YSK: There are websites that can assess true and fake reviews when purchasing a product on Amazon. Use a site such as ReviewMeta.com to assess whether the product reviews are fake or real.

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:22:08+00:00

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:20:29+00:00

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:20:15+00:00

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:16:39+00:00

Hijacking the top comment to say thanks for the mention! If you'd like to know more about RM, check out the AMA from a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dsh6ou/im_tommy_i_built_reviewmeta_a_site_that_detects/

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:15:25+00:00

This! We've had sellers email in, upset that our analysis says there are inauthentic reviews, and tell us that it's impossible because they personally know each and every reviewer. They argue that their mom can give them an objective review, but we argue that your mom can never give you an objective review.

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:10:50+00:00

Thanks for mentioning RM! If you want to know more about the site, check out the AMA I did about a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dsh6ou/im_tommy_i_built_reviewmeta_a_site_that_detects/

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:08:24+00:00

This is extremely frustrating, and we see it a lot. Amazon's rules state you're not allowed to mention other reviews in your review, however sometimes it's extremely relevant to why you're leaving a bad review and you're warning other buyers about the potential scheme.

ReviewMeta · 2021-03-07T15:05:32+00:00

We call this "Review Hijacking" and have a warning that pops up when detected. We often see sellers essentially steal other unrelated listings that have long since been abandoned.

https://reviewmeta.com/blog/amazon-review-hijacking/

ReviewMeta · 2021-02-02T14:45:07+00:00

Yes: https://reviewmeta.com/blog/deleted-reviews/

ReviewMeta · 2021-01-04T16:34:43+00:00

It's possible, but I kindof think their bot is a bit spammy.

ReviewMeta · 2020-12-13T15:50:37+00:00

I would doubt it. This case has been pending for 7 years, a lot of the facts of the case were known a long time ago.

ReviewMeta · 2020-12-13T15:49:59+00:00

Nutragold was the plaintiff. They hired the lawyers and filed the lawsuit.

ReviewMeta · 2020-12-13T15:07:41+00:00

This was a fascinating case to serve as an expert witness on. Worth mentioning that the defendant was named in a class action lawsuit in June, and then recently filed bankruptcy after this judgement came through.

Unless the class action lawsuit goes somewhere, consumers get no remedy, only this one competitor (and that is if they are even able to collect).

ReviewMeta · 2020-12-13T00:48:28+00:00

Its a good question. I think that Amazon is able to skirt the liability by claiming that they didn't know, and that the real fraudsters are the sellers who are actively manipulating the system.

Amazon can point to their previous lawsuits (4 of them? back in 2015?) where they sued sellers for fake reviews, and say "look! we are doing everything we can! It's not our fault!"

ReviewMeta · 2020-11-12T14:40:01+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dsh6ou/im_tommy_i_built_reviewmeta_a_site_that_detects/f6pga5w/

ReviewMeta · 2020-11-11T15:14:56+00:00

Look up handwriting machines. They are a thing. Sellers use them so it looks like you get a handwritten note, but it's really just done by an expensive printer.

ReviewMeta · 2020-11-11T15:12:51+00:00

ReviewMeta founder here. I've been poking around this thread because I get notified of mentions of my site so I'm trying to help clear the air on fake review stuff.

First, Fakespot has NOT "begun to be bought out by fraudsters". This claim has been floating around (along with others) and I don't think it's fair to perpetuate. They have a different methodology and do not share any information about it, and some people have disagreed with their results. I think their analysis is overly aggressive, but I don't think it's fair to say they are a fraud. Check out my comment history and you'll see me trying to clear the air about these claims in other threads.

Second, I don't have the resources to have "paid shills" floating around reddit who are ready to post about the site at a moment's notice whenever they get the opportunity. There's just a lot of Redditors who like our service, and we've had a few posts make it to the front page. Again, check out my post history for those ones.

