7 ms·

I feel unaffected by such fake reviews as the only ones I ascribe much value to are the negative ones. Also, I've extremely curtailed any purchasing on Amazon a

by plink 8y ago

I feel unaffected by such fake reviews as the only ones I ascribe much value to are the negative ones. Also, I've extremely curtailed any purchasing on Amazon as I've come to perceive the majority of their marketplace to be a degenerative crap house.

dragontamer 8y ago
I met a family member (like 2nd cousin or further away) at some wedding a few years ago. I only talked to him once, but he was very clear about this situation. He owned a hotel, and was trying to track down the writers of bad reviews on Yelp. Primarily, as the owner of the hotel, it was his job to find out what's wrong about the hotel and improve it. But he started to investigate some of the 1-star reviews, and came to the conclusion that these people didn't exist. He dug through all the receipts, he tried to track down and correlate the time with when these reviews popped up and tried to track down any issue. His ultimate conclusion was that a number of the 1-star reviews on his hotel were simply fake. The discussion continued to talk about tort law, and how he's unable to even get a person to sue. He can't sue Yelp, because Yelp wasn't the author of those posts. So he was basically helpless to defend against 1-star reviews. In any case, if people can fake a 5-star review, they can also fake a 1-star review. And based on what I discussed with this man years ago, it seems like it really is happening right now. Its probably easier for a Hotel-chain to leave bad reviews on their competitors. There are only so many hotels in a given area, and Yelp easily allows you to list all of the competitors in your region. Its probably less of a thing on Amazon, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't exist there either.
- guelo 8y ago
  It's definitely a thing on Amazon also.
- gitgud 8y ago
  So you can leave a review without even using the service or product on Yelp? Without a verified purchase, why would anyway take the review seriously?
  - ghaff 8y ago
    How would Yelp know if you made a purchase? You’re not buying anything through them. Lack of a verified purchase describes pretty much every review long before there was a Web although there were of course gatekeepers like newspaper editors.
  - koolba 8y ago
    How would you even implement a verified purchase? For a hotel maybe you could forward an itinerary (which can be faked) but there’s probably no receipt for a random taco stand that only accepts cash. Granted the latter does not care as much as the hotel but whatever they do would need to cover everybody.
    - markdown 8y ago
      After thinking about this problem for... umm... 30 seconds... Allow users to write reviews, and then send a message to the hotel owner saying "X has posted a review of your business. Do you accept that X was a guest on X date?" The hotel owner is forced to verify the stay before he gets to see the review. Of course he'll know all about the outliers who had a bad experience and complained at the hotel and might want to lie about the guest staying, but such guests are usually very motivated and willing to prove their stay with receipts, photos, etc.
      - smelendez 8y ago
        That's not how Yelp works, though. It's not opt-in or even opt-out. I'd guess most businesses reviewed on Yelp have no relationship with Yelp. And ones with primarily bad reviews (which may not be their fault: cheap motels in particular seem to attract bad reviews from people who expect too much for the price) could just refuse to acknowledge any reviews. Plus I think users are attracted to the illusion that the business doesn't know who they are. People would be less inclined to post reviews if they knew they'd be emailed directly to the business owner for sign off.
      - ttty 8y ago
        Then the hotel owner can put a ton of fake positive reviews and verify all.
- amelius 8y ago
  Wouldn't fake reviews reduce the credibility of Yelp eventually, thus letting the problem take care of itself?
  - tedunangst 8y ago
    If you avoid a hotel because of fake bad reviews, you are unlikely to learn the reviews were fake.
  - acheron 8y ago
    I mean, that already happened. I know I haven’t taken Yelp reviews seriously for years.
- dunkelheit 8y ago
  A heuristic that I've used quite a lot recently is to look at three-star reviews and see if the reviewer's gripes are relevant to me. Works quite well, but I guess it is only a matter of time and we'll soon start seeing fake three-star reviews.
  - kibwen 8y ago
    And eventually when people start to favor two and four star reviews those will start being gamed as well, and then, just like in a math problem where all the variables magically cancel out, all the fake reviews will exist in perfect equilibrium and average review scores will reflect only the real reviews! Genius!
  - im3w1l 8y ago
    And you may have shortened its lifespan by publicizing it.
- userid2323232 8y ago
  > The discussion continued to talk about tort law, and how he's unable to even get a person to sue. He can't sue Yelp, because Yelp wasn't the author of those posts. Yelp doesn't need to be a party to the lawsuit for a subpoena to be issued to them. You sue the poster as John Doe, send a subpoena to Yelp for the poster's account information and IP address, send a subpoena to the poster's ISP for the account information of the user assigned that IP address at that time, and keep following that trail. Eventually you might find some person who was paid to post the fake reviews, and you can use the legal system to find out who paid them. (In fact, they'll probably cooperate with your investigation in exchange for dropping them as a party.) There's no guarantee of success -- you might find the trail ends up with a no-logging VPN, an open Wi-Fi hotspot, or some other multi-user shared environment where the activity can't be linked to a specific person -- but it is possible to try.
