If you're like us and love you some Amazon, you've probably noticed the once reliable customer reviews - especially the 'verified purchaser' reviews - posted by other Amazon users may not be as reliable as they once were. We'd sort products BY customer reviews using the star rating system to help us decide which product was best for our needs.
If there's one thing I detest in this world, it's liars. Bottom feeding scum suckers that will do anything to cheat you out of a buck. Worst of all, Amazon hasn't done anything to curb the never ending flow of fake product reviews. After all, why should they? Amazon get's a piece of the action. There's advertising revenue for sellers that sell through Amazon's website. There's fulfillment dollars for sellers that use Amazon's fulfillment services.
If there's one thing I detest in this world, it's liars. Bottom feeding scum suckers that will do anything to cheat you out of a buck. Worst of all, Amazon hasn't done anything to curb the never ending flow of fake product reviews. After all, why should they? Amazon get's a piece of the action. There's advertising revenue for sellers that sell through Amazon's website. There's fulfillment dollars for sellers that use Amazon's fulfillment services.
To help Hack Nation identify and disregard Fakey McFakerson's Fake Product Reviews, here are a few tips. To help describe the process, I'll take you through a recent search I performed while looking for a mother's day gift for the wife - an economic smart watch.
Type in 'smart watch' to search Amazon for a variety of, well, smart watches, and right off the bat you're presented with this watch as your top choice:
Wow! Only $14.99 for a smart watch...looks like 4.5 stars out of 5 with 43 reviews. Seems like a great option! Let's head to the products detail page and check out the features on this bad boy. Ok...we've got quick charging capabilities of only 1 hour, up to 3 hours of phone talk time, and up to 6 hours of music, and up to 160 hours of standby time. What's not to love? It even supports 'all features of android smart phone'.
If you're like most people, you don't want to waste a bunch of time reading product features from top to bottom of 10 different products trying to make a purchase decision. Hence, you rely on the testimonials of other 'verified purchasers'. I've done it myself in the past. Originally, the star reviews were enough. I'd filter by products with at least 4 stars and go with the product I was happy with. After a few suspect product purchases, I started reading more and more of the reviews. So here's tip #1 on how to spot fake product reviews.
If you're like most people, you don't want to waste a bunch of time reading product features from top to bottom of 10 different products trying to make a purchase decision. Hence, you rely on the testimonials of other 'verified purchasers'. I've done it myself in the past. Originally, the star reviews were enough. I'd filter by products with at least 4 stars and go with the product I was happy with. After a few suspect product purchases, I started reading more and more of the reviews. So here's tip #1 on how to spot fake product reviews.
Spot Fake Reviews Tip #1: The Product Reviews Butcher The English Language
If you start reading the reviews, a huge tell with fake reviews is the outright contempt they have for the English language. I mean, they're actually painful to read, because, they go on, well, forever, punctuation, what's that? Here's 1 of the 43 smart watch reviews in Amazon's top smart watch pick (according to 'relevance'):
Spot Fake Reviews Tip #2: You're Buying A Smart Watch, Not Ordering Chinese Take Out From City Wok
That's a Southpark reference for the overly sensitive folks in our audience. If you read a product review that's a bit 'overzealous', it's likely a fake product review. "You like this fantastic watch, it amazingly connect to all phone, it number 1 watch in my opinion."
Spot Fake Reviews Tip #3: Fake Spot
That's a Southpark reference for the overly sensitive folks in our audience. If you read a product review that's a bit 'overzealous', it's likely a fake product review. "You like this fantastic watch, it amazingly connect to all phone, it number 1 watch in my opinion."
Spot Fake Reviews Tip #3: Fake Spot
Fakespot is a relatively new tool that I just recently came across, and it's an excellent quick check tool. I don't take referral fees because the affiliate programs offered by many websites/sellers can create a conflict of interest. In other words, if you'd like to use fakespot...just google it. ;)
Let's see what fakespot thought of Amazon's most relevant product when we searched for 'smart watch' (at the time I ran the review, it only had 19 reviews):
Let's see what fakespot thought of Amazon's most relevant product when we searched for 'smart watch' (at the time I ran the review, it only had 19 reviews):
As you can see. The reviews are total garbage. The only real reviews seem to be the one's that got 1 star. Imagine that!
I hope this article will help you make more informed purchasing decisions in the future. There are certain off brand products that are worth the money. For instance, I purchased a Microboard 4K Curved 32" monitor that I've been very happy with. After thoroughly researching the product, I found that the screen was actually built by Samsung. I've used it for nearly 2 years now, and it still works as good as the day I bought it for $600. Back then, comparable curved monitors (with faster than a 60Hz refresh rate) were well north of $1k.
I hope this article will help you make more informed purchasing decisions in the future. There are certain off brand products that are worth the money. For instance, I purchased a Microboard 4K Curved 32" monitor that I've been very happy with. After thoroughly researching the product, I found that the screen was actually built by Samsung. I've used it for nearly 2 years now, and it still works as good as the day I bought it for $600. Back then, comparable curved monitors (with faster than a 60Hz refresh rate) were well north of $1k.
In the end, if you're short on time take a glance at the reviews and see how bad the english and punctuation are or head over to fakespot and see what they think. The scan of the reviews can take a few minutes to complete, but are well worth it to make sure the product you're buying isn't total junk.
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