BOISE, Idaho — It's probably safe to say that we all do a bit of online shopping. In fact, Cyber Monday and Amazon Prime Days are some of the year's biggest shopping days. And most of us like to learn more about products to help determine what we purchase by reading reviews.
To find out what products are best, many people begin by checking out online reviews, and while this can be helpful when used correctly, an abundance of fake ones often leaves you wondering if you're actually about to buy a quality product.
One issue is that people sometimes leave positive reviews in return for a free product and you won’t realize it until after you buy and receive the product that might not be as good as the review showed.
Knowing this, Amazon, Glassdoor, Trustpilot, and others are teaming up to fight fake reviews, forming a group called "Coalition for trusted reviews."
"What this group is working to do is look at best practices for hosting reviews and how they can join forces and say 'this is the way we're going to do it, let's agree on how we're gonna do this,' and then work together in that," explained Dale Dixon, with the Better Business Bureau.
The coalition is currently in the works and will meet again in December. In the meantime, what can you do to identify fake reviews yourself?
Dixon says you should look for consistency and if you see just all five-star reviews that should raise a red flag, “if you see all five-star reviews and the same thing being said, that again should raise some eyebrows for you. Make sure that the actual reviews match the product. Utilize multiple sources."
You should also look for generic reviewer profiles because those are also red flags.
Fake reviewers usually post under fake names, sometimes even just a series of letters and numbers, and rarely do they have a profile picture.
You can learn more about spotting fake reviews on the BBB’s website here.
