How to Spot a Fake Online Review

From Hillsborough County Government Online:

Consumers looking for online bargains often rely on Web reviews to ensure their hard-earned dollars are spent on quality products. Unfortunately, many online reviews are fake.

All this week during National Consumer Protection Week, the County’s Consumer Protection Agency is helping consumers arm themselves with enough information and resources to avoid becoming financially exploited by scams such as fake Web reviews.

Astroturfing is the practice of paying people for positive Web reviews to create an artificial advertising campaign. Research shows that the average consumer can detect fake reviews only about 50 percent of the time. The following tips from the County’s Consumer Protection Agency will help you make heads or tails of fake online reviews.

•  Beware of the review language used. If the review is overly general or appears to be selling the product, it could be a fake review.

•  Be skeptical of reviews that say the entire name and model of the product.

• Watch for long-winded explanations about the product and why it’s so much better than other identical products.

• Be skeptical of reviews full of adjectives and buzz words or flowery language and excessive CAPITALIZATION AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Be careful of reviews that give a discount code or tell you where you can go to purchase the product.

• Be skeptical of several reviews posted at the same time and providing 5-star ratings.

• If a review sounds suspicious, check for more critiques by the same reviewer.

• Don’t trust reviews that seem to always be completely negative, completely positive, or say the same thing over and over.

• If a review title sounds suspicious, paste it into a search engine and see if it's a cookie-cutter review.

• Be wary of reviews that go off-topic and provide a link. These could be scams to hijack Web traffic.

Log onto Hillsborough County’s Consumer Protection Agency website at www.hillsboroughcounty.org/consumerprotection to take advantage of the wide range of tools to help everyone become a savvy online shopper.