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Comment by tasssko | Hacker News Reader

I feel for business owners today, reviews are gamed more than ever and as a result have become much less valuable, harder to use for consumers, and with this fraud a few bad reviews can tarnish what is an unblemished customer service record. When making purchases i find i skip over dozens of reviews to find one or two that have some quality to them i can relate to based on the product and my expectations. When i see a really bad review i weigh it for much less than i used to especially if it lacks all the necessary components of a review. Does anyone else do this? Have you noticed that some reviews just look the same even the bad ones?

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For at least the last couple of years I ignore them entirely. I just have zero faith in any of them anymore.

The problem some ten-ish years ago were bogus computer-generated reviews. But now the bogus reviews are written by humans and are smart enough to sound balanced.

I don't know what to do. But for now, I subscribe to Consumer Reports and use price as a proxy for quality.

On Amazon, they could just make the refund/returns rate for a product public. That would probably be a pretty good quality indicator for physical goods.

They'd just start buying their own product (which then goes right back into the supply chain) to skew the numbers. However, I do agree this is a good next step as it ups the costs significantly (the transaction fees as well as logistics of having to move your product in a loop) compared to buying fake reviews.

They probably do it already. I know for a fact this is an existing practice on Allegro - Polish eBay equivalent. What happens is a boss gets their employees to order their products with on-site pickup, or post + payment on delivery, wait few days, and upload a five-star review. Rinse, repeat. The product is, of course, never sent. The company loses on platform fees, but it's profitable if used to fabricate social proof for new listings, or to compensate for the few negative reviews weren't able to bribe away, that drag down your total rating too close to the point the platform may cancel your privileges or ban your account.

Being a witness to all of this, I no longer trust any particular review. At this point, I strongly prefer to spend a little bit more money, and buy a product straight from a recognizable and reputable brand name.

And allow reviews only from customers who have actually bought the product - they do it to some extent today, with "verified purchase" label, but it would be nice to not even let customers review products that they haven't bought

I've had a single, meaningless three-star Google review from a non-client for 5+ years now. I responded saying I didn't recognize them as a client, but all most people will see is the three stars.

Google traffic isn't a big priority for me anymore but it's sad to think of the waste of time and research on the consumer side, too, especially for consumers looking only at those stars.

Absolutely. Reviews have been gamed for a long time.

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