amelius 8y ago
> I feel unaffected by such fake reviews as the only ones I ascribe much value to are the negative ones. I suppose fake review factories can be hired just as well to make the competition look bad ...
- plink 8y ago
  Yes, that is food for thought. Although the Amazon situation doesn't fit the fake-yelp-reviews-about-a-hotel scenario because one's Amazon competitors are nearly infinite and constantly changing, whereas there are only a geographically limited number of restaurant or hotel competitors to pillory.
- Regardsyjc 8y ago
  Fake negative reviews are a tactic of nasty competitors. I'm an Amazon seller and they are rampant. The more competitive the category you're in, the nastier it gets. They will bomb you with negative reviews using certain keywords that will trigger an Amazon algorithm to shut you down. Amazon has a few systems in place for QC, things like 6% negative customer experience rate or certain keywords like counterfeit or related to safety that will get you flagged. Once you're flagged or shut down, it might take a week or two or more to sell again. You will probably have to pay for an expensive specialist to help you clear Amazon's red tape because if you mess up, and many people do, you might be banned forever from the Amazon marketplace. Almost like a sick video game. It's a little funny but maddening how people will abuse every gear that makes the Amazon system tick. I use a number of Amazon softwares to scrape data from Amazon and I love seeing the bad players. I'm also in an expensive mastermind and their tactics are dirty. These are Americans so I can't even imagine the tactics that Chinese sellers might use. Honestly, every month I spend in this business makes me lose faith a little more. It's a dark system and I do not like where I think it's going.
  - reagan83 8y ago
    Great insight - what services do you use to watch your own & other sellers? Been meaning to write software in this space for a while. Feel free to dm me email is in profile.
mcbits 8y ago
Although fake positive reviews are surely much more common, I'd also keep a skeptical eye on the negative reviews, especially if the product is politically controversial. A couple years ago, there was a book critical of Internet service in the US and how it lags behind countries with more public funding. It received hundreds of obviously scripted 1-star reviews like "I am a [blue collar profession] in [middle American state], and I appreciate how great my Internet service is. The US is bigger than [smallish European state]. The author is [ad hominem], etc." Someone posted it to Reddit, and then it got a bunch of fake 5-star reviews as well.
pmcollins 8y ago
I bought a problematic item on Amazon and left a negative review. The seller contacted me three times via email and offered me $30 (the cost of the item) to remove the review. I didn't take it but maybe others had. And I wonder if I was duped into buying the thing because previous negative reviewers had been bought off. Considering the fake reviews and the number of counterfeit items I've received from Amazon, I default to Costco, Target, Lowes, etc. for shopping now. I have a lot more confidence that their suppliers and their vetting of products are legit. I consider Amazon a flea market at this point. I'll buy some things at a flea market, but not much.
- Lewton 8y ago
  I'd be very tempted to remove the review, take the money, then repost the review...
  - Nition 8y ago
    I think I'd just update the review to also mention the attempted bribe.
- i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
  So if you want free stuff just leave bad reviews. The world is so broken. My sister's used to do the same thing to the Coca Cola company when we were young. They would call the hotline and complain they had some come that tasted like dishwashing liquid and they would get loads of coupons sent to them for free coke. I think they did it every time we moved house and we lived in quite a few houses. It was always entertaining. Now that I think about it my 8 year old sister was committing fraud. Well...
  - monetus 8y ago
    Coke* - that's an unfortunate typo
staticassertion 8y ago
Competitors will pay for fake reviews. I know a friend who gets offers to do this in exchange for discounted goods.
- randycupertino 8y ago
  That reminds me of this video about the beauty industry. Brands will pay influencers $15k for a shoutout or good review about their brand, but will pay upwards of $60k for a disparaging review of their competitors brands: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/makeup-artist-accuses-cosmetics-industry-mobster-behavio_n_5b86cdace4b0cf7b0031579c https://www.huffpost.com/entry/makeup-artist-accuses-cosmeti...
sutterbomb 8y ago
I’m an amazon seller with our own brand of products, and many of our 1 star reviews are fakes by the competition. For awhile we also had a bunch of returns and Amazon temporarily closed our listing because of the poor performance. When I looked into it the addresses on those orders were to a variety of different motels in Alabama. People are shady af and it’s frustrating trying to do business legitimately.

