common behavior to do so among those who actually take the time to consult reviews, and I bet Amazon saw the writing on the wall via their analytics.
Alternatively, users will notice sooner or later that Vine is less about trusted reviews than 'Actual customer testimonials!!1!' and ignore or even avoid such products. Now maybe it's just me and the mass of people are gullible morons after all, but these kind of initiatives have a poor history on the internet compared to tabloids and TV.
Or so I thought until I discovered the secret to making REAL money - and now I'm going to share it with YOU.
Nearly every time I order things like small kitchen gadgets, barware, office accessories/supplies, I get a card saying that if I write a 5-star review, and send them a link to it, they'll send me a "free gift."
I suspect there are a lot of reviews like this that aren't 100% fake (they're from different people who actually paid full price for the product) but are solicited and therefore not accurate.
(I'll never review a product where the vendor makes an offer like this. I used to report it to Amazon, but I don't think they care.)
I've looked at a couple of services which look for patterns in reviews to flag fakes, but I think this only helps me if I'm prepared to buy from third-party sellers - which I'm not.
Fake reviews are paid for by sellers shifting tat that Amazon themselves will not sell (because someone in that bit of Amazon still cares about quality). If Amazon themselves wanted to add fake reviews they could easily do it in a way undetectable by Fakespot etc.
Fakespot in particular is a business with a business model, and that is (I think) all about ads and affiliate links. Just a guess, but probably VC-funded with a pressure to actually make a profit somehow. I am thus not their customer, and their incentives may not always align with mine so it's hard to trust them.
The article mentions the way they're even able to abuse that: giving gift cards to users who can then buy the product and leave a fake review as a verified purchaser.
US reviewers often get paid a premium on amazon/iTunes/Apple Store, but the bulk buys are still India.
It’s quite easy to spot fake reviews by anyone, since they’re formulaic. I.e the review must mention <person name> or <product name> exactly as written and be at least 50 characters long. So you get 2-3 sentences that look like this:
“Product is a huge game changer for me and my family. I’ve tried some other stuff, but honestly it didn’t work as well. I’d recommend Product for anyone who has Reason.”
I used that a while back out of curiosity. I used to write fake reviews in exchange for products (Sorry everyone, I don’t anymore!) because it was a free way to get products related to my hobbies.
Most of the reviews I knew were fake, it said they were fine. I wouldn’t trust it for anything expensive.
Adding fuel to the fire; I remember reading an article last year which appeared on HN, it was about how sellers create groups on facebook which offer to send people free products in they agree to give 5 star reviews. Apparently this is also a massive problem with thousands of people doing this
So not only will the reviews be for the wrong product, there is also a good chance that the reviews were bought and are fake.
Not surprising at all at this point. At Fakespot we've noticed a huge surge in fake reviews that originate from Facebook groups where sellers and professional reviewers meet.
The way it works is that a seller provides some kind of incentive (gift card, paypal money, etc) to write a 5 star or even 1 star review (for competitors). Facebook has hosted these groups and they have exploded in numbers in the last year.
Surely a company with the resources of Amazon can determine fake reviews from real ones. Especially those bait-and-switch where the product is changed and half the reviews aren't even for the current listing.
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