[HN Gopher] Up to 30% of online reviews are fake and consumers c...
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Up to 30% of online reviews are fake and consumers can't tell the
difference
Author : elorant
Score : 80 points
Date : 2022-11-04 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cbsaustin.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (cbsaustin.com)
| ravenstine wrote:
| What I'm curious of is how reliably people can identify fake
| reviews. Is it that ~30% of customers suck at distinguishing
| them, or is it fuzzier than that and there's an overall 30%
| chance the review you think is trustworthy actually isn't?
|
| I've bought a _lot_ of stuff on Amazon, and while I do think
| there 's tons of fake reviews and craptacular products for sale,
| I've yet to come away with the same opinion of Amazon that many
| people have here. That is, the idea that Amazon is basically an
| unnavigable swamp of a marketplace. Somehow, I've avoided bad
| products to such an extent that I can't name a bad purchase off
| the top of my head. Ok, there was _one_ time I got an air filter
| that was used and repackaged (eww!) but it wasn't obvious and
| Amazon didn't know about it, and that's different than flimsy
| Chinese goods with fake 5 star reviews. I feel like I can spot
| fake reviews and other nonsense from a mile away, but I don't
| know if that feeling is real or not.
| regular wrote:
| baxtr wrote:
| Is there a browser plug-in which Scans reviews and then does some
| AI magic to say if a review is fake or not?
| prottog wrote:
| Online reviews and rating systems do need an overhaul. I once
| tried to leave a review of a poor experience I had while staying
| at a short-term rental property, sticking to the facts with no
| melodrama; and the platform rejected my review as being "against
| policy". There's clearly no incentive at all for the platform to
| accept anyone's poor review, since that would mean less business
| for the platform.
|
| Not to mention all the e-commerce reviews that are along the
| lines of, "1-star: item was perfect and was everything I wanted
| it to be but it arrived three days late" or "5-stars: item sucks
| so bad that I returned it but the platform's return policy is
| great".
| tracker1 wrote:
| I kind of wish Amazon would have three up/neutral/down vote
| options... product, seller, amazon platform... so that they can
| distinguish between customer service experience and the product
| itself. Then aggregate the scoring into an overall review
| experience.
|
| Leaving descriptive reviews ranked by positive/negative on the
| product itself. An leaning heavier on "insightful" feedback to
| shape rankings a bit.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I think it's incredibly convenient for Amazon to wrap it up
| in one score so it looks like the seller is at fault.
| cutenewt wrote:
| Netflix removed 5-star ratings a while back; they don't have
| reviews either.
|
| Seems like it hasn't impacted the user experience. Arguably
| improved the experience.
|
| Perhaps other sites like Amazon and AirBnb should remove
| ratings and reviews too?
| another_devy wrote:
| In case of e-commerce reviews are crucial not sure of
| ratings. If I'm buying an item and couple of reviews point
| out something wrong in design or usage I avoid it. Without
| reviews it's not possible
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Don't you have access to everything on Netflix? It's a
| different model
|
| On other platforms you're spending time and money, on Netflix
| only time.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The user experience on Netflix is quite bad. Trying to deduce
| things for a well optimized application from their example is
| hopeless.
| yakak wrote:
| I was pretty disappointed with Netflix after they canceled
| the star system. Before they cancelled it they could fit my
| likes to other people with similar likes, after they
| cancelled it they could insist their own content was good
| enough for everyone.
| superbaconman wrote:
| Three star reviews feel more intuitive anyway: 1 bad 2
| average 3 good.
|
| But when it comes to product reviews, accounts of hardware
| failures is super important imo.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Fake reviews are not the only problem. It's the fact that most
| reviews are going to either be from someone who loved the product
| enough to take the time to write about, or had such a bad
| experience (which could be anything and maybe not related to the
| problem) that they feel compelled to write about. So you wind up
| with 5-stars and 1-stars and not much inbetween.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| It seems like this is a thesis that could be tested
| empirically. It makes intuitive sense to me, but if I'm honest,
| that kind of inverted bell is not what I actually see very
| often on Amazon.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I have not done any systematic check, but I often see this
| type of inverted curve in product reviews. -- Though either
| the 5-star side or the 1-star side will be significantly
| higher than the other.
