Fake reviews are now a firmly entrenched business model

[mouser]

It isn't just fake reviews, it's also fake accounts on web services, etc.  It's an arms race where business are constantly trying to one-up their competitors and everyone has accepted that fake reviews and inflating their user numbers is, at the very least, a necessary first step to jump-starting their product.

Outside the publishing industry, the practice known as “review brushing” exists on a vast, industrial scale. In 2014, Haitao Xu, a thirty-year-old researcher now at Northwestern University, monitored five black-market Internet boards where companies and individuals advertise jobs posting positive reviews of their products and services, along with negative ones on those of their rivals. In just two months, Xu saw more than eleven thousand unique sellers post close to a quarter of a million jobs, paid at anywhere between “tens of cents, up to five dollars,” he told me. Since consumers typically see positive customer reviews as a more reliable indicator of quality than advertising, the effects can be major. “Stores using brushing services can increase their reputation ten times faster than normal seller stores,” Xu, who, in 2016, spent six months working in Alibaba’s fraud-detection team, told me. “A store with a high reputation is displayed higher up a Web page, attracting more customers and increasing sales.” Online sellers who do not employ brushing services, meanwhile, often find their products overlooked.

https://www.newyorke...-war-on-fake-reviews

from https://boingboing.n...w-generally-nec.html

[Dormouse]

And a lot of reviews on apparently independent sites can only be click bait; those 'reviews' never seem to say anything useful. And on comparison sites that come up with a  'winner' more likely to be bought.
And so many once decent sites have become a waste of time.

[wraith808]

On that note, of course someone would come up with something to spot fake reviews.

https://www.fakespot.com/

There's an extension, but I just go to the page and enter the url to the product.

[Stoic Joker]

I tend to avoid anything that doesn't have at least a few bad reviews. I tend to learn more from the bad reviews by measuring their complaint against their perceivable skill level.

[daddydave]

I heard a story on NPR where a lot of people randomly receive merchandise from Amazon they didn't order, because a lot of the fake reviewers make verified purchases and have the products shipped to random addresses.

[wraith808]

I heard a story on NPR where a lot of people randomly receive merchandise from Amazon they didn't order, because a lot of the fake reviewers make verified purchases and have the products shipped to random addresses.

-daddydave (June 14, 2018, 12:02 AM)

Depending on the product, I'd like to be one of those random addresses... 

[Stoic Joker]

I heard a story on NPR where a lot of people randomly receive merchandise from Amazon they didn't order, because a lot of the fake reviewers make verified purchases and have the products shipped to random addresses.

-daddydave (June 14, 2018, 12:02 AM)

Depending on the product, I'd like to be one of those random addresses... 

-wraith808 (June 14, 2018, 09:06 AM)

Damn Straight! ...Where do we sign up??

[dirosi]

I heard a story on NPR where a lot of people randomly receive merchandise from Amazon they didn't order, because a lot of the fake reviewers make verified purchases and have the products shipped to random addresses.

I also heard about this. I also heard that, Amazon now removing those fake review and very strictly handling this.
I have heard little known brand do this kind activity just like the Kliein CL800 multimeter https://bestmultimet.../klein-cl800-review/. I bought this but don't work as expected. I guess, this clamp multimeter have lots of fake reviews.

[mouser]

Thanks for the recommendation wraith, DC member hamradio was just reminding me about fakespot -- looks useful, I think I will install the browser extension 

[anandcoral]

On that note, of course someone would come up with something to spot fake reviews.

https://www.fakespot.com/

-wraith808 (May 31, 2018, 09:21 PM)

Thanks.

Looks like we need internet police more now as our life is going all online.

Regards,

Anand