Numbers don’t lie, except when they do
U.K. consumer group Which? conducted an investigation into businesses that exist solely to deceive consumers. The group signed up for 10 sites offering review manipulation services.
How to fight back
User reviews can be quite helpful, but knowing that they’re not always honest means you have to use more discretion when shopping online. Check for poor or robotic spelling and grammar in the reviews. Also, look for descriptions that don’t fit the product. And did a bunch of reviews pop up for one product in a short period of time? These are all red flags and you can read more about them here. There are services that can help. Here is a couple to check out.
Fakespot
Go to fakespot.com to install the extension on any Chromium-based browser such as Chrome, Edge and Brave. The service is also available for iOS and Android. Tap or click here to check out the best browsers for privacy.Set up the extension in your browser. A walkthrough is provided to guide you through this process.When browsing products, you’ll see an alert from Fakespot listing the number of highlights it found. This could reference anything from a bad seller to a good price or a better product found somewhere else.
ReviewMeta
ReviewMeta has its own approach to weed out fake reviews. It acts as a filter that eliminates the chaff from the wheat when it comes to reviews, leaving a stripped-down rating. This tool provides you with an estimate to help you make the right decisions, but nothing is foolproof.
