Fraudulent reviews on tripadvisor, twitter etc

dacouch

pmduk wrote: »

It's a bit like yodel. They retweet lots of tweets praising them yet ignore any that criticise them. All it means that twitter is not to be trusted as a source of reviews

Yodel are a great example...

http://postandparcel.info/48939/news/companies/uks-yodel-warns-off-twitter-from-defamatory-statements/

pmduk

From that article (with my added emphasis)

In an interview with Post&Parcel back in April, Yodel CEO Jonathan Smith said changes to his company’s business model would be completed in time for this year’s festive season, with an increase in staff recruitment and improvements in delivery notification for customers.

They can't even be bothered to stick the failed delivery cards through doors. Probably because they haven't been to the address. I hope they sue me, as I have evidence they tell lies.

But perhaps we should return to the topic. Twitter is not a trustworthy source of reviews, I'm personally very sceptical of tripadvisor, possibly because I do little travelling so use it rarely.

vikingaero

Most reviews on any sites are pretty useless. Companies have decided that the most important thing in the universe is getting good reviews on review sites and on their own websites. They've diluted reviews by controlling and deleting poor content that they have made themselves untrustworthy.

We all know that companies such as Yodel are complete f**k ups. We all know that generally John Lewis and Amazon are on the whole pretty good. If you look at sites such as Amazon it's refreshing to see them allow poor comments and complaints.

The best thing a consumer can do is to look for the general gist of reviews.

goonarmy

[quote=[Deleted User];58954701]The issue is this restaurant is awful - of course in my opinion. Of which I plan to post on TA.

My issue is where FAKE reviews are posted by the owners purporting to be customers. This is not an HONEST review.[/QUOTE]

Niave to expect em all to be. Id rveiw my place if i had one. Only one reveiw too. And only your opinion agaisnt anothers, both have the same value.

fallen121

I left an uncomplimentary review for a tea room in Crail, saying that in my opinion it had all the charm of a dentail surgery and that I had had difficulty locating the toilets, being as I had to walk down a long corridor lined with doors which all seemed to have signs on them saying "private".

The next reviewer, who rather went over the top in claiming that "The coffee was the best I have tasted in the East Neuk" not only was somewhat over effusive in their comments, but also rubbished everything I had said in my review, stating, "I was also able to use my initiative and see signs to locate toilets" and also made a further comment which was "I didn't lose any teeth - strange one, that".

This so-called "review" spent more time rubbishing what I had said as opposed to telling people about the tea room, and the fact that they had only recently registered and it was their first and only review (and they haven't been back since) led me to believe that the review was in fact left by the owner of the tea room - although I couldn't prove that beyond doubt.

TripAdvisor state in their own guidelines that reviews should contain, "No disparaging comments about other reviews, reviewers or management responses" (this is listed under the section "What constitutes irrelevant response"), but despite twice reporting those portions of the review which reference and rubbish my own comments, nothing has ever been done.

I am afraid that I have rather lost faith in Trip Advisor since that time and have stopped posting. If they can't even adhere to their own guidelines I can't really trust their reviews.

bosseyed

I posted an unfavourable review of the Camelot Castle Hotel in Tintagel a few years back as I thought it was terrible. Fairly shortly after a new user registered and posted a 5 star review. I looked back through the review history and lo and behold, for every poor review (and there were many), they were immediately followed by a glowing review written by a new user.

So clearly someone at the hotel was getting notifications of the poor reviews and logging in to post a false glowing one.

I emailed Tripadvisor about this as it was clearly blatant and never heard anything back. So there we go.

redpete

There's a thread somewhere on here about an Amazon reviewer who left dozens of glowing reviews for products distributed by the same company, including several different types of the same product. She reviewed very few other products. Amazon decided there was nothing wrong or suspicious with this. I reported it to the relevant Trading Standards local to the company and heard nothing back.

goonarmy

From Wiki:
Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud.
A hoax also involves deception, but without the intention of gain or of damaging or depriving the victim.
so its a hoax at worst.

dacouch

goonarmy wrote: »

From Wiki:
Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud.
A hoax also involves deception, but without the intention of gain or of damaging or depriving the victim.
so its a hoax at worst.

Posting fake reviews of your own business or employers business could result in customers who would not go there if there were only genuine reviews going to the business and spending their money.

The employees of the business the OP is posting about have been deleting their "reviews" and "twitter" comments and generally trying to cover their tracks.

Here's the review which was posted by the general manager who started work at the business in October 2012. Note he even mentions how good he was at serving himself.

He managed to use the same user name to review as his twitter name which clearly identifies him which then leads to his linkedin profile.

"Reviewed 28 December 2012
Came here for the first time last week and what an experience, the waiter/manager? reccommended we try the fillet steak and boy was he right! Cooked absolutely to perfection! The place was full too so getting steaks cooked right on a very busy night (which i know all too well having been burned elsewhere in the past) is not an easy thing to do. Kudos to the chef.

The ambience is lovely, the music is very befitting the tall tables and the open kitchen. The service is absolutely top class, we were greeted by a man in a waistcoat, presumably the manager who couldn't be more enthusiastic sat us down and got our first round of drinks, then a lovely waitress took us through the specials and took our order, nothing seemed to be too much trouble.

Overall, this is a real find and we will be back as often as my wallet will let us. Well done Greenwood & Brown

Visited December 2012
Value 5
Atmosphere 5
Service 5
Food 5"

This is a breach of the following specific sub rule as well as the general ethos of the relevant consumer law.

"18. A wolf in sheep’s clothing
Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the
trader is not acting for purposes relating to his/her trade,
business, craft or profession, or falsely representing
oneself as a consumer."

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/cpregs/oft979.pdf

My favourite reviewers are webuyanycar http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews169436.html

superflygal

In my opinion Next step Beauty post daily fake 5* reviews about themselves on reviewcentre. I reported them to reviewcentre who removed them temporarily, but then reinstated them! These 5* reviews by new users started appearing shortly after I linked to the original 1/5 rating on Salongeek website.......

SFG x