Fake Online Reviews under Investigation
In the News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52771913
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into fake and misleading reviews on several major websites.
Last year the CMA estimated that estimated that online reviews potentially influence £23bn ($28bn) of UK customer spending every year.
Last year, the consumer group Which? said that in the space of a single month, it had found 55,000 posts offering free products to those who wrote good reviews on Amazon.
I agree more needs to be done in reviewing reviews, although policing it will be difficult, particularly if the reviewer is intending to leave false reviews. Tbh I never fully trust reviews, particularly not the exceptional ones - 4 stars is believable, but 5 out of 5 has always seemed iffy to me
It's partly for this reason we now accept honest reviews of stores on Latest Deals. Whether you write a good, bad, or ugly review of a store, as long as it's honest and detailed you can earn points. We may open it up to products too.
Excellent 
product reviews will be useful, and more so for those retailers who are known to have iffy reviews
Mango4 yes, for now (and it may change - and we need to create better links to jump straight there), we are showing the most recent 20 reviews for each retailer on the bottom of their voucher page.
Go to Retailers, select a retailer, vouchers, scroll to bottom.
We don’t yet have the ability to navigate quickly to a list of all your own reviews.
We hope to overhaul your profile page (where you can see your own deals, vouchers, freebies, competitions, saved deals) to include reviews.
I think the worst is TripAdvisor. So many fake reviews on there from one time posters. I would definitely take some of those with a pinch of salt. I have also had people contact me on TripAdvisor asking me to take down a poor review.
I'll always give honest opinions, good or bad.
I agree, the reviews on there can be dodgy. I still always check them out for when I’m researching, as I find the best places to visit/stay are usually the ones where the owners or managers respond to each review - preferably the responses that are not copy and paste jobs
Fake reviews are a part of life these days . Whether it be Amazon ,Trip Advisor or a host of others .
Sorry folks but you have to use your grey matter , read quite a few reviews and make your own informed judgement .
So many folks these days want everything put on a plate for them , are terminally gullible and only moan after the event .
Do your research , form an educated opinion from a wide selection of reviews and you will rarely go wrong . If a holiday or product only has 3 or 4 reviews -AVOID ! - Its not Rocket Science , just use your noddle .
Lol we will usually trust things until the moment we get burnt by it, or in the case of reviews, we realise we have the opposite experience. I stopped fully trusting google when I realised a lot of inflated reviews, usually when abroad than over here
I was recently taken in my a company on Instagram - luckily my credit card company refunded the money. I am usually very savvy but the comments and reviews online misled me. However, now the negative reviews have surfaced, only for more people to say they did receive the goods. I can only think they are fake as otherwise my CC company would not have given me a refund.
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