| r00fus wrote:
| Amazon has a lot of paid-for reviews, so you would likely see
| it if you remove the paid entries.
|
| In some cases on very bad products, you see tons of 5 star
| reviews and a lot of 1 star reviews - and if it's high on the
| fakespot list, I can only conclude it's a bad product.
|
| I've mostly given up on Amazon except where I can't find the
| product elsewhere (or on time).
| tracker1 wrote:
| I still use amazon a lot.. but not always reviews... often
| I know the product I'm looking for. I'll also tend to look
| at the negative reviews.. are the reviewers just not
| knowledgeable about what they bought, broke in shipping, or
| actually a bad product/seller. It will vary a bit. What
| sucks, is competitors will pay for bad reviews too.
| taeric wrote:
| I'd go farther with this thought experiment. As long as the
| reviews are done by consumers that are not trained or practiced
| at the art of reviewing, you will expect a lot of "worked for
| me" and "I paid enough that I am compelled to like this" style
| reviews. It is literally the idea behind luxury pricing.
|
| Turns out, objective reviewing of items is difficult. And will
| almost certainly lead to a gaming of the reviews if the
| companies are able to do so.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'm more inclined to review if it's a technical product and
| there aren't already (many) quality reviews, good or bad. It's
| really hard picking certain items from the pack, and sometimes
| unless you already know, you have no idea.
| jraby3 wrote:
| Do fakespot and similar services work?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Fakespot does its best, but Amazon and similar don't expose
| very much information to determine if a review is fake (be it
| manual review OR via a service like Fakespot).
|
| Plus there are two kinds of "fake reviews": Automated reviews
| ("spam"), and then reviewers who got free samples/paid. The
| second is almost impossible to detect as real people are really
| writing the reviews (and even calling them "fake" is hard
| because the person may still give an honest review sometimes).
|
| You can sometimes spot fake reviews, but that is just due to
| laziness, if they're trying even a little bit it could be very
| hard to spot in particularly at volume. I will say one good
| trick is to read "new" reviews rather than most helpful/liked,
| since they game those too.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I'd like to think I'm pretty good at spotting which reviews are
| fake, but I'd love to do a test to find out if the ones I thought
| were real were actually fake.
|
| It won't be long before someone writes a GPT-3 model that can
| write hundreds of different reviews indistinguishable from real
| ones, and that sound and look different from each other, based on
| a product description and images.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Only 30%. No way like 90%
| yamtaddle wrote:
| 30% are fake and fool shoppers.
|
| 60% are fake but don't fool shoppers.
|
| 9% are fake but so good they fooled the researchers, too.
| smittywerben wrote:
| The 5% that fool themselves: '1/5 stars - This stupid modem
| doesn't have wifi. The $20 a month modem from Comcast has
| wifi.'
| seydor wrote:
| You can find a review to confirm your biases every time. In the
| end , everything is a hunch
| [deleted]
| dam_broke_it wrote:
| Always go by the 1 or 2 star reviews.....
| acchow wrote:
| Isn't that attack spam from competitors?
| spamizbad wrote:
| In my experience its always best to leave negative reviews in 3
| star reviews. 1 star reviews get buried/removed, but if you let
| that criticism sneak into a 3-star review it's likely not bad
| enough for the platform to notice.
| unity1001 wrote:
| You'd end up not being able to buy anything...
| mikestew wrote:
| 2 and 3 star reviews. 1 star reviews, in my observation, are
| consistently along the lines of "UPS left the package in the
| rain! 1 star!", which has fuck all to do with the product.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Also people who don't seem to understand how the product,
| their life and the universe in general work. The "can't make
| coffee from cat litter, blames Obama in all seriousness, two
| typos per word" kind. I always wonder how these people look
| in real life and if I meet some of them on the street.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Its the outcome of gutting the educational system, poor
| methods of teaching (instead of teaching critical thinking
| they teach how to take the test), and just the fact that in
| a country of ~332 Million the bottom 20% could be like 67
| million people(the bottom 20% is not a direct correlation
| but still you get the point).
