Fake online reviews: How easily can you buy a reputation? (CBC Marketplace)
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- Опубликовано: 6 ноя 2014
- Faking It | Originally broadcast November 7, 2014
The better the reviews, the more we trust a business. And for companies that means a better bottom line. In a months-long investigation, we went undercover posing as a new business, and discover how companies can buy a positive reputation online.
We reveal an entire industry devoted to helping businesses mislead you. Host Erica Johnson reveals how cheaters pull it off, and how you can spot a faker.
More from CBC Marketplace, Canada's top consumer affairs show:
Watch episodes online at cbc.ca/marketplace
Like us on Facebook: / cbcmarketplace
Talk to us on Twitter: / cbcmarketplace
Follow our hosts @cbctom and @cbcerica
It's really sad that she said 'all with the click of a button' when this guy clearly put a lot of work into this image.
[Reptillian] nickhomer40 but thats how he did it. Clicking buttons. He didn't actually go out and paint the truck.
Actually it was a lot of button clicks.
It is more work than she makes it out to be, but I'd say it was probably between 30min to 1 1/2hours for a pro graphic designer to shop the truck and logo. Its just a lot of masking and throwing the bucket in.
He didn't do that good of a job tbh because the sun rays from the logo doesn't cover the front-side of the truck; the rays just ends at the door.
It wasn’t meant to be taken so personally
that part was so cringeworthy!
I wrote a negative review on a Ben and Jerry's ice cream I tried and they gave me a free coupon to apologize and keep my business. They didn't try to hide anything. That's what a good business does.
so they bribed you?
axer351 😂
@@axer3515 tbh you could call it bribing, but the person who wrote the review can still leave it up. Sure, it's likely to get you to change it, but it's not direct bribing. If it were contingent on you changing your review? Oh yeah, definitely bribing.
@@BobSmith-tm2kj I know that. I have had places lots of placers give me free stuff for bad service/product many times. I have also had places give the order free for mistakes.
BurgundyandBlue1111 sadly I’ve seen this on Facebook. Most companies, instead of reaching out to the customer privately, they post a generic apology and give you a link to follow. It either has a coupon code or a way to submit a more detailed written explanation of that issue with the promise of it being handled.
I find the negative reviews or those who have less than full start ratings more reliable. Most places have good reviews (and typically too many of them), but the bad reviews let me know whether their mistakes are tolerable. Not all bad reviews are 100% negative either.
Thing is, most people wont leave a review unless it's bad. Most people wont go out of there way to say somethings good, but the opposite is true, and in many cases that review is worthless because no company is perfect. Also, if you're referring to yelp, that sites a joke. Nothing but hipsters, posers, and wanna be food critics.
Yes, most people won't review unless it's bad. But if you look through a bunch of reviews and they are all saying the same thing, you know it has to be true. Then you decide for yourself. Does the lure of soup dumplings from the only place in town that makes them overcome numerous reviews saying they treat people very poorly and have roaches everywhere?
Like on Steam where there is only thumbs up or down
Where most Thumbs up are just "great game" "loved it" or something like that while the bad reviews often tell you what they didn't like about the game which is way more useful and helpful to know
@@socogremlin sometime people review bomb products which really doesn't help
this is so true
Did this video really get 85 thousand views or did they pay some one?
+Josh Hughes what a waste of taxpayer $ Call it "Childish attack on the marketplace that you were forced to pay for"
+Josh Hughes Did u really get 98 likes or did u pay some1 to like you...? ;o
+Josh Hughes no, all of us Canadians did it.
+Josh Hughes doubled in 6 months lol
+Josh Hughes I can't even trust my shadow man...
I like the way they faked the photo editing by turning on layers and pretending you can manipulate an image with a single click.
9:21 review A must be real coz "DEFINATLY"lol
I think that they were just trying to show what you can do with editing.
rival companies will give each other bad reviews to try and stomp out the competition
This is why I go check the lower scores first and what people didnt like to get a realistic idea and know whats the worst-case scenario
billygtrr34 Nothing to stop competing businesses from lying.
+billygtrr34 what if the competition is paying to create negative reviews?
