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HOW TO SPOT FAKE REVIEWS ON AMAZON?


MARIA MARTIN

10


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Amazon Reviews


HOW TO SPOT FAKE REVIEWS ON AMAZON

Despite being the world's largest online marketplace, Amazon has its fair share
of unscrupulous sellers. To help you spot fake reviews and avoid scams, here's
how to identify them.


HOW TO SPOT FAKE REVIEWS ON AMAZON

Amazon makes it easy for anyone to review anything on its site. If you're
looking for a specific item, you'll likely find hundreds of similar items
listed. And while some of those listings might contain false information, others
could sell the same for much lower prices.

The trick is figuring out whether a listing is legit or not. One way to do that
is to check the reviews section. If there are many positive reviews, it's safe
to assume that the product is of good quality. However, if most of the reviews
are negative, or if there are only one or two reviews, that might mean something
else entirely.

Fake reviews are often posted quickly, and many sellers pay reviewers to write
glowing reviews about their products. So, how do you tell if someone is writing
a review themselves or paying for one? There's no foolproof way to determine the
authenticity of a review, but here are three things to keep in mind:

 1. Reviews written within 24 hours of purchasing a product are considered less
    credible.
 2. Reviewers tend to like the product they're reviewing. This is because they
    want to promote their favorite brand, not necessarily because they think the
    product could be better.
 3. Reviews written by sellers are usually more trustworthy than those written
    by buyers. Sellers typically don't have the incentive to lie about a
    product. They're trying to sell it, not make friends. On the other hand,
    buyers might only read a product description after posting a review.


WHY DO AMAZON SELLERS BUY FAKE REVIEWS?

Amazon sellers are sometimes honest about how many customers they've had and how
satisfied those customers are. But honesty does pay off when it comes to getting
noticed by Amazon's algorithm. Some sellers are willing to spend money to ensure
their products are high in searches.

The most common tactic is buying positive reviews. This works because negative
reviews get buried in the rankings while positive ones rise to the top. If a
seller wants to boost a specific product, she might buy 5 or 10 reviews for $5
each.

But there are limits to how far a seller can push things. Negative reviews still
count toward a product's overall score, and Amazon won't let anyone write false
information. So if someone buys a bunch of fake reviews for a rival product,
he'd better hope his competitors don't notice.


HOW DO FAKE REVIEWS WORK ON AMAZON?

There are many ways you can buy fake reviews on Amazon. Some people pay others
to write positive reviews, while others use software to generate fake reviews.
Others try to sell their fake reviews. And still, others buy real reviews from
third-party sites and resell them. Fake reviews are one of the biggest problems
facing Amazon sellers. They can hurt sales and damage brand reputation.

Amazon has tried to fight against it for years. In 2016, the company pretended
to be a seller and hired fake reviewers from the freelance site Fiverr (a
marketplace where independent contractors offer their services) and found them
using multiple accounts and IP addresses to hide their identity.

The company has sued websites that provide fake reviews for as little as $5. One
of those companies, ReviewSub, allegedly paid over 200,000 customers to post
fake reviews on its website.

In May 2018, Amazon filed suit against another provider of fake reviews, called
BuyBoxReviews.com, alleging that the company engaged in deceptive practices to
promote its fake reviews. The company allegedly used bots to write thousands of
negative reviews every day.

And finally, in January 2020, Amazon announced that it banned certain products
because it had received too many poor customer reviews. Among the products
affected were Aukey power banks and chargers.


CHECK THE 'VERIFIED PURCHASE' TAG.

A recent study found that nearly half of Amazon reviewers are paid to write
positive reviews about products. This practice is called "bought reviews," and
it's one-way businesses try to boost sales. But it's only sometimes possible to
determine whether a reviewer is truthful. So how do you know if a review is
real?

The first thing to check is the "verified purchase" tag. It appears next to
every review that says a customer bought the item directly from the seller's
site. Reviews without the tag aren't necessarily fake — they just don't come
from actual customers.

