Detect fake customer reviews: the 10 best tips

Fake customer reviews at Amazon & Co .: An insider unpacks

The large variety of products makes it increasingly difficult for smaller manufacturers to assert themselves against the competition. Fake customer reviews are therefore a popular tool among numerous manufacturers.
What travel portals have been doing on a large scale for years is also becoming increasingly popular with Amazon, eBay and Co. In the Business Insider, an author has now unpacked fake reviews and revealed where you can recognize fake customer reviews without much effort.

Have you been wrongly rated? anwalt.de helps!

Pay attention to the number of reviews of a specific product. You should be suspicious, for example, if a product has a conspicuously high number of reviews, although it has only been available for a very short time.
In doing so, you should partially trust your feelings. With devices for the mass market, such as a new iPhone, it is not unrealistic if a lot of reviews have already been submitted after a few days. However, this is rather unusual for niche products.

Note the linguistic structure of the reviews. Strikingly long and detailed reviews with vocabulary such as from advertising and exaggerated wording can be fake reviews.
Pay particular attention to the use of superlatives and exclusively positive adjectives, which are more reminiscent of advertising than a real evaluation.

In many cases, very long reviews are extremely suspicious. Especially if no reviews have been given so far, this is an indication that the manufacturer has helped.
With very popular products with various reviews, however, long versions are no longer uncommon. Here you can trust the opinion of the masses anyway.

As has already been mentioned in part in the first point, you should note the time of the evaluation. Detailed test reports, which are submitted shortly after the release of a product, should be viewed critically.
Long-term reviews from customers who have had a purchased product for a few weeks or months and are therefore able to report in detail on both strengths and weaknesses are more trustworthy.

The name of the author of a review can also be an indication of whether it is a fake review or not.
Fake reviews are often used by users who give a synonym rather than their real name. However, this is only an indication that should be checked in conjunction with the other signs mentioned.

If a product has only been rated with around five stars and there is already a high number of reviews, this can indicate fake reviews.
This is also related to signs of the number of reviews discussed in the first point.

Fake reviews also include negative reviews in which competing products are strongly recommended.
Also pay attention to the linguistic design of the assessment. If a review reminds you more of advertising than a constructive review with an alternative recommendation, you should be skeptical.

If you suspect that a review may be fake, you should check the author's profile.
In particular, look at the manufacturers of the rated products, the number of reviews and the period of submission.
If a user evaluates a toaster three times a year, he either has a lot of bad luck in life or has been bought.

At Amazon, anyone can write a review for any product. If you write wrong customer reviews, you don't even have to own the product.
For this reason, you should primarily rely on reviews marked as "verified purchases". Although these do not guarantee authenticity, non-verified purchases are often manipulated.

In general, you should only rely on the reviews if there is a critical amount of them. In the worst case, with only three ratings, all three are fake.
In addition to the absolute number, you should also look at the overall picture of the stars awarded. Just because 10 customers gave it 5 stars does not reduce the informative value of the remaining 90 customers who only gave it one star.

On the next page you will find out how to recognize reputable online shops.