We’ve talked before about what to do when you know your clients are shopping online. They’re checking pricing and products and looking for deals. In our last column, we talked about suggesting ways for them to stay safe so they might just end up buying from you because they know you’ve got their respective backs when it comes to safety.
Online marketplaces offer choice, value, and convenience, but they can also offer the problem of fake reviews. You know how influential product testimonials can be, and you’re likely savvy enough to sniff out a fake review, but it’s possible your clients may not be. If a little advice on this can help, even if it’s for a consumer purchase for their family or personal use, you end up with credibility that could easily result in more sales. Here’s a quick list of eight indicators you can pass along to help your clients spot fake reviews:
1. Extreme Negative or Positive Emotion
2. Personal Stories and Details
3. Excellent or Poor Grammar
4. Excessive Humor
5. A Focus on Irrelevant Details
6. The Reviewer Didn't Actually Purchase the Product
7. Mention of a Free Product
8. Website-Controlled Reviews
To underscore just how influential, and potentially misleading, reviews can be, Amazon filed suit last week against the administrators of what it says are more than 10,000 Facebook groups used to coordinate fake reviews of Amazon products. The online marketplace said in a statement posted on its website the Facebook groups were set up to recruit people “willing to post incentivized and misleading reviews” across its stores in the U.S. the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
Amazon said just one of the Facebook groups it is targeting, “Amazon Product Review,” had more than 43,000 members. Facebook removed the group this year, but it was previously able to dodge Facebook detection by “changing letters in phrases that might set off built-in alarms.” Amazon didn’t reveal the names of the Facebook group administrators nor their locations.
We’ve talked about the problems caused by phony reviews before — it’s not new for Amazon, or ecommerce in general, for that matter. Amazon previously sued people it said were offering fake testimonials, though lawmakers and governmental regulators have regularly claimed the company was still not doing enough to combat the issue. Last year, U.K. competition regulators launched a probe into whether both Amazon and Google were taking adequate steps to protect shoppers.
In the statement, Amazon says it has reported more than 10,000 fake review groups to Meta, the parent company of Facebook. Meta has removed only half of these reported groups and is still just investigating the others, according to Amazon. The lawsuit represents “proactive legal action targeting bad actors,” Amazon Vice President Dharmesh Mehta said in the statement.
“Groups that solicit or encourage fake reviews violate our policies and are removed,” a spokesperson for Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., said in a statement. “We are working with Amazon on this matter and will continue to partner across the industry to address spam and fake reviews.”
Fake testimonials influenced around $152 billion in global spending on inferior products and services last year, according to a report from the World Economic Forum. The world of online reviews is so overrun with fakes, it’s become like the Wild West, former federal criminal investigator Kay Dean says. “There are no repercussions, there’s no penalties. Cheating is rewarded in the current environment.” Dean hosts the consumer watchdog YouTube channel Fake Review Watch, which is interesting enough to pass along to your clients.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposed earlier this year to update review guidelines to bring them up to speed for a “more modern digitized economy.” But meanwhile, your clients are still reading reviews on Amazon, Google, Meta, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, Yelp — you name the platform, they’re likely on it. Promises to curb fake reviews are steps in the right direction, but the best thing you can do for your client to help them (and to possibly generate more sales) is to keep reminding them of the dangers and the tips to avoid them you’ve provided.
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for 40 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. Connect with Jeff on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or read his latest musings on food, travel and social media on his personal blog jeffreypjacobs.com. Email jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.