If a review does have the tag, there are several things to consider:

 1. Make sure the date stamp matches the post date.
 2. Take note of the number of stars the review received. A five-star rating
    isn't worth much if it came out of nowhere.
 3. Look at the comments section.

If someone wrote, "I bought this for $10 off amazon, and I'm giving it five
stars because it works great!" that's probably a fake.


CHECK REVIEW HEADLINES

Another way to spot fake Amazon Reviews is to scrutinize the headline. Fake
reviewers usually don't go into detail and use general terms such as "good",
"awesome", "must-haves", "duds", "shouldn't", "best", "worst", "greatest", "most
expensive", "least expensive", "cheapest", "highest quality", "lowest quality",
"most reliable", "least reliable", "fastest shipping", "slowest shipping", "and
"best seller".

Most fake reviewers only go up to a few sentences and repeat themselves or use
similar language in multiple reviews. Genuine reviewers tend to make their
headlines stand out and include specific positive and negative points. For
example, "This product is great for those looking for a good deal. I bought this
for my daughter, and she loves it! She uses it every day."


READ AMAZON REVIEWS WITH A LITTLE SKEPTICISM.

Amazon is one of the most trusted online shopping sites. But you don't want to
buy anything based solely on what people say about it. To help consumers make
better decisions, we've compiled some tips on how to read Amazon reviews.

Fake reviews are everywhere. Some sellers pay others to post fake reviews of
their products.

It is if you see a review that sounds too good to be true. Read reviews
carefully and take note of the following red flags:

 * An overwhelming number of five-star ratings. These reviews could indicate
   paid reviews, where someone pays another person to give the product a high
   rating.
 * Reviews written by multiple authors. This indicates that the author doesn't
   live in the area where the item is sold.
 * Comments from unverified accounts. These are usually suspicious because
   Amazon hasn't verified the account.
 * Reviews with no date stamp. In addition to being older than three months,
   these reviews are only sometimes recent.


LOOK FOR SIMILAR WORDS AND PHRASES.

Seeing many positive reviews for a product with specific keywords could mean
people are trying to game the system.

Here's how it works. A seller creates a template of words and uses those same
words and phrases throughout his listing. Then he shares the list with reviewers
to ask them to leave a review with one of those words. This way, he knows
exactly what to look for in the reviews.

For example, a seller wants to ensure his product gets lots of 5-star ratings.
He might write a template that says things like '5 stars' and 'quality'. Then he
sends the list to reviewers, asking them to leave a review that includes one of
those words. For instance, he might ask someone to leave a review that reads,
"This sound bar is great quality. I love watching movies on my big screen TV."

The seller then looks for reviews that include both words. In this case, he'd
find many positive reviews that read, "I bought this sound bar for my home
theater setup, and it sounds amazing!"

He might even find some negative reviews that read, "My sound bars aren't very
good. They don't do anything special except play music loud."

In this scenario, the reviewer left the exact phrase the seller wanted. So the
seller would know that the reviewer didn't like the soundbar because it wasn't
doing anything special.


CHECK TIMESTAMPS

Reviewing products is one of the best ways to see whether there are any problems
with the product. But sometimes, it seems like some people want to make money
off of selling fake reviews. There are many different types of sellers out
there, including those who buy fake reviews in bulk. A seller might purchase
hundreds or thousands of reviews and post them in rapid succession. This makes
it difficult to tell what is real and what isn't.

But now there is a way to help figure this out. When you go into the "reviews"
section of Amazon, you can view only the most recently submitted reviews. These
reviews tend to be written within minutes because buyers often rush to submit
their reviews before someone else does. So if you see many reviews posted very
quickly, you know that they probably aren't coming from actual customers.


COMPARE PRODUCT POPULARITY WITH REVIEWS.

