We've been talking about reviews for a while here . . . Remember when Amazon got itself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons? This time it's a Canadian company that is in the news for similar reasons. Bell Canada employees wrote some great 4 star reviews for two apps created by the company. Log In Canada's Competition Bureau has slapped Bell Canada with a $1.25 million fine for encouraging employees to plant glowing online reviews for two company phone apps . . . CBC News reported that possibly half a dozen or more of the rave write-ups were penned by Bell Canada employees – many in senior positions. None of the workers disclosed that they worked for Bell. The legitimacy of online reviews has become a growing concern in the digital world where reviewers often remain anonymous. It makes one wonder how many of the reviews we see on the net actually are real reviewers written by someone who has actually bought and used a product?
Many sites do stipulate you must post a disclaimer if you were offered the product free to review. That's to cover themselves and to show the review is genuine. We can agree that bad reviews are usually bought, and are a result as not having got a refund. When good reviews don't give a valid reason (like an example) you know it may be fabricated. I was reviewing some vacuum cleaners and they were all genuine on the site, when people talked of their experiences of using the product. Few people would give five stars, so when there is an abundance, you should always look carefully.
I think unless the review says it is a verified purchase, you should not necessarily trust them. I know Amazon offers the verified purchase function, and I know they do ask customers to review purchases so I believe them. There are just too many scam reviews on many sites, and people being paid to promote the products, that you really don't know what to trust. I think especially if the reviews are too glowing, they are not believeable in most cases.
Like I have said in some other posts when it comes to reviews. Those companies that dare try to do something underhanded risk going out of business. People will call these businesses for who they truly are. When I watch YouTube video reviews, the majority of people doing the video are really good at disclosure of whether or not they are paid or not. Whether they paid for the item or not is also mentioned. Sometimes the people do give negative reviews whether they are th Web ones who paid for the product or not. Besides, if you are an employee for a company making crappy products think twice about giving a positive reviews just to make your company look good because it will make you look bad.
I get free products sent to me through Bzzagent and one of the tasks you have to do is go online and writer reviews of the products you test. I always give honest reviews though and Bzzagent supports this. If I do not like a product then I will say so and vice versa. There are people though who will scam reviews like stated above though and employees with certain companies will hide their identities and write reviews. That is why I like this site is because I know we all are honest with our opinions.
We were all talking about this in another thread just recently, and I cannot say that I am surprised at all. Why wouldn't you? - meaning these companies, of course. It looks and seems way too easy for people who made the apps or products themselves to write out reviews for the products, and why wouldn't they if it'd help sales? Companies do a lot worse to earn money.
Amazon is making an attempt to weed out fake reviews from their site. They went "undercover", visited Fiverr and hired some writers who promised that for $5 they'd write false reviews. A number of these writers are being sued by Amazon and maybe once it's over fewer people will be willing to write fake reviews for cash. Log In Amazon.com has filed suit against hundreds of people it claims are publishing "false, misleading and inauthentic" reviews on its website. The online retailer is pursuing legal action against 1,1114 unnamed defendants—whose real names are still unknown to the company—for creating false reviews for some products for sale. The action appears to be an extension of what the retailer did in April, when Amazon went after a group of websites who sold fake reviews.
This is why I only trust reviews from verified purchasers. The only problem is that it's not the same for apps since everyone can write a review there. The good thing about that is that most of these apps are free anyway so you can just test them for yourself and find out if the reviews were fake or not. If the item were something expensive then I'd definitely be more careful about believing the reviews immediately, and often times I even venture out to seek reviews from a third party site such as forums like this one.
It's the people who also advertise the 'jobs' that should be prosecuted too, as it's obvious that they paid people to do it. Some may use a broker or middle man, but it's still obvious. Yes, the fake reviewers break the rules, and the person advertising doesn't. I know some do say, asking for reviews or manipulating rules to get reviews can result in an account being banned. Maybe Amazon and other companies need to show they really will take action.