by plink 8y ago

dragontamer 8y ago

I met a family member (like 2nd cousin or further away) at some wedding a few years ago. I only talked to him once, but he was very clear about this situation. He owned a hotel, and was trying to track down the writers of bad reviews on Yelp. Primarily, as the owner of the hotel, it was his job to find out what's wrong about the hotel and improve it. But he started to investigate some of the 1-star reviews, and came to the conclusion that these people didn't exist. He dug through all the receipts, he tried to track down and correlate the time with when these reviews popped up and tried to track down any issue. His ultimate conclusion was that a number of the 1-star reviews on his hotel were simply fake. The discussion continued to talk about tort law, and how he's unable to even get a person to sue. He can't sue Yelp, because Yelp wasn't the author of those posts. So he was basically helpless to defend against 1-star reviews. In any case, if people can fake a 5-star review, they can also fake a 1-star review. And based on what I discussed with this man years ago, it seems like it really is happening right now. Its probably easier for a Hotel-chain to leave bad reviews on their competitors. There are only so many hotels in a given area, and Yelp easily allows you to list all of the competitors in your region. Its probably less of a thing on Amazon, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't exist there either.

guelo 8y ago
It's definitely a thing on Amazon also.
gitgud 8y ago
So you can leave a review without even using the service or product on Yelp? Without a verified purchase, why would anyway take the review seriously?
- ghaff 8y ago
  How would Yelp know if you made a purchase? You’re not buying anything through them. Lack of a verified purchase describes pretty much every review long before there was a Web although there were of course gatekeepers like newspaper editors.
- koolba 8y ago
  How would you even implement a verified purchase? For a hotel maybe you could forward an itinerary (which can be faked) but there’s probably no receipt for a random taco stand that only accepts cash. Granted the latter does not care as much as the hotel but whatever they do would need to cover everybody.
  - markdown 8y ago
    After thinking about this problem for... umm... 30 seconds... Allow users to write reviews, and then send a message to the hotel owner saying "X has posted a review of your business. Do you accept that X was a guest on X date?" The hotel owner is forced to verify the stay before he gets to see the review. Of course he'll know all about the outliers who had a bad experience and complained at the hotel and might want to lie about the guest staying, but such guests are usually very motivated and willing to prove their stay with receipts, photos, etc.
    - smelendez 8y ago
      That's not how Yelp works, though. It's not opt-in or even opt-out. I'd guess most businesses reviewed on Yelp have no relationship with Yelp. And ones with primarily bad reviews (which may not be their fault: cheap motels in particular seem to attract bad reviews from people who expect too much for the price) could just refuse to acknowledge any reviews. Plus I think users are attracted to the illusion that the business doesn't know who they are. People would be less inclined to post reviews if they knew they'd be emailed directly to the business owner for sign off.
    - ttty 8y ago
      Then the hotel owner can put a ton of fake positive reviews and verify all.
amelius 8y ago
Wouldn't fake reviews reduce the credibility of Yelp eventually, thus letting the problem take care of itself?
- tedunangst 8y ago
  If you avoid a hotel because of fake bad reviews, you are unlikely to learn the reviews were fake.
- acheron 8y ago
  I mean, that already happened. I know I haven’t taken Yelp reviews seriously for years.
dunkelheit 8y ago
A heuristic that I've used quite a lot recently is to look at three-star reviews and see if the reviewer's gripes are relevant to me. Works quite well, but I guess it is only a matter of time and we'll soon start seeing fake three-star reviews.
- kibwen 8y ago
  And eventually when people start to favor two and four star reviews those will start being gamed as well, and then, just like in a math problem where all the variables magically cancel out, all the fake reviews will exist in perfect equilibrium and average review scores will reflect only the real reviews! Genius!
- im3w1l 8y ago
  And you may have shortened its lifespan by publicizing it.
userid2323232 8y ago
> The discussion continued to talk about tort law, and how he's unable to even get a person to sue. He can't sue Yelp, because Yelp wasn't the author of those posts. Yelp doesn't need to be a party to the lawsuit for a subpoena to be issued to them. You sue the poster as John Doe, send a subpoena to Yelp for the poster's account information and IP address, send a subpoena to the poster's ISP for the account information of the user assigned that IP address at that time, and keep following that trail. Eventually you might find some person who was paid to post the fake reviews, and you can use the legal system to find out who paid them. (In fact, they'll probably cooperate with your investigation in exchange for dropping them as a party.) There's no guarantee of success -- you might find the trail ends up with a no-logging VPN, an open Wi-Fi hotspot, or some other multi-user shared environment where the activity can't be linked to a specific person -- but it is possible to try.

