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Do you trust online reviews? Now that Amazon is suing more than 1,000 people who allegedly offered to write glowing product reviews for cash, you might reasonably be concerned.
Turns out, deceptive reviews are commonplace online—and so are doubts about them. The research organization Mintel found that 57 percent of surveyed consumers are suspicious of companies or products that only have positive online reviews. And 49 percent believe companies probably give incentives for online reviews.
Fortunately, there are a few good techniques that can help you tell truth from fiction.
The article lists several ways to tell the difference. What are yours?
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Thursday October 22 2015, @12:33PM
I found positive reviews to be misleading and inaccurate even if they're not blatantly fake. It's not possible to tell how long after a purchase these reviews were posted
You can often tell. I once read a glowing review of a gadget that more-or-less repeated its spec ("does this, does that ...") which ended with "... this evening I'm going to plug it in and try it out". No kidding. I don't think it was fake - no faker would be that stupid.
Unfortunately, people tend to review things soon after buying them (I'm guilty too). It is difficult to think about doing a review of something you have been using for 2 years. Cars are an exception - not reviews as such but look at the car owners websites to assess the trend of merits and problems
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tempest on Thursday October 22 2015, @01:53PM
This is a problem I have with the modern technology cycle. By the time you let things shake out to see if it has a good track record, the product isn't even made anymore. Then again someone with good experiences with a product likely wouldn't remember to go back and review it (if still produced).