[S.Marine]

A few years ago, my better half had to visit an endocrinologist and we were looking for recommendations. Came across one with wonderful reviews on Google Maps and went ahead. The doctor was good. Heard everything out patiently and gave good advice.

On our way out, we encountered a note pasted to the reception promising Rs.200 cashback and the receptionist will write the review on our behalf if we rate 5 stars on Google Maps.

Must admit, we were extremely disappointed that an actually knowledgable doctor had to resort to such tactics to make money.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by MunnabhaiMBBS

Speaking of potential solution : Empowering customers!
...

I am sure that Tbhpians can help in evolving this concept further.

I wonder if we could leverage TBHP members to help us here. If we could signal that it is a TBHP member reviewing a product, it would give the review more credibility (at least to us).

[alpha1]

I usually ignore all positive reviews and concentrate mainly on the negative ones.
A person who has genuinely been duped or dismayed with a product usually gives a detailed reason.

Fake negatives are usually flipkart kind of reviews - without any reason and over in a few words.

Positive reviews are mostly useless to me since they are not adding any information to me. (Never seen a review that says the product exceeded the seller's promised performance)

[RaghuVis]

I also faced a similar experience recently. The seller contacted me through WhatsApp (Amazon/Flipkart making our number visible to Seller is really below the belt) and asked me to rate his product. I actually did not like the product at all as it got broken on first day itself. I replied saying that if he dares to chat with me again even once in his lifetime, I will take this up with Amazon and ensure he gets banned as seller. He apologized and said he will never talk to me.

[maheshm619]

My recent order from FLIPKART during their sale in last august came in disgusting and torn packaging.It even had few scratches and dings on the product itself.I had clicked a few pictures and after uploading a review with these facts/photos, I got a mail few days after mentioning that usage of words “damaged/packaging/bad” etc. is not allowed as part of their policy.

[adithya.kp]

These days, its very common in google reviews. But there is an easy way to find out. If there are too many 5 star reviews and the reviewers have only 1 review, chances are its fake.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by saket77

Currently going through the same. Bought a bookshelf about a month ago. Received a random call a couple of days ago asking about my experience. I just told him it’s all good. No issues. Asked me to rate on five. I verbally told him 4. After that I have received at least 15-20 WhatsApp messages asking me to rate them 5*.
This guy is on the verge of irritating me now. .

I hate to do this but after three more messages since yesterday, I had to block this guy on WhatsApp. I’m generally not too rough with telemarketers as I feel they are doing this for a living and not for irritating us but when someone gets into the nerves and crosses the line like disturbing and’ following up’ too much, I have no other option to block them without asking them to stop.

Originally Posted by RaghuVis

I also faced a similar experience recently. The seller contacted me through WhatsApp (Amazon/Flipkart making our number visible to Seller is really below the belt) and asked me to rate his product. I actually did not like the product at all as it got broken on first day itself. I replied saying that if he dares to chat with me again even once in his lifetime, I will take this up with Amazon and ensure he gets banned as seller. He apologized and said he will never talk to me.

I think at least the third party sellers whose products are not directly sold by amazon, have access to not only your phone numbers but also your address as they pack and ship directly.

[meerkat]

Here is my personal experience with fake reviews at Amazon.in. I recently purchased some dried apricots after being impressed by high ratings (mid 4.x stars, with many 5s). The seller was Cloudtail (so, Fulfilled by Amazon). The brand was SFT. The quality of the dried apricots was not great, and inconsistent too. So I can't rate it more than 3 stars at best, -- a far cry from the 4.x rating!

The package had a sticker pasted on it, soliciting reviews in return for a cashback (see attached photo)! This clearly explains the high ratings, and shows how the customers are being duped.

There are other similar products sold by Cloudtail doing the same. So Amazon is obviously complicit!

I was quite amused while reading reviews on another such product, seeing how this ploy by sellers can sometimes backfire too! -- A 5* review was reduced to an 1* subsequently, when the promised cashback didn't materialize (see the attached screenshot)!

I've minimized online purchase of unfamiliar brands as a result (although I'm not sure placing higher trust on some Indian big names are always justified either).
.

[J4J]

This is a menace that we are facing today.
I've received many products which offer money in reward for good review. Most of these are new Indian brands that want visibility. This won't help them in the longer run.

My shopping mantra is to go for only those products that have a return policy. If i do not get any seller like that, I shop offline. Take an unboxing video of all orders above 2k. If they turn faulty, return them.
I only shop with Amazon and Flipkart and no other site. I once stopped using Flipkart altogether due to a few bad experiences however they have improved their services now.

