Comment by justworkout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justworkout | Hacker News Reader

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I'm currently planning a trip to India. I've been to several countries around the world and never worried about reviews too much, but India really seems to align with this story. I'll see hotels with countless 5 star reviews (hundreds or even thousands!) that are overwhelmingly positive and get ready to book. But with one hotel my BS meter got triggered, since it was in a rather dingy seeming part of town but still had thousands of great reviews, the pictures were gorgeous, and it was fairly cheap. Also, the reviews were all written in the same voice. "The owner is a very good sir top number one" style.

The low reviews had pictures of holes in the walls, bugs, exposed wires, and dozens of comments of people saying "I don't remember posting it, but this hotel posted a 10/10 review under my name. I think they hacked my account" or "the owner forced me to write a positive review before checking in" kind of stuff.

Since then, I've gone back and given a second look at all the hotels I've reserved so far and order reviews by negative first. So many are just fake or coerced reviews. I compared against places I've stayed in the past and I've seen no such thing. Delhi, in particular, seems overwhelmingly fraudulent and with owners openly getting pissed if you don't leave positive reviews. Small towns in India seem like they're probably okay (guests posting smiling selfies around the hotel and nothing overtly suspicious or anything), but I'm definitely feeling anxious about my upcoming trip.

Then there's the famous case where Thailand tried to arrest a man for a not positive review: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/29/american-wesle...

One strategy I use is to focus on negative reviews. Read as many and see what things they are complaining about.

Something you can see patterns of petty complains, and other times you can detect bigger issues that may make you look elsewhere instead

FWIW this works with American hotels, too. Some bad reviews are normal. Lots of bad reviews all saying the same thing? That's bad news.

> Since then, I've gone back and given a second look at all the hotels I've reserved so far and order reviews by negative first. So many are just fake or coerced reviews.

Of course, there's also a risk of fake negative reviews, from competitors.

That's something I've definitely worried about and seen some people mention in reviews around India. I mostly try to identify the voice of the comment writer. If they're from America but talking in odd English with a 10/10 review, I doubt it's real. Same if it's 1/10 from America and written with strange grammar.

Sadly, generative AI will probably render this clever heuristic ineffective (at least at savvier establishments).

Society is very good at adapting to such things. It will be an arms race for sure, but I don't think there is going to be a crisis of people being suckered by AI generated reviews. If it gets bad enough people will just stop giving them any weight at all, or even treat a lot of good reviews that are well written as suspicious. Then we will find some other way to find out quality of goods and services which will then be gamed at a greater and greater level until that too becomes unusable.

Just look for the review to summarize what it said at the end

Go stay at those big name hotels, such as Sheraton, Mariott, Hilton, Le Meridian, Obero, Ritz-Carlton, Taj, Leela etc.

Most of these are present in major cities across India. They're a little on the expensive side though.

(I'm NOT affiliated in any way with any of the hotels mentioned in this post).

Twenty years ago I booked room with sea view at an Indian travel agency.

We were dropped at a house fifteen minutes walking from beach.

The next day I rented a motorbike and we relocated.

We never saw a refund.

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