How to Tell if a Review is Fake
It’s common practice for people to check out what other consumers have written online before they make a major purchase, download an app or buy something on Amazon.
What you may not realize is one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are bogus. That’s according to Bing Liu, a data-mining expert at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His 2008 research showed that 60 percent of the product reviews on Amazon are five stars and 20 percent more are four stars. “But almost no one wants to write five-star reviews, so many of them have to be created,” he told The New York Times.
Who’s writing fake reviews on Amazon and other sites? It could be marketers or retailers, authors using pseudonyms, customers who get a deal for leaving positive feedback or services that exist solely for the purpose of writing them.
“'For $5, I will submit two great reviews for your business,' offered one entrepreneur on the help-for-hire site Fiverr, one of a multitude of similar pitches. On another forum, Digital Point, a poster wrote, ‘I will pay for positive feedback on TripAdvisor.’ A Craigslist post proposed this: ‘If you have an active Yelp account and would like to make very easy money please respond,’” reports The Times in a separate story on the subject.
It’s a duplicitous practice, but there are some clues to help determine if a review is concocted. According to researchers at Cornell University who have developed an automated algorithm to detect them, fake reviews tend to include several features:
- A lot of superlatives and not much description. Phrases like “a must-read” and “life-changing” are giveaways.
- References to other people such as “my family” or “my husband.” Keep in mind, if the person writing the review is making it up, the story tends to stray farther away from the actual product.
- More frequent use of the first-person singular. Fictitious assessments tend to include the words “me” and “I” more often, as if to make the review seem more credible.
- Exclamation points and positive emotion. Truthful reviews use other kinds of punctuation, including the dollar sign.
We'd also add to the list:
- People who have written only one review on the site
- People who write only five-star reviews
- Reviews that sound like a marketing brochure from the company or use the full official name of the product
For more ideas, check out this Consumerist story, which has more than 30 reader-generated tips on how to ferret out worthless reviews, such as the good advice to only consider reviews that leave two to four stars in a five-star system. Or, my personal favorite: “Even if they're not fakesters, anyone who writes in ALL CAPS is an idiot and should be ignored.”
Ultimately, before being swayed by any isolated review, peruse a slew of them and give the most credence to those that are balanced and reflect that the writer can actually describe using the product.
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Discussion 
Bad food!!
Possibly my biggest problem is with the raving
reviews referring to restaurants. It has gotten to the point of not reading any, because one realized that most are fakes. I also did get stuck ONCE. A restaurant opened close to my home. I checked the reviews. All glowing - best in the city - wonderful atmosphere - on and on. We tried it out. Calling it very bad would be giving it high praise. I placed my own review and almost immediately was attacked by at least twenty shills including the owner. Guess what?
The place closed after one year and could not even make payroll. These fake reviews only work for a limited time. I have been told that in my city there are three companies dedicated to writing fake reviews. Why are they notin jail??
Urgh
This drives me bananas. For anything important, the only reviews I trust are from Consumer Reports (and no, I’m not shilling for them 
. Other than that, I pretty much ignore testimonials, or at least look for specific comments, like “feature x did/didn’t work very well, and decide if that matters to me.
And I have an added beef now - as an app developer working on my first offering to the App Store, I’ll be looking for reputable reviewers. There is a LOT of schlock out there! My first rule of thumb -> I won’t pay for a review. And I won’t trust one that’s been paid for, either 
Reviews serve two ways
Look there is perspective but all advice must be taken with a grain of salt .....some are imposed by the very companies themselves as marketing or by competitors trying to slander a business. Yet, sometimes they may honestly speak of a deficit of a real experience that may be unique showing that well sometimes like people businesses are off the kilter in performance. I’ve worked with this mind set in business I want to hear about problems why it is a tool to understand where my operations of responsibility is failing and know where to seek improve the consumers expectations and this varies each has their own “Opinion” we can’t please all but we can try to seek excellence perfections well only God can do. So for the time being compare various reviews and from that weight the best options that suit your needs at that given time and your needs. Remember what is best for you may not follow suit for the next person.
Please punctuate.
It was very hard to understand your comments. You need to use more punctuation.
Poop is poop!
The ultimate topic here is critical thinking… I once knew a woman who insisted “it was on Geraldo; it must be true.” A review that reflects no analysis or thought is not credible whether positive or negative. I’ve seen similar problems with one person who—for some reason—clearly hates a company or product and they will make all sorts of accusations or claims, including accusing the company of hiring reviewers.
I do scan reviews—and write some myself. But ultimately there’s no substitute for good ole critical thinking!
Review of Fast Shipping?
I can’t stand the reviews of products on Amazon that are obviously by people who just opened the box, because they say things like, “I just got this, and WOW, it came really fast.” Because how fast it comes to someone’s house has SO much to do with how it performs. Save the fast shipping comments for eBay seller comments!
Why not do it by the numbers?
Hello,
At least wrt the apps in Google Play, I’ve had good results with my system: Focus on the numbers!
Specifically, I (tend to) restrict my apps to those with:
(1) A clear majority of all their ratings in the five-star category,
(2) At least 75% of all their ratings in the five- and four-star categories and
(3) An average rating of >= 4.00 stars. (And if it says 4.0, yes I will whip out the ol’ calculator!)