I believe that by posing as a doctor, dietician or licensed financial planner she exposed herself to a potential liability lawsuit by anyone that was harmed by the service or product she lied about.
Riptide 10x
People still buy her lies.
Is she in prison now?
I had to pause at 6 mins to go make a grilled cheese ...
MrBeard17 YUMMY.
I made it to the first showing of the logo. I don't even know when that was!
lol
Same
Me three
This is why you go straight to the negative reviews and read them, if they're minor gripes or trolls, then it should be fine.
***** Well, those ones tend to be very, very obvious!
lmao. even the editor is looking at "After Effects Tutorial" 4:50
Red cq
no
master king4 ?
Red I saw that too.😅😅😅
8 years into after effects and still watching tutorials almost everyday. Everyone does that haha
As a business owner I really hate this... I wish these people could get into trouble or sued for this fake shit.
William Dean they can it's called slander
William Dean ok boomer
What's usually the most suspicious is when you see equal 1 star to 5 star ratios or worse. All around the same posting date/time. There's no way the product/service can be that terrible AND that good at the same time.
If only my ex had a review site.
Life would have been great right now.
alejo
ratemyex.com 😂
Next season on Black Mirror rateYourEx dot com
@@AmazinqCutie 9:21
I usually never read 5* reviews as I assume most of them are shills. Mostly I'll read a bunch of 3* and 4* reviews to help form my opinion. I'll also read any 1* reviews.
Alex Mckillmore 2-3 star reviews are what I look out for, now, 5 star reviews do happen.
But don't look at 1 star reviews, because half the time, it's just customers crying because something got broken during shipping, or a game doesn't run on their OS, and they hurt the companies review reputation for no reason.
Azal no they don't it's their right to complain the customer is always right.
I usually give 4 stars for any decent stores or businesses. I rarely give 5, and if that happen, something special must have happened or the quality is just, the best at the city. I also rarely give 1 star rating, unless everything's literally off the track. Rude service, barely answers any questions I have, don't have the spirit to do the work, indecent quality of work.
@@technologyproductions-ye3px Walmart told me that and I can confirm costumers don’t know how to read nor find prices.
I read fake reviews for a dentist and got bad braces, so now my teeth and jaw are in really bad shape. This was a really expensive lesson for me.
Marco C i had a similar experience with a dentist. Dont trust all those positive reviews online. Word of mouth or recommendations from friends or family is the way to go
@Cavsome maybe that's due to the pending malpractice litigation.
This is why you should ask friends/family before the Internet.
That's who wrote the reviews for my business. Disowned my sister when she gave me 2 stars
I was looking for a new dentist so I decided to read reviews of a few of them before making a decision. I chose the one that had the best reviews and went to my appointment. He was everything they described on the review sites. His staff also sents you a text after every appointment with a link to three different review sites so you can leave a review if you want. That's how confident he is that he is doing a great job.
Although I don’t live in Canada I always watch your shows which I find very insightful and helpful. Thank you for all the hard work you put in your shows to make consumers more aware and safe.
Who makes a video testimonial for a food truck anyways lol
I love this comment. She sounded like she was ready to sell the product next.
No doubt.
In NC food trucks are popular.
Who'd STILL make a video testimonial? Who'd make a video testimonial for ANY store or brand without it being paid??
Most reviews are faked. It happens all the time. Many foolish people out there, and they so "doopily" believe everything they see online.
Some unknown persons approves or disapproves a product and they believe every word as if it's the gospel truth.
They forgot the orange wheels from rest of the pics :#
Ikr
stuck out to me too
Same, just doesn't look as good without the orange wheels.
I hope their graphic designer gets fired for that!!! AWFUL.
@@maitdavis9006 stamp
I also don't trust Yelp I've had the same experience with their reviews. Out of curiosity, I once checked restaurants that haven't opened yet in a local mall and they already had positive Yelp reviews. The owners were already at work posting great reviews of themselves.
damn they just ruined those two girls careers 😂
careers? Lol, those women are fraudsters!
@Advanced Burrito Well actually, this was probably really good advertisement for them. Because how many young people actually watch the news? Older people watch the news more so, but probably do less shopping online than younger people.