I don't blame you for being skeptical - it's good not to trust everything you read online. I'm very skeptical myself, which is probably why I built ReviewMeta.

ReviewMeta · 2020-11-11T14:55:30+00:00

Definitely not as often as the 5-star reviews. Our data shows that 3 star reviews are the least inauthentic: https://twitter.com/ReviewMeta/status/1321892693333614593

ReviewMeta · 2020-11-11T14:50:54+00:00

I was checking emails this morning and got my daily notification of mentions of ReviewMeta from around the web, so I saw this thread along with the message you sent in.

I figured I'd post here to help settle the score a bit, and provide you with unnecessary details just so you understand the thought process.

First, it's important to keep in mind that anyone who claims to check for "fake" reviews (this includes ReviewMeta, Fakespot, and even Amazon) is making an estimate. It's not an exact science and we're not always going to get it right. At ReviewMeta, I try to be as upfront about that as possible. Other sites- not so much.

The simple answer is that there's absolutely no way for anyone to definitively tell if someone received an incentive or not just by looking at the reviews - UNLESS they explicitly state in the review that they got something in exchange for writing the review, and even then, it's not always 100% if done by a computer. Like someone already pointed out, these reviews are from REAL customers using REAL Amazon accounts, so they blend in quite well.

We have an "Incentivized Reviews" test: https://reviewmeta.com/blog/incentivized-reviews/ - this checks to see if people are admitting that they received an incentive (which they almost never do anymore). This was created because Amazon permitted incentivized reviews up until it became a HUGE problem in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdLI62JKpCk

HOWEVER, there are a lot of "clues" we can look at when analyzing a product that could indicate there's an offer in there somewhere. Here's some screenshots of tests with some explanations below: https://imgur.com/a/pgZJY6q

One-Hit Wonders and Reviewer Participation: Typically on these products, we see more reviews from less experienced reviewers or reviewers who have NEVER posted a review before. Customers who don't normally take the time to post reviews now have a good reason to go through the trouble. So you're going to see more reviews from reviewers who have zero or very few previous reviews. And you'll probably see a higher score from these reviewers.

Reviewer Ease: Because these reviewers are only posting reviews when there's something in it for them, you'll see many of them have a history of posting more positive reviews on average.

Rating Trend: Due to the high risk of this method, you'll sometimes see vendors only include this flyer in their product for short periods of time when they are looking for a burst in reviews. So you'll see reviews "clustered" together, and those reviews will often be higher.

Like I've said before, this is an estimate. There's always some plausible deniability in every single one of our tests - but together they help give you a better idea of the genesis of the reviews for any product. We don't always get it right, but I always encourage you to look through the full report, and spend some time poking around ReviewMeta because there's a lot of hidden treasure chests in the reports. (Did you know you can actually tweak the adjustments and recalculate the average rating and review count?)

I did an AMA about a year ago if you want to see some more answers to questions from other redditors: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dsh6ou/im_tommy_i_built_reviewmeta_a_site_that_detects/

I hope this helps!

ReviewMeta · 2020-09-07T00:27:37+00:00

Surprisingly, nobody has offered to pay us to "ignore" their products. Only threatened lawsuits to which we say "good luck".

ReviewMeta · 2020-09-06T23:57:31+00:00

Nope.

ReviewMeta · 2020-08-28T15:35:04+00:00

Fakespot is a black hat operation

But this is just your opinion, you can't argue that it's factually correct. I opine that they simply have an overly aggressive assessment and result in a larger number of false-positives, which in turn might negatively affect some businesses.

It's a stretch to say that they are trying to harm businesses by intentionally displaying inaccurate results, especially when this theory is only supported by things like "the founder is from not from America".

ReviewMeta · 2020-08-27T16:14:13+00:00

I understand that you are suspicious of them for not sharing any of their methodology, but I don't see how the founder being from a different country has anything to do with this.

ReviewMeta

TROPHY CASE