AIBU to think most online reviews are fabricated

[SirJamesTalbotAndHisSpeculum]

……… by the relevant business/company?

I actually write reviews for restaurants/hotels etc. myself if they have been spectacularly good or bad. Sometimes if they're just mediocre.

My DC say that most reviews are lies and that the positive ones are written by the owners of the businesses themselves.

The whole thing stinks. People even write bad reviews for restaurants they've not visited AND get caught doing so. I would expire from shame but they don't seem to care.
It's high time all online reviews were by verified purchasers only.

DD works in a cinema and say she has to spend time making up email addresses so that she can post good reviews for her bosses.

I’ve wondered about this. Mmmmmmmm, so basically, they can’t be relied upon.

@PinkOcelot

I don't think they can be relied upon, no.

Especially the restaurant reviews.

When DS had a temporary job in a pub/restaurant he was also asked by his boss to write a bunch of reviews for the place.

I'm sure I've heard of people being prosecuted for making up fake reviews.

I'm sure I've heard of people being prosecuted for making up fake reviews

Presumably that would be businesses prosecuting people who have written bad reviews as some kind of personal revenge?

Made up ones are quite easy to spot as you'll have several 5 star reviews within a very short time span mixed with real 1 or 2 star reviews.

Disagree. I read many many reviews for restaurants abroad, hotels etc. And I believe most of it is real.

Yes some are not.

I actually read some reviews for the most awful book on Amazon.

I wrote a genuine review, saying how badly the book had been written.

There were several 5* reviews for the same book which had obviously been written by the author and her friends and relations.

I think some book reviews on Amazon are definitely written by the authors friends/family. If the book is getting low reviews or not many reviews, several 5 star reviews seem to suddenly pop up, maybe to help the book along. They often tend to be quite gushing and praise the author rather than the actual book.
I also think some poor reviews are fake, not sure why, maybe competitiveness with other writers.
I think the bulk of reviews are probably genuine but there is definate manipulation.

I'm sure I've heard of people being prosecuted for making up fake reviews

This is true. I had a restaurant a few years ago. It became no one on top advisor for the city.

At which point the previous No.1 reported me to trip advisor for fabricating reviews.

I absolutely wasnt. I was contacted by trip advisor with a long list of legal implications. All our reviewers had been with trip advisor a while.

Personally I didnt give a shit about trip advisor or being no 1. It brought a whol host if problems, including people assuming it was an up market fine dining place.

It wasnt, it was reasonably priced greek/Cypriot restaurant. Very laid back and relaxed. People actually complained a couple of times that we shouldnt be no.1 because it wasnr fine dining.

We never pretended we were.

It really pissed off the resturant up the road though. I ended up going up and ckeating the air with the owner.

But I do agree that you cant trust all reviews. I only look at reviews if there are a lot and just look at the general trend.

On the flip side, some people can make horrible reviews up for no reason. The restaurant up the road, tried that as well, giving us fake shit reviews.

Amazon are worst for it and it's made me really disheartened about reviews!

I was just thinking this same thing OP. We've got a flea infestation (ugh, don't) and I was looking for treatments. One of them was one of these zapper things and all the reviews are so positive it just didn't seem real to me, the way they were written seemed too posed. still bought them though, I'm desperate

I regularly post on Trip Advisor, good bad or indifferent, all genuine

I have seen fake reviews on Amazon from someone who made the item in question (though they don't know that I know.) There is one restaurant that I follow on TripAdvisor and I can tell if the reviews are genuine. Interestingly the positive ones are, but some of the bad ones are obvious fakes.

When it comes to book and film reviews on Amazon, it's usually quite easy to tell which ones are real.

I post genuine reviews. One of our local pubs has recently taken a complete nose-dive under new management. I had a look on TripAdvisor and there was a flurry of 5* reviews just as the new management came in. I'm confident they are fake as no one locally has a good word to say about the pub now.

I'm particularly suspicious of reviews that mention staff/management names. I never seem to find out the name of staff, not to mention remembering them to write in a review. So when I read "and special thanks to Alan, who couldn't have been more helpful," all I can imagine is Alan tapping away on his keyboard and thinking to himself 'is that too much? Nah, I'll leave that in.'

I post genuine reviews too.

The book reviews on Amazon are so feeble sometimes as well.

I don't want to know that your book arrived on time and in good condition. I want to know what the book was like and whether the author was any good.

I want to believe and do find that annoyingly reviews makes a difference to my choice. It does the psychological trick.
And that irritates me because I know for sure that there is no chance 1000 or whatever reviewers could be really assed to sit down and write a genuine, detailed paragraph on some duct tape on Amazon for example..
Seriously?? Who are these people? How can so many care so much about leaving ones personal opinion on so many trivial, basic every-day stuff?? Or are these just the most bored, lonely, sad people ever, which in this case, should we be trusting their judgment at the first place? 🤔

A friend of mine gets a number of short breaks and sometimes bigger holidays (as well as stuff), by writing glowing reviews or "articles" as she calls them. They are never critical and she likes to boast about how much it would have been worth. I think it's extremely unethical but she says everyone does it, and that I'm mad to not give it a try!

I ordered a dress from JJ’s House, a clothing site with incredible reviews, unfortunately I didn’t google it before hand. My dress bloody awful and nothing like the picture, so on complaining was offered a 50% discount as long as I didn’t leave a bad review. I took the 50% and left a true review which was promptly removed....

@Ursulasunderstudy

I really hate it when bad reviews can be removed like that.

It makes a mockery of the whole reviewing process.

Surely the point of us reading reviews is to make an informed choice about a B & B or restaurant, for example?

The whole thing is pointless if we can only see positive reviews because the owner or manager has deleted them.

I regularly post honest reviews on Tripadvisor.

When reading reviews, I tend to only trust those with lots of reviews, and then I kind of take the median to be the most likely true - so ignore the very best, and the very worst, and if there are still plenty of decent reviews then I assume they're real.

I must admit that I enjoy reading the reviews from people who have had a terrible experience.

Having said that, I remember posting a review about a man who owned a holiday home which DH and I stayed in.

It was a lovely house. Perfect.

But the man himself was a git. He was nasty. He made me cry.

And his house was dodgy as fuck. Unfortunately we had to call an ambulance while we were there (severe asthma) and they couldn't find it. It did not exist on their database.

Anyway I gave it a bad review and the owner went made and managed (how?) to get the review removed.
Bastard.

*went mad ^^