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If you abandon a physical store to facilitate one-click shopping from the sofa, you may have to rely on Amazon reviews to make your decision.
Question: How do you judge whether the comment is legitimate or fake?
Companies with fake reviews to promote their products are becoming more and more complex. They refuse to use robot-generated reviews and those written by foreign workers with limited English skills, because Amazon’s algorithms are smart enough to spot them.
Instead, they created private groups on platforms such as Facebook to recruit people to buy their products. They usually provide a full refund through PayPal in exchange for a five-star rating. A research report in January 2021 stated that about 15% of people will provide commissions on the basis of refunds “False comments on the market.”
Although the researchers pointed out that Amazon will eventually delete about one-third of fake reviews, there is an average of more than 100 days of lag time between posting fake reviews and deleting fake reviews.This gives customers a lot of time to waste their money, buying low-quality products, and even those May not be safe.
How to tell if an Amazon review is fake
There is no reliable way to distinguish legitimate reviews from fake reviews. In addition, since many of these fake review writers purchased technically, seeing the “Verified Purchase” label in a review becomes increasingly meaningless. However, these five strategies will help you spot fake Amazon reviews.
1. Use a browser extension or app
One of the easiest ways to avoid being deceived by fake five-star ratings is to use online tools such as wig or Comment yuan. Both have browser extensions and apps for Android and iOS, so you can automatically check if items have low-quality reviews when shopping. You can also cut and paste the URL of the product page in any tool to get an analysis.
Fakespot scores are not only on Amazon, but also on eBay, Best Buy, Sephora and Walmart. It provides a letter grade to evaluate the quality of the review, not the grade of the product. Therefore, when Fakespot gives an “A” rating, it does not mean that the product is great. This means that these comments seem to be legitimate. Similarly, the “F” rating means that the algorithm has detected a lot of fakes, but this does not necessarily mean that the product is bad.
ReviewMeta is only available for Amazon. It analyzes product pages and filters out reviews marked as untrusted by its algorithm. It tells you the percentage of comments filtered out and provides an adjusted score for the item.
For example, Yours Truly recently purchased an electric toothbrush that received a 4.5-star Amazon rating. ReviewMeta filtered out 26% of reviews and adjusted the rating to 4.3 stars.
2. Look for reviews with 2 stars, 3 stars or 4 stars
Usually, companies pay for a five-star rating, or they pay fake reviewers to leave a one-star rating for a competitor’s product. Look for moderate reviews with two, three or four stars, and reviewers will leave detailed feedback. You are more likely to have a real understanding of the pros and cons of the product.
Be suspicious of a bunch of very short comments (whether positive or negative). Similarly, if a product has many five-star reviews, some single-star reviews, or even fewer reviews between them, then it will trigger your sense of deception. The likelihood of overpaying five-star reviews is high, while one-star reviews come from actual customers who are wasting goods.
3. Research products on other sites
Go beyond Amazon and see what reviewers on other sites say, especially if you are buying a lot of products. YouTube is a particularly valuable resource for honest product reviews. Reviewers usually have expertise in a particular type of product, and even if the video quality is not very good, you will have a better understanding of the appearance and function of the product.
4. Read product Q&A
It is easy to write general comments to describe the value of something in general. But the “Q&A” section that contains answers to common customer questions has become more detailed. There is no guarantee that people working for the company will not answer certain questions. However, if a product has many reviews, then you should be able to have a decent understanding of the product. You don’t need to know if people like it or hate it, but you can find details such as whether the product holds well, how difficult it is to assemble, or whether the color matches the color shown in the photo.
5. Use a timestamp filter
Companies usually recruit a group of people to write fake reviews for the product at the same time. Although Amazon usually shows you its top reviews first, you can switch to filtering by latest. If you find that a large number of five-star or one-star reviews have been left within a few days, these reviews are likely to be fake.
What if you are deceived by fake reviews?
If you believe that the review is false, you can notify Amazon by clicking “Report Abuse”, regardless of whether you have purchased the product. However, if you have already paid for the product, it is not what you expected, what should you do? Most products shipped from Amazon.com or Amazon warehouses can be returned within 30 days of receipt. However, some third-party sellers have their own policies. Before purchasing from a third party, be sure to check the return policy.
Be extra cautious when buying certain products on Amazon that require supervision, such as helmets, car seats, items inserted into walls, cosmetics, and over-the-counter drugs. It’s one thing to waste money on a pair of shoes that don’t meet the reviews. However, do not give fake reviewers the opportunity to sell you anything that might endanger your health and safety in any way.
Robin Hartill is a registered financial planner and senior writer for The Penny Hoarder. She wrote the “Dear Bamboo Finance” personal financial advice column.Send your tough money questions to [email protected]
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