Fake online user reviews can make you shop wrong or inferior product. This is why you should learn how to identify fake reviews to ensure a good online buying.
(Fake reviews are to the customers what cyber threats are to the businesses in Singapore. Both lead to frustration, loss and regret.)
Are you going to buy a new product online?
Like a savvy customer, you must have checked its reviews. Right?
After all, reviews give an idea about the quality and performance of a certain product. From satisfaction to disappointment, the customer’s reactions are usually varied for the products.Checking other customers’ feedback just increases your buying confidence.
But you shouldn’t blindly trust all customer reviews. This is because some reviews, which are usually positive, are fabricated or fake in order to build a positive image of the product.
May be a 5 stars rating for a hair dryer or plenty of positive reviews for a mobile phone is not true.
By trusting fake reviews, you can end up buying inferior product which later leads to your regret. Therefore,you should be careful while reading customer reviews.
And it is even important as nearly 60% Singaporean shop online (at least once a month).
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Here we have helped you spotting fake online reviews.
RED FLAG # 1: The Review is Not Detailed:
Most fake reviews either brag about the products or come up with a blunt criticism, without anysolid reason. In simple words, these reviews lack reason why the particular product is good or bad. The tone is typically extreme.
For example, have a look at this review about a smartphone…
“Superb and beautiful phone! Best one I’ve ever purchased.”
The reviewer hasn’t mentioned that why the certain phone is superb or what features make it his best purchase ever. It is usually high on the adjectives like best, wonderful, and superb rather than stressing facts or experience. In fact, science has proved a person who is lying, tend to use personal pronouns.
A genuine review reflects user’s experience with the product and covers all the reason that makes the product good or poor. One more thing—a real review is likely to be moderate in the tone.
RED FLAG # 2: Similar Reviews across Several Websites:
You must have come across plenty of similar reviews while researching a product across several websites. Most of these reviews might have similar word groupings and writing style.
It simply means that the information is either being copied or the same person has written them all.
Most reviewers are paid for creating fake reviews to be spread across the websites. Like we said in the previous point, most fake reviews are full of adjectives rather than useful details. Most fake reviews may be posted with the same author’s name across several platforms.
(Tip: Highlight a sentence, copy it and paste into your search engine’s search bar. Press Enter. If you see exact sentences have been used on a number other sites (even it is for different products, this tells that the review is fake.)
RED FLAG # 3: Large Chunk of Reviewsover a Short Period of Time:
If a new product gets thousands of positive reviews in a short span of time (for example, 30 minutes), chances are these reviews are fake.
These reviews are created by bogus critics or paid reviewers to create hype for promotional gain.
RED FLAG # 4: Short and Sloppy:
Other sign of fake reviews is that they are short, repetitive and sloppy. This is because fake reviewers are paid little per review. To make a large earning, they are likely to write quickly and in established form of words. It leads to the reviews being marked with typos, slangs, and lack of punctuation and above all, extreme brevity.
RED FLAG # 5: Repeating or Saying the Entire Name Over and Over:
One more sign to identify a fake product review. A fake review mill can use product name several times across the sentences to improve the SEO visibility of the company. For example,
“The amazing features of ABC Printer 1400X are the best I’ve ever seen. I never want to print any of my documents without ABC Printer 1400X. ABC Printer 1400X is easy to use and doesn’t add to your electricity bill.”
By mentioning the same name of the excessively in the reviews across the separate sites, many marketers try to manipulate the search results.
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Bottom Line:
You must have understood how to spot fake reviews. However, you should be proactive as bogus reviews can look like original in coming years. The best way to combat fake reviews is to shop from trusted websites and use (Google Search) Internet for anything suspicious.