Do you notice an unknown headphone has thousands of rave reviews? If so, it
could be because those are fake reviews posted by third parties trying to pump
up the product rating on Amazon.com. A recent study found that most of the
positive reviews on Amazon aren't coming from real buyers. Instead, they're
often written by people impersonating customers, boosting the ratings on
competing products.

The research team behind the study used a tool called ReviewMeta to analyze over
2 million product reviews across hundreds of categories. They found that
third-party reviewers generated about 80% of the 5-star reviews. In some cases,
the number of fake reviews exceeded the total number of legitimate ones. For
example, one product had 4,843 five-star reviews, compared to just 881 genuine
reviews.

In another case, a single reviewer wrote 7,038 five-star reviews for a single
product, compared to just 690 reviews from actual consumers. This suggests that
there could be many more fake reviews out there.


LOOK FOR RIVAL PRODUCT REFERENCES IN REVIEWS.

The number of negative reviews for a particular product usually correlates with
how much it costs. Many companies pay people to write fake positive reviews
about their products. However, there are ways to spot whether a review is
legitimate.

A recent study found that nearly half of all reviews on Amazon are written by
competitors trying to boost sales of their products. The researchers discovered
that almost 90% of reviews mentioning a competitor's brand name had been posted
within five days of the competitor launching a new product.

When looking at the average rating of a product, look out for reviews where
customers ask questions like "Does this work?" or "Is this worth buying?" You'll
know that the reviewer needs to talk about the product being reviewed.

In addition, look for reviews that mention competing brands. For example, if a
customer asks a question such as "Which one do I choose?" and the answer
includes the phrase "This works better," that could indicate that the person
writing the review is affiliated with the product being reviewed. A similar
pattern occurs when someone mentions a competitor's product in a sentence that
begins with "I compared..."


CHECK THE REVIEWER'S PROFILE.

If you want to ensure that the reviewers are real people, it helps to look up
their profiles. Reviewers usually must provide contact information like an email
address and phone number. This way, customers can contact the reviewer directly
and verify their identity.

You can also check the reviewer's profile picture and review history. Check
whether the reviewer uses the same avatar across multiple platforms. If too many
reviews for one product within a short period, it might indicate that the
reviewer is a bot.

In addition, you can click on the reviewer's name to view their full profile.
From there, you can access the following information:

• Reviews written

• Date of the review posted

• Number of reviews written

• Average rating given


USE THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES TO DETECT FAKE REVIEWS.

Amazon wants you to read only some of the reviews. So, it offers a way to filter
out the noise. But how do you know what's real and what isn't? There are many
ways to find out whether a review is legit. One option is to go directly to the
source, i.e., Amazon.com. However, plenty of companies aggregate data from
multiple sources, including Amazon, to give you an idea about the overall
quality of the product.

Fakespot and ReviewMeta allow you to see the number of verified reviews, average
ratings, and even positive and negative reviews. They're free to use, though
some features require paid subscriptions. If you're looking for something
simpler, The Review Index provides similar information. It's free, too.

The site allows you to scan thousands of products in just seconds. Enter the
product URL in the box and hit "Go." This tool will pull up all the relevant
info, such as the total number of reviews, the average rating across all
reviewers, and the percentage of positive ratings.


MAKE A WISE PURCHASE DECISION.

Amazon Prime Day is almost here, and shoppers are already starting to make
purchases online. But how do you know what to buy without getting scammed? Here
are some things to look out for when buying anything on Amazon.

1. Check out the seller's feedback rating. If there are few positive reviews, it
could mean something fishy is happening.

2. Look for third-party sellers with high ratings. These are legitimate
businesses selling items directly from their store.

3. Avoid buying counterfeit goods, especially those sold by third parties.

4. Read the description carefully to see if there are any hidden fees or
charges.

5. Make sure the item is compatible with your device.

6. Remember to read comments from previous buyers. They might give you insight
into whether the product is worth the price.

7. And finally, keep yourself from getting tricked by fake reviews.

UPDATED

November 8, 2022

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