Good and bad fake soundproofing reviews are often posted on Yelp by unverified or anonymous users because they are competitors or non-customers with a need to vent somewhere. Fake good reviews can boost a company’s business while fake bad reviews can hurt the business while satisfying a personal need for resentment.
Here are some articles on the problems with online reviews and the lack of verification of their validity.
Yelp Being Challenged to Improve the Value of Their Reviews
Bad Yelp
Yelp’s shareholders are suing Yelp. This article from the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com tells more about Yelp’s suspect business practices of displaying fraudulent fake reviews.
Yelp insiders and executives sold off more than $81 million in artificially inflated stock while deceiving shareholders about the company’s business practices and financial outlook, shareholders are alleging in a federal class action lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco…. The suit alleges that suspect business practices include the display of reviews that “were not all authentic ‘firsthand’ reviews, but instead included fraudulent reviews by reviewers who did not have first-hand experience with the business being reviewed” and “algorithms purportedly designed to screen unreliable reviews [that] did not comprehensively do so.” Read more here. http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2014/08/07/yelp-faces-shareholder-lawsuit-over-fraudulent-reviews/
This article on Main St talks about how to spot fake reviews. These tips can be applied to both fake negative and positive reviews. But is there any real sure way to know if a review is fake? Yes, use reputable review sites instead of Yelp. Try visiting the BBB or California State Licensing Board for legitimate verified reviews that are not fake.
How to Spot Fake Reviews Online
Always Compare Both Sides
Faked reviews can go both ways. Someone may be paid to write an overly positive review of a product, while someone else may fake a negative review to give a company bad press, but odds are good you won’t see both happening at once.
To get a feel for which side might be fake, “look at the most positive and the most negative reviews,” Patten says. Chances are, one will seem suspicious. Read more here
