Spot a Fake Review on Amazon

If you use reviews on Amazon.com to make purchasing decisions, be aware that not all reviews are impartial. Friends, relatives, and paid reviewers may leave glowing 5-star reviews, while enemies and rivals may hope to damage the item's reputation with 1-star "put-down" reviews—all without revealing their personal association, bias, or financial incentive. How can you tell if a review has a hidden agenda? 

Steps

Spotting a Fake Review

  1. Consider the length and tone of the review:
    • If the review is very short, it may be a fake. If the writer just wants to affect the overall score, their main intent may be to vote via the "star" rating, and to boost or lower it. But because one must write a review as well, the review itself may be very short -- 4 or 5 lines at most.
    • If the review is vague and doesn't have details about the product itself, it may not be genuine. It uses generalities that could apply to many different books or products.
  2. Check if the review uses emotional language. An objective review will usually summarize and critique the content or features of the product. A review with an agenda sidesteps this process.
    • If the review was written for a friend, the book or item may be merely described as wonderful, great for everybody, amazing, etc., and the reviewer may say that they're planning to purchase one for everyone they know for the holidays.
    • If the review is by an enemy or rival, on the other hand, the item may be called pathetic, ridiculous, or a waste of time. The reviewer may recommend an alternate product or author that "has more credibility" or that you will like better.
  3. See whether the reviewer has written other reviews. If the person doesn't regularly write reviews, it may not be genuine. Under "see all my reviews" next to the reviewer's name, you discover that this reviewer hasn't written any other reviews -- or they've written only a few other short, gushing, vague reviews (for friends), or hit piece reviews (against rivals).
  4. Beware if the person has submitted a lot of reviews in a short period. If a book reviewer is being paid to write reviews, they may have written a great number of short, 5-star reviews for self-published or print on demand titles. Check "See all my reviews" next to that person's name to see what else they're reviewing, and to look for a sameness to the reviews.
  5. Be skeptical if the review admits bias. The reviewer notes that they haven't read the book or tried the product -- so why are reviewing it? The reviewer means to either raise or lower the star-ratings without submitting a substantive review. Sometimes a low-star review will talk about a list of ingredients, or a book theme they find distasteful, without any indication that they have ever tried that specific product or read that book.
  6. Determine if the item was a "Verified Purchase." When evaluating a review, you may also want to know if the person bought the item directly from Amazon; if they did, there will be an orange "verified purchase" notation under the reviewer's name and date. This will indicate that the reviewer has actually received the product.
  7. Consider whether the reviewer was given the product for free, in exchange for writing a review. The review must disclose if the reviewer was sent that item for free in exchange for a review, and you may not feel they can write an unbiased review in that case. But people will often write reviews for items received elsewhere -- for instance, a book may have been a gift, a library copy, or have been purchased elsewhere. Amazon allows people to review items obtained elsewhere, and to post reviews of free products; if honest, reviews in these categories are not considered "fake" reviews.
  8. Look at the "Customers Also Bought" section. Usually, this section contains products similar or complimentary to the product you're looking at. But if this section is loaded with products that have nothing to do with the product, something might be going on. For example, let's say you're looking at resistance exercise bands. You see the "Customers Also Bought" section contains items unrelated to exercise bands -- grill gloves, green tea supplements and ice cube trays. This could mean that all these product are being given away at a significant discount or for free in exchange for a review, which could bias the reviewers.

Considering and Reacting to the Reviews

  1. Disregard the highest and lowest ratings. See what people in the middle say for a more accurate assessment of the book or product.
    • One-star reviews should always be suspect, especially if it's a review for a book by a controversial author.
  2. Read many reviews and apply critical thinking. Does the review sound like something a doting mother would say? Does it sound like something one's high-school enemy would say?
    • When reading a review, don't judge it based on whether you share the writer's opinions of the product or book; consider instead if the review is thoughtful, fair, and well-written. Even people who disagree with you may have valid points that warrant a "helpful" click.
  3. Leave feedback to help others who are reading reviews. If you decide that a review is helpful and objective, on the line at the end that reads "Was this review helpful to you?" click "Yes." This will help raise the review's credibility. If you decide that the review isn't objective or may have a hidden agenda, click "No" to lower that review's status.

Tips

  • If a review includes spam, offensive language, or other wording that is contrary to Amazon.com's review policies, click the link to "Report Abuse" (above the Yes/No buttons for "Was this review helpful to you?"). This allows you to "Report this content as inappropriate" and include a reason if you wish; Amazon.com staff will then evaluate the review and take appropriate action.
  • Consider the shape of the five-star review profile especially if there are a large number of reviews.
  • Remember the bell curve from your statistics and probability class? A bell curve shape (actually half of a bell curve) of the one to five star ratings is to be expected if the product generally is good. This is a mathematical way of stating the old maxim, "You can't please everyone."

Warnings

  • If the five-star review profile has a dumbbell shape then the product generally is good except that there are quality control issues in the manufacturing that too frequently results in a dud.
  • Lastly, if the large number of ratings are heavily or nearly exclusively one star or five stars then the product is exceedingly poor or excellent respectively.

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Sources and Citations

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