Studies show that while people often *think* they can figure out how much they’ll like something from knowing the objective facts about it, more commonly the best predictive information for whether you’ll like it is whether or not people similar to you already like it.
PS: Yes, I like crunching numbers! =|8-}/2
PPS: Wrt shipping, IME it’s like pizza delivery - sellers tend to under-promise and over-deliver. Shippers figure - and rightly so - that you’ll be a lot happier with, say, getting your items four days after ordering if you were told it would take five or six days. Same with pizzas - if they give you an estimate of 45 minutes that will likely make you happier with, say, a 35- or 40-minute delivery.
What do you think?
Jeff Deutsch
Changing up how and why we share reviews
The fake review problem significantly diminishes the value of these sites. At Tout’d we believe that there needs to be some layer of accountability for reviews to be trusted. There is also a motivation problem… some people who post on Yelp/TripAdvisor/Amazon (when not fake) often do so out of some recent experience that compels them to tell the world about it. This is usually “loved it” or “hated it”. Tout’d (http://www.toutd.com) provides for social accountability as you only get reviews from friends or friends of friends. You also get recommendations that are in response to a friend’s request for a recommendation. So the motivation for posting a review on Tout’d is to help rather then tell the world you hated something. This makes reviews more valuable, trustworthy, and actionable. Check it out… tell me what you think about it. I am a co-founder. -Rob
Grain of salt
I have always taken reviews with a grain of salt. If you don’t - buyer beware.
I also leave reviews. If it helps someone, great, if not, at least I have left my own opinion.
But, I usually only leave really good or really bad reviews - if it’s just ok (like a 3) - why should I waste my time!
Large numbers help!
An extra note:
The numbers get much more credible if they’re large. With maybe just a few dozen or even a hundred or so ratings, that set could be dominated by “sock puppets” - paid reviewers for one side or another. Or even maybe just a few people who had the wrong thing for lunch or are just plain ecstatic or ticked off at the company.
With thousands let alone tens of thousands of ratings, it’s another story entirely. The law of large numbers works in your favor here.
Jeff Deutsch (numbers geek!)
Fake Posts
I occasionally review purchases I made online, and try to be fair- but, to be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a 5/5 product, unless it’s a screwdriver or hammer. “Works as advertised” rates a 4, at best. Unfortunately, “works as advertised” and “Gets the job done reliably”, in the business world on a performance evaluation loses people promotions. Just something to think about…
Very good point about 4 vs. 5 star ratings
Hi Keith,
I agree with you - I normally rate things (and experiences!) 4 stars out of 5 if they worked as advertised yet didn’t go well above the call of duty…and many times the opportunity for heroism doesn’t come up.
Like it or lump it, many people out there feel that only 5 stars out of 5 will do for good performance, so if the majority or even bulk of the ratings are 4 stars or fewer, in my estimation you’re taking a greater risk that the item is not so hot.
Of course, if you disagree with me on that, feel free to just take my suggestions above and substitute “4 stars” for “5 stars” and maybe “3 stars” for “4 stars”.
Have a great rest of your day!
Jeff Deutsch
What is a fake review?
Reviews have always been biased long before the internet. It has been a racket controlled by publishers since the beginning. What’s the difference if you pay someone $5 on fiverr for a review of your new ebook or a publisher delivers a few hard bound books to a reviewer over an expensive lunch the publisher is buying? Publisher are the source of the myth that reviewers should be the only professionals on the planet that shouldn’t get paid for their work. What sense does that make?
Amazon is the worst for bogus reviews. Not only for books but for the thousands of other items they sell.
This whole thing with “fake” reviews is an attempt by traditional publishers and their supporters to discredit any reviews that they don’t control.
Read the preview for a book before you buy. judge for yourself from that if you want to buy the book or not. If the book has no preview or excerpt move on to one that does. But don’t get embroiled in a controversy that is being whipped up by parties who all have vested interests of what weight reviews carry depending on the source and whether or not it supports their position.
One more thing.
You can’t tell if a review is fake. You can assume that one is but a completely honest review can have all the things you mention that point toward a fake review. So all you can do is make assumptions and presume to be able to tell the good from the bad when in fact you can’t without proof. All you can do is try and discredit the good with the bad.
The REAL Way to Know If a Review is Fake
Some books are awesome. I’m an author myself and about one out of every 1000 readers reviews my book. Many write in superlatives and use exclamation points because they connect with the book so much that they feel compelled to write one. Most of them are first time reviewers. The real way to know is when a few people per day are reviewing the book and the book is not a NYT bestseller. Look at the dates of the reviews. If they come in clumps, they’re fake. Most of my competitors do this, and it really ticks me off. One of them even shows the towns of many of the reviewers, and they’re all a few minutes drive from the author’s town. He was also doing review swaps with other authors.
I've seen some of these.
From Will on September 04, 2012 :: 1:31 pm
The more obvious “reviews” on blogs usually repeat what’s in the marketing brochure, nearly verbatim.
one easy way to spot these is visit the manufacturer’s website and read their spiel.
On another note, you can get the opposite too.
people who get rewarded for negative reviews of a product or service.
Also note some do this just to be a troll, some because they are “fanboys” and others that are indeed compensated somehow. (i.e. some sites won’t post a negative review because they don’t want to lose that company as an advertiser.)
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