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Here's my anecdote: my wife is an author on Amazon and personally knows most of the people who review her books. FakeSpot gave her most popular book an F grade

Here's my anecdote: my wife is an author on Amazon and personally knows most of the people who review her books. FakeSpot gave her most popular book an F grade because people were "suspiciously positive". Most people leaving reviews only leave reviews for things they absolutely love, so saying that it's "suspiciously positive" is not an indicator of it being fake. In her case, she knows these people personally and they're not fake scripts. Yet FakeSpot, who OP holds up as doing the great job that Amazon is not, is completely wrong. tldr; spotting fake reviews is harder than it seems apparently. EDIT: the other thing is that she has lost quite a bit of legitimate reviews from Amazon deleting them. Amazon is actually doing more than the end user sees about this problem. EDIT 2: Another thing Amazon completely ignores are reviewers who get an early copy of the product in exchange for an honest review. This is how a lot of people kickstart reviews on their products and Amazon completely ignores that valid use case. In fact, they hurt it because they don't mark those reviews as "Verified Purchase" since the reviewer got the product outside of the Amazon channels. They need to come up with a system for this.

aerion1 9y ago
I have been using Fakespot on Amazon and pay for the subscription features to simplify my online purchasing because it is needed. From what I have seen, Fakespot will detect ANY biased reviews. So if your wife had friends read and then leave a review with an affiliation as they mention in their FAQ/About.
Someone1234 9y ago
> my wife is an author on Amazon and personally knows most of the people who review her books. So your wife has people she knows leave positive reviews in order to bump her book's review score and you're upset that Fakespot gave it an F due to them being non-organic reviews? As a consumer it sounds like Fakespot is doing a great job, and exactly what it states on the tin. What your wife is doing is at best dishonest and I'm glad they're exposed as sham reviews. Hopefully these people are putting a disclaimer in the reviews stating the conflict but I highly doubt it. > Yet FakeSpot, who OP holds up as doing the great job that Amazon is not, is completely wrong. Except according to your own anecdote they were completely right?
- threatofrain 9y ago
  I would also call this dishonesty, but I wouldn't be too hard on someone for this. Asking someone to not do this is like asking someone to do honest advertisements. It's asking someone to uphold an ethical standard that the majority neglects. A little bit of moderated moral pushback has its place, but I think the main solution at societal-scale must be structural.
  - Someone1234 9y ago
    I actually agree, I'd be lying if I wouldn't leave a positive review if my spouse or friend wrote a book. Problem is the person above said "Yet FakeSpot [...] is completely wrong." and criticized Fakespot for pointing out the problematic reviews. They say that everyone is a hero in their own story, and I think that applies here, you have good personal motivations (help a friend/spouse/family, etc) but ultimately what you're doing is no different from the consumer's perspective than the people that do this stuff professionally. It is just as immoral/misleading/dishonest. They get upset with a service (Fakespot) which points out the bad behavior because it contrasts with their moral motivations for doing so. I think they need to re-examine right and wrong in this situation, Fakespot may not be the bad guy here.
    - Malician 9y ago
      I mean, I'm just suspicious. Fakespot seems to say the reviews are dishonest, fake, overly positive for.. well, a lot of things, including my favorite pair of headphones. They're positive because the headphones are utterly fantastic. They beat the crap out of the better-reviewed (on Amazon) Bose version. Which Fakespot gives a better grade to.
      - drukenemo 9y ago
        Got curious. Could you share the brand and model? Thanks.
  - j-c-hewitt 9y ago
    Friends & family reviews do break the Amazon TOS, but Amazon has limited means available to detect it. Authors get more leeway for giving out free review copies than other categories do now.
maaaats 9y ago
> In her case, she knows these people personally and they're not fake scripts Still, their opinions aren't trustworthy to me, given they are written by people close to the author. So I could actually agree with FakeSpot on this.
notatoad 9y ago
I find that reviews on books and reviews on everything else amazon sells are two completely different ballgames. I don't trust product reviews on amazon at all anymore, but I still trust book reviews to be honest 99% of the time. Books don't seem to be plagued by the same review spam as everything else on amazon.
deleted 9y ago
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alexbeloi 9y ago
Do you actually think reviews from friends are objective and not grossly positively skewed?
dhimes 9y ago
Replying to sibling comments: to be fair to miles_matthias, it's hard to NOT have your friends review on Amazon etc. They all want to do it. I just checked my wife's and I recognize several friends' names in the reviews on Amazon. OTOH, she got hosed on Goodreads by someone who admitted to not reading the book, and several people came along and validated the hosing (like a voting circle or something). This is a pretty difficult problem.
AdamJacobMuller 9y ago
> these people personally and they're not fake I totally understand where you're coming from on this, but, you're 100% wrong here. Fakespot is looking for unbiased reviews and friend-reviews are not unbiased, what do you think the odds are that one of your wife's friends was going to leave a negative review?
iClaudiusX 9y ago
Both situations should require full disclosure, otherwise I don't see anything wrong with the F grade assessment.
krzyk 9y ago
> Most people leaving reviews only leave reviews for things they absolutely love Hmm, I think it is quite the opposite, I'm more inclined to leave a review (warn people) when I don't like something. Or maybe it is a cultural thing (I'm from Europe).

