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Amazon Reviews - When is Manipulation Fraud?

Just to update the OP -

looks like Amazon finally pulled its finger out - 350 reviews have been reduced to 6. The three that are 5 star still look pretty fake, but still an improvement....

Hacker Hunter

feel sorry for whoever wasted a month of their life typing out 350 fake reviews (and another 700+ to pad out the fake accounts....) :)
 
andyandy said:
Churning out 350 reviews in 5 weeks - basically 10 a day is impressive, and more so as each would require a new username, and another 2-3 reviews to flesh out their profile. So you're looking at 1000+ reviews, all handwritten and not computer generated in just over a month. That's a big job - makes me wonder if it's the work of a company rather than an individual.....
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Someone could write all 350 reviews THEN sign in to post them. If that was how it was done, it is far less impressive.
 
Gods Big Toe said:
At Newegg they have reviews by \"verified owners\" in addition to unverified owners. I find it helpful when parsing the reviews.

Fraud typically requires the following four elements.

* an individual or an organization intentionally makes an untrue representation about an important fact or event:

* the untrue representation is believed by the victim (the person or organization to whom the representation has been made);

* the victim relies upon and acts upon the untrue representation;

* the victim suffers loss of money and/or property as a result of relying upon and acting upon the untrue representation.

I fail to see how pretending to be somebody else would absolve anyone on liability. If instead of on-line reviews a salesman suggested a person call some phony customers or presented phony testimonials, we would have no issues calling it fraud. So why would it not be fraud to write fake testimonials where something is going to be sold?

While these reviews are opinions, the untrue element is that the reader will believe these multiple reviews are coming from independent sources who are most likely owners of the product or who have at least seen it. While that may not be explicit, it is certainly implicit. Is that an important fact? That is debatable. I know that on Newegg that I am far more likely to purchase something that has lots of reviews if those reviews tend to be positive and do not indicate any major compatibility issues (Newegg sells a lot of computer components). I do not like being the first to buy something.

My guess is that it is simply not worth the effort to prosecute cases of bogus reviews, especially if the sales cross state lines. It would take a lot of effort to prove who actually posted the reviews, and that involves obtaining IP addresses and subsequently identities tied to IP addresses. It would be trivial to use proxies to make these reviews, and my guess is that one of the easiest safeguards Amazon (or anyone else could take) would be to flag multiple accounts from the same IP address in a relatively short period of time, which would mean proxies were likely used.

Fraud laws tend to be vague enough to cover new techniques for fraud while being specific enough that one should know if it is illegal or not. I think this technique qualifies, but I am not a lawyer - I just throw rotting vegetables at them.
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Without having done any research at all on this, I tend to think the fact that reviews are clearly opinion would shield a sham reviewer from any kind of civil or criminal liability. You're absolutely right that there is an implied representation that each review is by a unique individual whose views are sincerely expressed, but there's no affirmative representation of that fact and I just can't see a court allowing the prosecution of someone to proceed on the allegation that they didn't actually believe the nice things they wrote about Hacker's Hunter.
 
SezMe said:
Someone could write all 350 reviews THEN sign in to post them. If that was how it was done, it is far less impressive.
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There is a technique for search engine .... uh ... optimizing, where you write your content with different versions for each paragraph or sentence; then randomly reconstruct the entire text by choosing different versions of each paragraph. You then flood those versions over the internet linking back to the page you want to promote.

I don't think anyone would bother to do something as sophisticated just to create a few hundred fake accounts, but if properly organized the work doesn't have to be lost just because it got deleted.

Of course, the effort seems wasted if you use it to promote a cheap book that is only available through one distribution channel...
 
DrDave said:
This is a negative review:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15575171

More sinister if you ask me (even taking the extreme nature of this example out of the equation). I would expect a business to get supporters to write overly positive reviews, but a negative review seems more likely to be true to my subconscious at least.
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That is just frightening.

I can see why people are annoyed at fake positive reviews.
But the much scarier issue is that some fourteen-year-old can anonymously destroy your business, product, brand, service or whatever.