If the review states it is a verified purchase then I will trust it. When Amazon asks me to post a review for a recent purchase I always write something good, it is mostly books that I am reviewing. What I like and what someone else will like is two different things when it comes to books.
I am a freelance writer, and I have been approached by many companies asking whether I would write a review about the product. My answer is that yes, I can write them a review, however they have to provide me with the product first so that I can actually see it. Because I will not ever do fake reviews - it isn't ethical. So yes, you do have to be careful about the types of reviews that you read, because there are a lot of fake ones that go around, which is a complete shame really because the review system should work well.
This is one of the reasons why I don't trust a lot of the product review on Youtube. It is quite clear that the company of the products have either paid these big Youtube people to review - and positively at that - their product. And if they have not paid them then they have given them the product for free in exchange for the positive review, so you cannot really trust people who have a vested interest.
I wouldn't have any problem writing a review of a product that I'd been given for free, as long as the company understood that the review would be honest and unbiased. I actually have written a few reviews like that, and have no problem with others doing so. I do have an issue though with people never having bought or tried the product and writing fake reviews, especially when the reviews have been written by the product that makes/sells the items. I'm glad to see the crack downs on this type of activity.
On Fiverr, there are gigs that offer this sort of false reviewing service when it comes to Amazon products. And the deal is that they buy the item, and then the seller refunds them and either sends the item, or has the person who is advertising the Fiverr gig send it back to them, all so that they can write verified 100% positive reviews and trick people into purchasing items that may not be all they are cracked up to be. I am glad Amazon are cracking down on this.
Yeah, I've been seeing this more and more often of late. Happened just the other day for a new video game coming out. Guitar Hero, I think it was? Goes to show the power of online reviews. I used to perform gigs on Fiverr and I was asked to do this a few times. It's such a skeezy request.
I have or used to have more than a few gigs up on Fiverr, and none of them had anything to do with giving false 100% positive reviews for products. Yet, I would still sometimes get a messages from potential customers , completely ignoring the services that I was offering, in favor of asking me whether or not I would engage in such skeezy behavior.
To get a hold of real reviews then you should go to consumer complaint sites like scam.com or ripoffreport.com and search for the company, website, or product in question there. Those are the only sites where you can be assured that there will be no paid reviews, since it's a complaint site to begin with.
The last place I would trust is Amazon or anything I read on Youtube. I found there are quite a few places that hire freelancers to create faux reviews for the companies so they can upsell their products. I think it strips the potential purchaser from the ability to truly make an educated judgement if they have limited time to research the product or have a sense of being gullible. I love to over research any product I purchase.
This reminds me of how "big egg" paid bloggers etc to write about how healthy eggs are.. when, if I remember correctly, they're not even allowed to market them as healthy or safe lol. Says a lot, no? Bell Canada is on my boycott list anyway.. unethical SOBs. Years ago, they put families out on the street. One minute they all had jobs, the next they were told to pack up and leave. Literally.. people went into work with no clue they were about to lose their jobs when they were told shortly before their jobs were completely safe. It had been in the works for a while and they didn't warn anyone, just reassured them they were fine. People had just bought homes and cars, most had children and now they were upping and leaving their home towns to work elsewhere so they could support their families on short notice. All to outsource for pennies. Makes me sick. I hate hate hate that company and they'll never get a dime from me again. I know it happens everywhere, but I knew families this hurt and it was devastating to watch. Plus, knowing people who worked for them, this is far from the first or only dishonest thing Bell Canada does. A truly unCanadian company.
It is a real problem and I have been wondering the same thing, how can we be sure the reviews we see are real if someone can just buy good reviews. This had bothered me the most during my travels, when hotels or restaurants would have really good reviews and they turn out not to be so good or sometimes even crappy. When buying products, I have been lucky since every time I did research on a product and bought it, it turned out to be as good as the reviews said.