Advanced Burrito Careers? PLEASE. Those women are complete frauds and con artists. They deserve to be exposed.
Kevin J the people who hire them are the frauds.
Advanced Burrito I feel that they got free advertisement.
My husband had called an AC repair company because of their all 5 star reviews. When they came out to fix our central air, the guy tried to rip us off for $5k. He was in the backyard for less than 15 minutes, just to come back in to tell us our entire unit needed to be replaced. We called a 2nd company, the guy took 20 minutes to fix our central air and only charged us $180. Be very weary at all 5 star reviews -- especially if they're most recent reviews was from 5 year's ago! Which was the case of the 1st Ac repair company that came out. Had my husband realized they didn't have any recent reviews, he would've known to slowly back away.
Ah, a true editor is defined at 4:54 where we can clearly see he has Adobe After effects tutorial bookmarked. Don't blame him though, AE is quite the tricky one.
I constantly have books and websites open for things I work on, even if I know what I'm doing. It helps in case you need a quick reference, or want to check something, or want to compare it to someone else's work/idea.
They should do some shows in the US. We have plenty of these bottom feeder white collar crimes.
It's called dateline and crime watchers. They always exposing people!
I ate there yesterday.
Lol
I already disregard all positive reviews. What could you possibly learn from someone who doesn't think theres anything wrong with the product? The only problem is companies are getting smarter and starting to write as good of a bad review as they can.
These videos deserve more views.
There's a TRICK to read the TRUE comments and not the fakes
IGNORE the 5 stars: These are the people who no matter what, likes the product/service even if the product has some faults.
IGNORE the 1 stars: These are the people who hate the product/service no matter.
The only reviews or ratings that are important are 2-4 stars.
Also IGNORE the reviews that are long as fawk. No average person is THAT obsessed with a product NOR do they have time to write such long essays for JUST a review.... UNLESS it's their job to do that which means those are the people who were hired to give 5/5 ratings. Hopefully that made sense
But seriuosly, they should make this illegal. Such false advertisement
I read a guys comment who had a ocarina and he strapped that shit and asked a girl out to prom while singing the song of time
Read the 3 stars.
TheCyberQuake There's not a lot of people like you. Logically speaking, you are the minority.
Ofcourse there are exceptions. A 5 star review who posts their cons is definitely a readable review.
But in my definition a 5 star product is one with no flaws and is PERFECT. It's almost impossible to give a product 5/5 stars but it happens once in a blue moon :).
So with that definition if you're posting cons about a product, it should be at most 4 stars (to me). But we all got different definitions of what a 5 star product is.
I run my own computer repair business and have over 100 reviews, all 5 star, so what reviews will you read, or would you just pass up my excellent service altogether? :P
nambinhvu Yeah some products/services are actually so good they don't get 3 star reviews. Hard to believe, but I've actually bought a product like that and agreed it was a very good product.
We are trying to grow our channel and will never buy faked reviews or subscribers. I believe if anyone want to find our show, they will eventually be there. Given we don't make money, we don't have the budget anyways to do that. So, if anyone want to help, visit our Kickstarter page - kck.st/1LblNM3
I was just browsing RUclips and I came across this program. It really opened my eyes to the deception. The presenters were friendly and honest and really helped me understand the widespread problem. After watching Marketplace, I felt like I had a better grasp of just how deep the rabbit hole goes. I will definitely watch this program again and recommend it to my friends.
Thanks Marketplace!
Who uses Yelp anyway?
I just go to a restaurant and dont give a f about the stars
I trust the bad ones... Not sooo much the good ones. Like, there is no reason to lie about the bad stuff.
Anastasiya Hoefflinger Well, there is if one is getting back at being rebuffed for a date, or a broken relationship with someone working there!
Yes there is if you want to ruin someone's business or reputation.
I lie all the time. If i dont like the way the staff treats me i just say whatever i want cockroaches etc etc i just dont want them to have business because they seemed to not care about me. Any business with employees that dont care get a bad review from me.
Anastasiya Hoefflinger competitor companies
@@richardvargus7443 actual scumbag
That moment when you finish watching the video and question the video itself.