| VancouverMan wrote:
| Such things are still part of the overall purchasing
| experience, though. If I'm about to order a product online
| and for whatever reason there may be delivery-related
| challenges involved that others have experienced, I'd
| certainly like to know beforehand.
| regular wrote:
| egberts1 wrote:
| I grilled a red lobster complete with scallop, pearl onions, and
| capers and then simmered it in a butter dish for an hour.
|
| It was so delicious.
|
| (Hey, I am not a bot, these are my current experience of what I
| am actually reading on Amazon reviews).
|
| More funny Amazon reviews that I found:
| https://eliteseller.com/blog/funny-amazon-reviews/
| OJFord wrote:
| I've had two fairly detailed, not low-effort, reviews _not_
| approved for publication on Amazon.co.uk recently. After the
| first I swore I 'd never bother again (it was pretty _high_
| -effort to be honest, relatively) but something got the better of
| me.
|
| Neither time has there been any indication of what the problem is
| (I guessed the first one was my reference to a 'knob', as in for
| turning, which the product had - but couldn't find any such
| similar Scunthorpe in the second) and even if they did give you
| some idea, they invite you to _start again from scratch_ - not
| edit it, it 's not saved, not even your photos. I'd love to see
| click-through metrics on that, does _anyone_ bother?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Amazon banned me from leaving reviews entirely after I left a
| couple of negative reviews for products I bought.
| jersak wrote:
| I had the same experience. Id say they just don't approve most
| of the reviews. I would think most (real) people only leave a
| good review when things go EXTREMELY WELL. Not the same for bad
| reviews though, which means real people will more often than
| not leave reviews pointing problems and shortcomings than
| praising a product. That, at least in my head, would result in
| less sales and so making the review workflow painful for the
| user is by design.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I just checked on my account and I have 126 published reviews
| on Amazon. I can recall around 10 that were denied, about
| half of which seemed "OK, that's fair in retrospect" and a
| modest edit and resubmit got them published. The other half
| of the denies I couldn't really figure out and just ignored
| (some of which were solid product, 4 or 5 star reviews).
|
| I have several 1-star reviews among the published.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Only 30%????
| lapcat wrote:
| As an App Store developer, it's painfully obvious that _at least
| 30%_ of App Store reviews are fake.
| [deleted]
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Lots of reviews are paid. I get half my electronics refunded by
| leaving 5 star reviews on Amazon that sellers have asked for in
| the packages.
| ravenstine wrote:
| How does this kind of transaction take place? I've bought
| plenty of things on Amazon that I've left 5 star reviews for,
| including electronics, but haven't once been approached with
| refunds or incentives.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| I've often received little cards in my orders asking for a
| screenshot of a 5-star review in exchange for a 90% off
| coupon for my next purchase, or something like that.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Come to think of it, I believe I've had such material come
| with some of my purchases but I've ignored them because I'm
| so advertising-averse. I'll have to pay attention for these
| next time. haha Though I still won't leave a 5 star review
| if I don't genuinely think the product is worth that.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I assume all online reviews are faked or at least biased. I don't
| believe any of them, especially those that appear on the same
| site or include affiliate links to the product being sold.
| nomel wrote:
| I tend to believe the review distribution. For a reasonable
| product, they're usually normal distributions. For a bad
| product, they're almost always bimodal.
| another_devy wrote:
| Lower ratings most of the times are honest reviews and if seller
| replies to them you can see how much they care about the customer
| and if they are being honest business
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| How do fake reviews on something like Amazon work? Wouldn't they
| only allow you to leave a review if you have purchased the item?
|
| I get that for a cheap product a seller could have a bunch of
| dummies buy it and then leave reviews, but that... doesn't seem
| very viable for most things.
|
| Or are normal people getting paid to leave high reviews for
| something they bought and would not normally review?
| baxtr wrote:
| Easy. Check out some telegram channels. There, people get
| offers for specific products. You order them, write a review,
| send in a proof and then get reimbursed for the item. So you
| can keep items for free. In some cases you even get some extra
| money on top.
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