[EightSix]

Until reading this thread, I thought if ever I would be paid for positively reviewing a product I purchased, I would do so only if my experience was positive however, in the interest of being honest, I would also mention that I was paid for the review.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YjEdaU1xTc

(Found this interesting video on the same topic)

But now, a question has popped into my head, slightly off-topic to the e-commerce platform discussion but very much relevant to the topic of ‘menace of fake online reviews’:

At times, these car-rags issue features where they clearly specify that it is a ‘paid promotion’.

Since the case is similar, how morally correct it is to give a positive review, get paid for it whilst stating it is an incentivised review? Would you do so if you were in a similar situation?

Secondly, if regular reviews by car rags are also incentivised, how are they not illegal? And I’m not talking of just cold hard cash. Car rags bribed through scale models, expensive watches, tablets, cameras etc. among smaller gifts like t-shirts and backpacks.

We can discuss more of reviews in automotive context here too and not just e-commerce reviews.

If I were to go back to the e-commerce reviews discussion, I would state that I agree with most members here.

1. Amazon reviews are more detailed than Flipkart ones.
2. I too, filter the negative reviews only.
3. I also take unboxing videos of all products.
4. At the same time, we must not miss out the possibility of fake negatives.

(Must add a mention of gratitude too — Mods and fellow Members, thanks for TBHP’s unbiased reviews. Besides, our travelogues are way more enjoyable than these ‘paid promotion/features’)

[Jeroen]

Let me share an interesting experience here in the Netherlands. So I took my wife’s Ford Focus to the local Ford dealer for a regular annual service. I made the appointment online, dropped it off on the date, got a call in the afternoon it was ready and picked it up again.

Next day I get an email with a customer survey. Five hundred questions about my experience which I did not reply to. Just gave them a 3 out of 5 rating overall.

The next day I get a call from the service manager. He would like to understand what went wrong with our Fiesta service. I told him, nothing went wrong. I took it and left it with early in the morning. In the afternoon you called me it was ready. I came, paid you some Euro’s and took it home.

It was just a regular annual service. He asked me to up my rating to five stars, outstanding. But this is just a routine job, routinely executed. I don’t expect anything less or more. So next day the MD calls me with the same request. Appears they are rated on customer reviews (by Ford NL HQ) so it is important to him.

So I email Ford NL HQ about this topic. Sharing my experience and asking their criteria for a normally executed annual service and an outstanding executed annual service.

Also, telling them I don’t appreciate being called twice to up,my feedback

I have not had a reply yet!

Jeroen

[Cessna182]

If it is a product that's imported from China (most on Amazon and Flipkart are) then checking Aliexpress is a good way to get a better perspective. Many people add in detailed reviews on Aliexpress and there's a "with additional information" section where they comment on the durability as well.

Indian resellers usually give away a few units to known people and request them for reviews. The same works with kindle books as well.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

So I email Ford NL HQ about this topic. Sharing my experience and asking their criteria for a normally executed annual service and an outstanding executed annual service.

Also, telling them I don’t appreciate being called twice to up,my feedback

I have not had a reply yet!

Jeroen

This idiocy of 5 stars or none seems to have gained widespread traction everywhere. I was on the other side of it trying to explain to my client counterpart why she needs to give me outstanding for everything for simply doing a good job. Thankfully Uber drivers have done the heavy lifting for us, and I just had to tell her it's like Uber and she understood. She thinks less of my employer, but then they deserve it for buying into this nonsense. Work in the service industry and you'll understand why it's futile to apply any rational thought to such systems. And they are at least partly to blame for players trying to game the system.

[one-77]

There’s the menace of bots and seller-coerced fake positive reviews. And then Amazon has a policy of removing negative reviews. Have experienced this first hand. After negatively reviewing a product, I randomly chanced upon it a few weeks later, and bam! My review was gone.
After that I stopped trusting these stars.

Edit: I’ve refused numerous times to give a 10 rating to the car dealership after a service when the job was simple mediocre. They do offer bribes of “free wash” or “free polish” etc if you’d oblige.
Then there is of course the Uber driver and Swiggy delivery executives who invariably wants 5 stars.

[Samurai]

I first noticed this madness of 5 stars while doing employee appraisal back in 1996. Even folks who just did their job wanted 5/5, which meant extraordinary. It was often backed up by veiled threat that they might seek a transfer out of my team if 5/5 was not given.

The problem is with the rating system, it has too many levels, even 10 in many places. For example, a Hyundai SA told me that anything below 9 is considered bad for the workshop. Why don't they condense 8 to 1 and just 1 then?

When the time to came to design the appraisal system for my own company, I found a better method, which allows no such negotiation. It just has 3 points:

0 - Below expectation.
1 - Met expectation.
2 - Exceeded expectation. [This has to be backed by proof of exceeding expectations]

So if there are 10 different points each rated between 0-2, it gives much more realistic picture.