Most of us know not to trust the testimonials from happy “customers” on infomercials...
My pelvic floor has never felt stronger!
But today, most customer testimonials come in the form of online reviews.
We review… … online purchases…
… local businesses... ...tourist attractions…
...TV shows... ...we can rate our uber drivers...
He kept giving me mints! 5-stars.
… and they can even rate us as customers.
He smelled like cheese.
2-stars.
Online reviews appear to be genuine word of mouth endorsements from real customers.
So lots of us rely on them.
ooh
The best bakery in town according to...
Mulletman82!
This means there’s a huge incentive for businesses to manipulate their reviews...
And one of the easiest ways is to write them themselves....
Why don’t you ask this happy customer!
Ahh…
Dad makes
… er… this man I’ve never met makes cakes that are yum.
Ahem… see!?
Well, one random person can’t be wrong!
It’s illegal under the consumer law... … for businesses to make false and misleading
representations that pretend to be testimonials...
In 2015 the Federal Court found one franchisor of ElectroDry Carpet Cleaning...
… posted fake testimonials on various review websites.
this place did the best carpet cleaning job I’ve had in Adelaide!
... I will be able to spend the money I was going to spend on a new carpet, on a holiday!
Five Stars!
Be careful, he could be a fake.
Where was this “holiday”?
Clive Palmer’s Dinosaur Resort!
Five stars!
He’s a fake.
The defendant was fined 215 thousand dollars.
Your cleaning reviews are an act!
So time to clean up your... act?
That was not... that was bad.
Big review sites do try to screen out fake reviews, and have even...
… sued the people who post them.
But they still get caught out.
In 2017, a listing was posted on Tripadvisor... … for a new restaurant in London called
the Shed at Dulwich, which was actually just some bloke’s shed at Dulwich.
He mocked up the listing using photos of food made from urinal cakes, shaving cream… and
even this dish of an egg served on his foot.
He wrote a bunch of fake positive reviews…
The earthy taste and freshness of the food was fantastic!
… and after a few months his shed was TripAdvisor’s top rated restaurant in London!
Looks like Trip Advisor has egg on their … foot!
Still got it.
OK, so some people write fake online reviews, but surely they can’t write hundreds of them!
Well…
… you can hire people online to write numerous
reviews for products they’ve never used.
They’re the best dentures I’ve ever owned…
And it’s pretty cheap!
In 2015, Choice bought 20 positive reviews for just $31 dollars.
I’ve always struggled to find a bra that fits…
You can even buy fake video testimonials for youtube…
… as this Canadian Consumer affairs show found...
Hi there, I’m Susan.
I’ll create a believable testimonial video for you, starting at just 10 bucks…
… And “Susan” seems to be pretty busy...
Hi there my name is Susan / Hi, I’m Tessa Daily of Tampa, Florida / Hey everyone, it’s
Jennifer...
Hi, my name is Marina J Clifford / Jina Parker / Jessica Moore.
As a proud Portugese grandmother of 12, I’m outraged!
Another tactic some businesses use is suppressing bad reviews…
In 2017, the Federal Court found Meriton hotels misled consumers by trying to prevent fourteen
thousand unhappy customers from leaving negative feedback on Trip Advisor...
A mouse ate my pillow chocolate!
Really?
Meriton altered customer email addresses so Trip Advisor couldn’t remind them to leave
a review.
Then an owl ate the mouse.
So, the system works.
There shouldn’t have been an owl!
Mind you, not all bad reviews are legitimate.
Some businesses have even … ... paid people to write negative reviews
about their competitors on Facebook.
I write negative things on the internet all the time for free!
Plus there‘s the simple fact that… regular people don’t always leave the most useful reviews.
Take these for a Portable Air Conditioner....
Have not used it yet.
0 stars.
Still setting it up!
Three and a half stars!
Product looks good, haven’t switched it on yet.
It’s not hot enough!
4 stars!
So are you telling me to disregard all online reviews cos everyone on the internet’s an idiot?
Not quite.
There’s no perfect method, but... … you can do a few things to try and sort
real reviews from the fake ones.
Look for reviewer accreditations - these are badges or awards some sites give to reliable
repeat reviewers…
An “Amazon verified purchase” symbol means Amazon has verified the reviewer bought and
paid for the product they are reviewing.
Consider disregarding reviews which stand out from the majority…
If there are lots of even-handed reviews, but one or two are a bit
BEST PRODUCT EVER!
… unnaturally enthusiastic.
They’re probably worth discounting.
Number 4, you can go
Clusters of good or bad reviews posted close together can be another clue
So if a bunch of positive or negative reviews all come through at the same time, they’re more
likely to have been fabricated?
YES!
If you want to look into it further, check the reviewer’s profile to see whether other reviews
they’ve written have been all positive or negative.
Great water!
5 stars!
So was that guy a stooge?
It’s hard to say.
That’s the problem.
Spotting fake reviews is an imperfect science...
But there are websites that can help … like reviewmeta.com and fakespot.com.
They run product reviews through an algorithm to check them for reliability, and then gives
them a star-rating.
For example, this WIFI doorbell on Amazon, received…
3.9 stars out of 5, over 71 reviews, however the algorithm recognised…
Most were posted over a single 5 day period...
Almost half of reviewers only posted one review…
39% of them used similar phrases…
Once these were removed… … there were only 4 reviews left, with an
average rating of only 1.9.
The catch with review analyser sites is that they work best with lots of reviews.
So for many products you’ll get better results if you enter the product web address from
Amazon America rather than amazon.com.au.
Online reviews can be a useful part of your research, but you need to be wary.
And if you wish there were more real, dependable reviews out there, why not write some yourself.
Hey, thanks detective.
Oh, I’m not a detective.
I have no qualifications whatsoever.
You really should have checked my reviews!
The Checkout.
End of story did not work.
2 stars.