MSE News: Ban for firms posing as happy customers online

Bigun28

The only way to stop it is to name and shame here. That will prove to be bad publicity for any company doing it and that would be bad for their business. So it kind of discourages them from doing it in the first place.

jenniewb

Name and Shame too!!

But may be hard to prove, I mean there are the obvious ones like idiots calling themselves "sporting heros" or something then saying how much they loved the website called (wait for it) sporting heros (I made that name up btw!)

But what do you do when your not sure? I mean, there are plenty of shops I love and then there are the "bootsters" who live and love all things Boots, how do you know if anyone of them works there and are posting to promote the company or just are mega Boots fans?
Similarly, I love Topshop, I live in wait for the next sale so tend to post good things about them (thats not to say I wouldn't post negative stuff to though), how would you be able to tell if someone like me was promoting for work or posting as a fan?

dacouch

This thread has plenty of them, apart from the fact they go over board promoting a particular company the fact they take the trouble to join MSE and then only post one or two times praising a certain company is a bit of a give away.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=699623&highlight=energy+certificate

PolishBigSpender

Naming and shaming, the hallmark of a tabloid reader.

redux

I didn't know that such behaviour is supposed to be illegal, but apart from that unfortunately this really isn't news

One absolute giveaway cliche used by such people is to say they just stumbled upon ...

which makes them overt liars as much as anything else, and a quick internet search often shows them using the same usernames over plenty of forums in a few days

but I'm against them being named and shamed, as it gives them publicity anyway

for one example, I'm aware of one company having used about a dozen 15 spammer IDs on here, which I've reported from time to time, but I won't name it now

negg

Don't name and shame and especially don't post links to these sites. Google (and other search engines) can class this as a 'vote' for the site and begin to push them up the rankings if you link to them.

I remember reading about an Amazon error where they accidently published the real names of reviewers instead of their usernames. Many reviews were discovered to be the actual author, relatives of the author and in some cases the book publisher.

roddydogs

What about the ones that post on Rivals sites that their rubbish?

silkcutblue

negg wrote: »

Don't name and shame and especially don't post links to these sites. Google (and other search engines) can class this as a 'vote' for the site and begin to push them up the rankings if you link to them.

I remember reading about an Amazon error where they accidently published the real names of reviewers instead of their usernames. Many reviews were discovered to be the actual author, relatives of the author and in some cases the book publisher.

Agree. If you name and shame then you are just giving out more publicity. TBH, i think places like this weed those lone operatives out with sheer weight of honest reviews.

jenniewb

redux wrote: »

I didn't know that such behaviour is supposed to be illegal, but apart from that unfortunately this really isn't news

One absolute giveaway cliche used by such people is to say they just stumbled upon ...

which makes them overt liars as much as anything else, and a quick internet search often shows them using the same usernames over plenty of forums in a few days

but I'm against them being named and shamed, as it gives them publicity anyway

for one example, I'm aware of one company having used about a dozen 15 spammer IDs on here, which I've reported from time to time, but I won't name it now

D'you know what I mean!! Or the ones that begin "friends..." or "hello everybody, I just wanted to mention a fantastic site..."

Think there is a code of conduct on here- some of the spammers can be easily spotted- (but not all of them.)

dacouch

The other give away is resurrecting old threads, often over a year old and posting recommending a company