What if they paid for their views? Their subcpscribers? Are the deceptors the ones accusing the deceptions ?! What is going on D:
What if you're paid for...whatever? lol
You are now entering the Twilight Zone.
Kaepora Gaebora dodudodudo
That is a question you should always ask; are they genuine in seeking the truth? or they only want some views or degrade some companies for the benefit of others? A genuine question there is, as a rational human being, how can I be so sure your word is right? The question said before, are they genuine in seeking the truth? Whose side is gonna benefit from this, or suffer from this? When someone accuses drugs, is he really against drugs? Or he is only suggesting cigarettes are the left option there. Take FB issue there; not the privacy, if FB was accused and not innocent of the American elections, someone was trying to inflict idea changing. When someone is being too nice even though you don't know him personally, is he doing it for who he is? Or trying to butter up (CBS in India) you to monopolize you to his offers.
Do you want to be shocked? Recycling waste might not be as green as you thought; if companies were genuine, they should have used green materials in the beginning, AND NOT using what is harming the environment in the first place and then recycling it to clean it up.
Wow. This is eye opening. Tks for this. Good work Marketplace. U guys are awesome.
The photo shop on the truck doesn't even look real lol
"After Effects Tutorial" seems like the Design Department works like every other part of IT :D
I get the point they are making, but creating a website, decking out the truck, and using all the advertising that they did on this video are generally things that cost quite a bit for businesses. Any startup business that can cover all those things I'd assume would start off pretty well
I love the "Fake" website!! Looks real enough, the graphics on the truck are spot on and the pictures of the grilled cheeses are awesome!!
The video cracked me up to. The sandwich that she made was nothing special at all and she made it seem like it was the best thing sense Cheese Wiz!
since not sense :P
I think one indicator of whether a review is valid can be found in the wording. Note that the vast majority of posts on RUclips, as well as most e-mail messages, contain absolutely atrocious grammar and spelling. It's an unfortunate fact that most people today are either totally incompetent writers, or they just don't care, and don't proof-read what they write. On the other hand, people who write fake reviews have made writing their profession, so they're good at it. Therefore, I think that if a review is poorly written, it's probably real! That doesn't mean that correct grammar and spelling indicate a fake....there are STILL a few of us (like ME!) around who know how to write.
And me! Lol
Trust a review because it's badly written? That's as dumb as entering two spaces after a period.
John Techwriter 'Two spaces after a period' was a Standard some years back!
Well, many people writing online messages, may use English as a second language, like myself. So, there are may reasons beyond grammar mistakes.
I am a great writer and make sure that both the positive and negative side of my experiences are noted in the review.
Amazing documentary exposing the BIG problem with validating legitimacy with online reviews, I am going to share this with my students from my social media class at the Schulich School of Business
***** uh.... why?
Never ever imagined this🙀. Holy cow! Thank you CBC!!!
that logo better be a vector
Steam reviews can't be placed unless you have and have played the game or app
Still doesn't remove the facts that there are troll reviews and retards giving a good quote just because the game has achievements or cards... And retards making shit Greenlight games and Unity Store Asset flips be accepted on Steam.
actually steam also has something in place for reviews like troll and retards which is the averager.if a score out of no where is to high or to low it may be removed for the best accurate score possible.
Brianna Harter The problems is that it doesn't work.
well still better then most systems.it just relies on more evened out reviews.but it's no prefect system by any means.
theshadowsniper5 only like .2-.5 an hour, not hard to make a bot play the game for half an hour.
And this is why amazon has that verified purchase thing.
Sellers give a full refund on exchange for a good review
I ordered a phone case and there was an insert that said if I gave a 5 star review I could get a free gift they also wrote to not say anything about the offer
I've never gotten that & I order often so that's not every seller or their practice.
Wow, great video. I really enjoyed my time here on this channel. The journalists were joking around with me and I had lots of fun.
Hello from Houston Texas.......LOVE CBC Marketplace Stories, Thank for SHARING Erica!!!
I bet that if you can pay people to write a glowing review of your buisness, you can also pay them to trash rival businesses. That would be incredibly damaging
My review looks more like a lab report. Con, Pro and conclusion with some data if available.