And there is nothing you can do about it.

My business has a Google maps listing. Any idiot can put reviews on there and I cannot moderate it.
 
Goldstar, a discount entertainment ticket-seller, posts reviews, but only from registered users who actually purchased tickets to the specific show they are reviewing. Whether the review is good or bad, the reader knows that the writer actually spent money to buy the tickets and attend the show. Amazon and other sites could easily set up a similar system -- you could only review something that you bought from Amazon. The number of reviews would be reduced, but shills would have a much harder time and the content would be more useful.
 
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Peter Quennell - TJMK - Amazon

Here's a classic from the Amanda Knox hate site owner Peter Quennell posting on his site TJMK:


"Problemo. Some 5 star reviews on Amazon of the book would help to counter Marriott’s campaign which has already begun there to try to mark it down to 2 or 1 stars.

It seems only those who already bought the book from Amazon can add reviews. Might some readers help out by posting positive reviews?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 10/28/11 at 12:53 PM"



The book 'Death in Perugia' by John Follain is getting 4 1/2 stars right now. :p
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-rev...iewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
 
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Draca said:
Here's a classic from the Amanda Knox hate site owner Peter Quennell posting on his site TJMK:


"Problemo. Some 5 star reviews on Amazon of the book would help to counter Marriott’s campaign which has already begun there to try to mark it down to 2 or 1 stars.

It seems only those who already bought the book from Amazon can add reviews. Might some readers help out by posting positive reviews?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 10/28/11 at 12:53 PM"


The book 'Death in Perugia' by John Follain is getting 4 1/2 stars right now. :p
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-rev...iewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
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A propos of that, here's an interesting review of the book there:

***** An excellent account, 3 Nov 2011

By Indeed (London, UK) - See all my reviews

Written by a professional journalist. A very good account of the facts. I have followed the trial(s) since the beginning and am an avid reader of the "True Justice for Meredith Kercher" website who also recommend this book as one of the more sober and factual accounts of this terrible waste of life. Murdered on a whim. I hope poxy knoxy rots in hell
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Q.E.D..........
 
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LJ,

Indeed, Indeed is a regular poster on the TJMK site. :p
That review makes the agenda of the poster particularly obvious.

Recognize many other names as well.
 
catsmate1 said:
I know at least one sci-fi author who urges his fanboys to submit multiple positive reviews and criticise negative reviews, even before they've seen the book.
He's even known to follow the more articulate negative reviewers to other reviews just to criticise them. Pathetic really.
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Hahaha, would that be Robert Stanek, by any chance? :newlol


Anyway, Amazon review frauds is nothing new. Hell, even "real" reviews from well-known editors cannot be trusted from having been bought... see here. :P
 
Bob001 said:
Goldstar, a discount entertainment ticket-seller, posts reviews, but only from registered users who actually purchased tickets to the specific show they are reviewing. Whether the review is good or bad, the reader knows that the writer actually spent money to buy the tickets and attend the show. Amazon and other sites could easily set up a similar system -- you could only review something that you bought from Amazon. The number of reviews would be reduced, but shills would have a much harder time and the content would be more useful.
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Amazon does flag reviews by verified purchasers-- i.e., people who bought the product they're reviewing from Amazon. That seems like a reasonable compromise; anyone is free to review any product, but users can also distinguish reviewers who have actually bought the product from Amazon from those who have not. It would be really interesting to see the average review scores for both all reviewers and only verified purchasers for each product; statistically significant differences would be some evidence of manipulation.
 
SezMe said:
Can you say more. My wife uses tripadvisor quite a bit and if their reviews are bogus, then I'd like to be more forewarned.
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i cannot speak to review fraud on TA, but i am planning a trip to peru and the forums have been very helpful. having said that one of the destination experts for the area is the owner of a resort, and anytime that gets mentioned in connection with his advice it is quickly edited out. i find this to be somewhat dishonest.
 
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