Spotting Fake Marketplace Reviews

Broderick Schulist

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Apr 22, 2024
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This is meant to be an extension of our 2015 thread titled "Fake Marketplace Reviews".

Below, I've listed out some red flags that suggest that a review could potentially be fake. The points below are meant to be considered together and not singularly.

  • Does the user have one post on the forum, and that one post happens to be a review of a sales thread?
  • How detailed is the review? Whilst fake reviews can be longer, they're typically very short and only serve to praise the seller and the service.
  • Does the review cover both the good and the bad? This is one I personally use off the forum, but when I'm reading review, I prefer reading ones that talk about the pros and cons as that, in my opinion, provides the typical experience of a buyer.
  • Visit the reviewer's profile and scroll through their recent posts. Do they only live on the forum to review services? Do you even see them posting anything other than positive reviews?
  • When you're on the seller's thread, are there multiple reviews in a row posted by users with 1 post who all joined the same date?
  • After reading a negative review, are there suddenly several reviews from new accounts praising the seller and their service?
  • Is the reviewer only leaving reviews for the exact same seller's services?
  • Is their a very short interval (i.e., much faster than the advertised turnaround time) between the buyer placing the order and receiving the service? Bear in mind that there are some instances when they deliver much faster than their TAT because they have fewer customers.
Again, take all of these points together as one of them does not mean that someone is leaving fake reviews. For example, some people do genuinely just have an account so that they can comment in threads and get MMO-exclusive discounts.

If you do feel there fake reviews on a sales thread, please report the review so that our team can investigate it. Please note that not every single report will result in the seller being asked to provide proof as, even though sellers should be reporting fake reviews themselves, some of them don't for a variety of reasons (which can and will result in an infraction). Additionally, fake reviews are not always from the sellers themselves as there have been some instances of fake reviews come from competitors trying to sabotage each other, sometimes it's from the seller themselves, and in some cases, an irate buyer might leave fake reviews.
 

Joey Hodkiewicz

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Apr 22, 2024
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As you have mentioned all the criteria that you check identify a fake review, and what about if anyone is putting fake reviews which considering all these points and avoid the possibilities of getting identified....

Is there only manual actions of identifying the fake reviews or there is any algorithm working behind to identify the fake reviews
 

Dwight Thiel

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Apr 22, 2024
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As you have mentioned all the criteria that you check identify a fake review, and what about if anyone is putting fake reviews which considering all these points and avoid the possibilities of getting identified....

Is there only manual actions of identifying the fake reviews or there is any algorithm working behind to identify the fake reviews
For obvious reasons, we don't provide details about how our systems work.
 
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