Planet Money podcast about fake Amazon reviews

[pinkoos]

Heard about this on the Planet Money podcast - lots of fake reviews on Amazon and other sites. Don't buy anything until you plug the product's url into either of the review analyzers listed below (ReviewMeta and Fakespot).

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/...iew-hunter

https://reviewmeta.com/

https://www.fakespot.com/

[Numo]

I’ve been suspicious of Amazon reviews for some time. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that every one of the 20+ reviews for a product made in China were rated 5/5 Stars. Reading further, the majority of the reviews were from people whose first language was clearly not English.

So I wrote a 1 star review for the product pointing the red flags. A couple of days later, my review was still there, but all of the fake ones had been removed.

These reviews were obviously over the top. I’ll bet there are many other fake reviews that are harder to spot. And if it’s happening on Amazon, it’s happening on other review sites, too.

One tip: always order reviews on Amazon by “most recent.” They seem to feature positive reviews that are pretty dated.

[pinkoos]

It would be interesting to see what the results are when you plug that product's url into either one of the sites I mentioned. Let us know.

Edit: I guess the fake reviews were removed so never mind.

Ammo wrote:
I’ve been suspicious of Amazon reviews for some time. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that every one of the 20+ reviews for a product made in China were rated 5/5 Stars. Reading further, the majority of the reviews were from people whose first language was clearly not English.

So I wrote a 1 star review for the product pointing the red flags. A couple of days later, my review was still there, but all of the fake ones had been removed.

These reviews were obviously over the top. I’ll bet there are many other fake reviews that are harder to spot. And if it’s happening on Amazon, it’s happening on other review sites, too.

One tip: always order reviews on Amazon by “most recent.” They seem to feature positive reviews that are pretty dated.

[testcase]

I ALWAYS pay more attention to the NEGATIVE reviews (one & two star). When I see the same problem/issue cited by several buyers, I'm likely to pass on that item (ESPECIALLY when it involves poor Customer Service). :boink:

[sekker]

Great podcast. Terrific episode.