aerion1 9y ago

I have been using Fakespot on Amazon and pay for the subscription features to simplify my online purchasing because it is needed. From what I have seen, Fakespot will detect ANY biased reviews. So if your wife had friends read and then leave a review with an affiliation as they mention in their FAQ/About.

Someone1234 9y ago

> my wife is an author on Amazon and personally knows most of the people who review her books. So your wife has people she knows leave positive reviews in order to bump her book's review score and you're upset that Fakespot gave it an F due to them being non-organic reviews? As a consumer it sounds like Fakespot is doing a great job, and exactly what it states on the tin. What your wife is doing is at best dishonest and I'm glad they're exposed as sham reviews. Hopefully these people are putting a disclaimer in the reviews stating the conflict but I highly doubt it. > Yet FakeSpot, who OP holds up as doing the great job that Amazon is not, is completely wrong. Except according to your own anecdote they were completely right?

threatofrain 9y ago
I would also call this dishonesty, but I wouldn't be too hard on someone for this. Asking someone to not do this is like asking someone to do honest advertisements. It's asking someone to uphold an ethical standard that the majority neglects. A little bit of moderated moral pushback has its place, but I think the main solution at societal-scale must be structural.
- Someone1234 9y ago
  I actually agree, I'd be lying if I wouldn't leave a positive review if my spouse or friend wrote a book. Problem is the person above said "Yet FakeSpot [...] is completely wrong." and criticized Fakespot for pointing out the problematic reviews. They say that everyone is a hero in their own story, and I think that applies here, you have good personal motivations (help a friend/spouse/family, etc) but ultimately what you're doing is no different from the consumer's perspective than the people that do this stuff professionally. It is just as immoral/misleading/dishonest. They get upset with a service (Fakespot) which points out the bad behavior because it contrasts with their moral motivations for doing so. I think they need to re-examine right and wrong in this situation, Fakespot may not be the bad guy here.
  - Malician 9y ago
    I mean, I'm just suspicious. Fakespot seems to say the reviews are dishonest, fake, overly positive for.. well, a lot of things, including my favorite pair of headphones. They're positive because the headphones are utterly fantastic. They beat the crap out of the better-reviewed (on Amazon) Bose version. Which Fakespot gives a better grade to.
    - drukenemo 9y ago
      Got curious. Could you share the brand and model? Thanks.
- j-c-hewitt 9y ago
  Friends & family reviews do break the Amazon TOS, but Amazon has limited means available to detect it. Authors get more leeway for giving out free review copies than other categories do now.

maaaats 9y ago

> In her case, she knows these people personally and they're not fake scripts Still, their opinions aren't trustworthy to me, given they are written by people close to the author. So I could actually agree with FakeSpot on this.

notatoad 9y ago

I find that reviews on books and reviews on everything else amazon sells are two completely different ballgames. I don't trust product reviews on amazon at all anymore, but I still trust book reviews to be honest 99% of the time. Books don't seem to be plagued by the same review spam as everything else on amazon.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

alexbeloi 9y ago

Do you actually think reviews from friends are objective and not grossly positively skewed?

dhimes 9y ago

Replying to sibling comments: to be fair to miles_matthias, it's hard to NOT have your friends review on Amazon etc. They all want to do it. I just checked my wife's and I recognize several friends' names in the reviews on Amazon. OTOH, she got hosed on Goodreads by someone who admitted to not reading the book, and several people came along and validated the hosing (like a voting circle or something). This is a pretty difficult problem.

AdamJacobMuller 9y ago

> these people personally and they're not fake I totally understand where you're coming from on this, but, you're 100% wrong here. Fakespot is looking for unbiased reviews and friend-reviews are not unbiased, what do you think the odds are that one of your wife's friends was going to leave a negative review?

iClaudiusX 9y ago

Both situations should require full disclosure, otherwise I don't see anything wrong with the F grade assessment.

krzyk 9y ago

> Most people leaving reviews only leave reviews for things they absolutely love Hmm, I think it is quite the opposite, I'm more inclined to leave a review (warn people) when I don't like something. Or maybe it is a cultural thing (I'm from Europe).