To feel that you can't trust online reviews?

[leostar1994]

With the rise of the influencer and #spon, I feel that I can't trust a lot of online reviews - video or written. This goes for beauty products to movies. A lot of people are paid to say that they love something and get people to part with their money.

As a side note, some people that I used to work with have opened their own resturant and in recent days I noticed that TripAdvisor has taken all reviews down (about 4/5 months' worth). In their place they have put a message in red at the top of the screen about how they had reason to investigate that reviews were fake and written by those affiliated to the resturant. To be honest I had noticed that a lot of the more negative reviews would be quickly followed by 3/4 glowing reviews and I was skeptical as to their legitimacy.

Use fakespot for amazon

I totally agree.

I would add that you have no idea who the person is behind the review and in real life if you’d take their advice.

I’m looking at dryers for example some say ‘quicker than my old one’ What a 10 year old machine? Who knows? Others say ‘can’t work the controls too complicated’ I wonder what they have a degree in?

Anyway .... couldn’t agree more

Use your best judgement and take everything under advisement. It's information, not gospel.

My personal bugbear is reviews for insurance.
The reviewer is almost always reviewing because they have been invited to by the insurer and they are reviewing the purchasing experience not the performance of the insurer when a claim is made. I've noticed this particularly with travel insurance. Of course they are nice when they take your money, but what happens when you break a leg and need to claim?

I've never seen them put a public warning.

The most bizzare review I ever read was for a 5 Hotel we where to stay in. The reviewer gave it 1 because there was seaweed in the ocean and it wasn't removed during their stay even though they reported it to the lady at reception.

@AllergicToAMop Me either and as the people who own the establishment aren't my favourite in the world, it made me laugh that they were caught!

I agree OP, and it’s particularly rife on Amazon. We recently ordered an in ear thermometer for DD, chose it in a hurry as she was poorly. It was one of the highest rated on there but when it arrived it was RUBBISH.

The reason for all the deliriously glowing reviews became clear when I looked through the packaging and found a card offering a free £8 Amazon voucher when you leave a 5* review . Reported to Amazon but it’s still up there as I type...

Its the same as people who put 1 out of 5 stars but then comment that its good... For example.

Ratings are a good starting point but i never trust them,

Saw a review that criticised a pub with a 1 star for not doing cocktails... It was just a little family owned pub.

Have also seen a raving review thta basically said item was useless as it broke but she managed to make it into something else.. That wouldnt of deserved a 5 star to me

As has already been said, I rarely trust reviews anyway, even if they're not fake/paid for, because people are idiots!

5 *'s - bought it for my cousin so haven't used it but it looks good. (I can see it looks good and I haven't used it, that's why I'm looking at reviews, telling me what I know doesn't help)