amelius 8y ago

> I feel unaffected by such fake reviews as the only ones I ascribe much value to are the negative ones. I suppose fake review factories can be hired just as well to make the competition look bad ...

plink 8y ago
Yes, that is food for thought. Although the Amazon situation doesn't fit the fake-yelp-reviews-about-a-hotel scenario because one's Amazon competitors are nearly infinite and constantly changing, whereas there are only a geographically limited number of restaurant or hotel competitors to pillory.
Regardsyjc 8y ago
Fake negative reviews are a tactic of nasty competitors. I'm an Amazon seller and they are rampant. The more competitive the category you're in, the nastier it gets. They will bomb you with negative reviews using certain keywords that will trigger an Amazon algorithm to shut you down. Amazon has a few systems in place for QC, things like 6% negative customer experience rate or certain keywords like counterfeit or related to safety that will get you flagged. Once you're flagged or shut down, it might take a week or two or more to sell again. You will probably have to pay for an expensive specialist to help you clear Amazon's red tape because if you mess up, and many people do, you might be banned forever from the Amazon marketplace. Almost like a sick video game. It's a little funny but maddening how people will abuse every gear that makes the Amazon system tick. I use a number of Amazon softwares to scrape data from Amazon and I love seeing the bad players. I'm also in an expensive mastermind and their tactics are dirty. These are Americans so I can't even imagine the tactics that Chinese sellers might use. Honestly, every month I spend in this business makes me lose faith a little more. It's a dark system and I do not like where I think it's going.
- reagan83 8y ago
  Great insight - what services do you use to watch your own & other sellers? Been meaning to write software in this space for a while. Feel free to dm me email is in profile.

mcbits 8y ago

Although fake positive reviews are surely much more common, I'd also keep a skeptical eye on the negative reviews, especially if the product is politically controversial. A couple years ago, there was a book critical of Internet service in the US and how it lags behind countries with more public funding. It received hundreds of obviously scripted 1-star reviews like "I am a [blue collar profession] in [middle American state], and I appreciate how great my Internet service is. The US is bigger than [smallish European state]. The author is [ad hominem], etc." Someone posted it to Reddit, and then it got a bunch of fake 5-star reviews as well.

pmcollins 8y ago

I bought a problematic item on Amazon and left a negative review. The seller contacted me three times via email and offered me $30 (the cost of the item) to remove the review. I didn't take it but maybe others had. And I wonder if I was duped into buying the thing because previous negative reviewers had been bought off. Considering the fake reviews and the number of counterfeit items I've received from Amazon, I default to Costco, Target, Lowes, etc. for shopping now. I have a lot more confidence that their suppliers and their vetting of products are legit. I consider Amazon a flea market at this point. I'll buy some things at a flea market, but not much.

Lewton 8y ago
I'd be very tempted to remove the review, take the money, then repost the review...
- Nition 8y ago
  I think I'd just update the review to also mention the attempted bribe.
i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
So if you want free stuff just leave bad reviews. The world is so broken. My sister's used to do the same thing to the Coca Cola company when we were young. They would call the hotline and complain they had some come that tasted like dishwashing liquid and they would get loads of coupons sent to them for free coke. I think they did it every time we moved house and we lived in quite a few houses. It was always entertaining. Now that I think about it my 8 year old sister was committing fraud. Well...
- monetus 8y ago
  Coke* - that's an unfortunate typo

staticassertion 8y ago

Competitors will pay for fake reviews. I know a friend who gets offers to do this in exchange for discounted goods.

randycupertino 8y ago
That reminds me of this video about the beauty industry. Brands will pay influencers $15k for a shoutout or good review about their brand, but will pay upwards of $60k for a disparaging review of their competitors brands: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/makeup-artist-accuses-cosmetics-industry-mobster-behavio_n_5b86cdace4b0cf7b0031579c https://www.huffpost.com/entry/makeup-artist-accuses-cosmeti...

sutterbomb 8y ago

I’m an amazon seller with our own brand of products, and many of our 1 star reviews are fakes by the competition. For awhile we also had a bunch of returns and Amazon temporarily closed our listing because of the poor performance. When I looked into it the addresses on those orders were to a variety of different motels in Alabama. People are shady af and it’s frustrating trying to do business legitimately.