I need review for my business , how much do you charge?
Right that's how it should be... Strictly facts...
I love love love this show.
alot of ways i can tell a review is fake is if its 5 stars, extremely good grammar, and no negative comments about the thing they are talking about.
Thumbs up to this vid. This message is totally not from Bangladesh.
Exactly!
i don't check reviews if I'm going to a restaurant i will pass by that restaurant and see the expression of people coming out. I like to try new things if i see a restaurant with a good amount of people i think it would have to make seem like a good restaurant. But for other things like key smiths do not used reviews mostly all key smith are terrible but go to real key shops. i guess my mind is just used to knowing the different of bs and real.
FAINTEN17 When you're about to blow thousands of dollars on a holiday overseas, it's a good idea to look at reviews on hotels and flights etc... You cant exactly just walk past
This is why I tend to check between 1-3 star reviews first, with maybe 4 star ones if they look promising, most people I know don't just give out 5 star reviews even if they really love a place so I always question the 5 star ones, the 1-3 stars are more likely to be honest reviews
For all the consumers know, it's the companies themselves that are either praising themselves or bashing the other.
that why I only read the negative ones as those are more likely to be true
The feel when you realize this is a YELP advertisement.
In my opinion negative reviews are the best source of valuable info. Companies only buy positive reviews (obviously), so negative reviews have a higher probability of being real.
Pity I trust no one. I make up my own mind, I never read reviews of anything, EVER.
I could care less what someone else's opinion is. My mind is not easily manipulated.
Tom: "i'm gonna get rid of the window..."
Erica: "just gone"
Tom: "Straighten it out a little bit..."
Erica: "ah so much better!"
Tom: "Put on social media branding..."
Erica: "Just like that!"
Tom: "Add the logo.."
Erica: "ahh that looks great!"
Tom"......I really would prefer it if you didn't talk any more."
I always ask my friends about a places and listen to what they say.If you are visiting a new place ask a local. I don't mind if you ask me about a place to eat, visit or stay. If you stop by my city.
its always a great thing to compare those reviews to actual marketing from a company, theyre quite similar
I am happy that you are letting people Know,I just find it hard to beleive that people don't allready know about these kind of thing's.Even the news and other advertisements are mostly fiction.
That is why I only check those negative ones.
+fellow111411 people can do that for revenge too what if food was really tasty :p
+Shivam Sharma Conspiracy theories... Dun Dun duhhh.
if you know advanced body language you will see all the signals 'san pan' gives to show she is lying!, shaking head when making a seemingly correct statement, also turning her head when making a statement instead of looking straight on. lots of blinking, eyebrows lifting too high and animated when making a statement. look up some videos on how to spot a liar and on body language and you will se what i mean
118,264 views but only 767 likes
Not everyone replied or likes
i wish they gave a shot of the a and b reviews
Always look at the complaints. Complaints are made by real people. Some are morons but some are decent people with real complaints.
lol when she said hay google it activated my phone!!
Iv had that happen to me.. But it was something close to hay Siri..... And then she messed up the RUclips video I was watching.... :(
This made me realize that yelp would likely think I'm a robot. (But, of course, it's impossible for them to be completely accurate.) I often accompany my review with a relevant story and tend to be enthusiastic with praise. If I love it, I don't feel the need to say what I don't like about it...unless that also made an impact, rather than being just a side-note. And, by the way, as a recent CBC News subscriber, I love Marketplace! Great and eye-opening stories!!
Excellent journalism thank you
CBS probably killed that sand ladies little career lol
at 0:20 to 0:29 bad acting....
Wait that was supposed to look real?!😂😂
xD
kind of seemed like the start of a porno
at 0:00 to 22:20 bad acting....
Competitors also post phony reviews on products as well. Some sites try to confirm whether the product was bought from them, but they can still buy the product and post a bogus review. In many cases a product will have a positive review even when they had to reorder the product for a defect, and they state how excellent the service was, and others would complain that the service was bad.
Having waited tables with the goal of waiting tables, I have seen many things that unscrupulous ladder climbers do. I don't review restaurants online and don't intend to but I do analyse the reviews and provide feedback.
Its common among poorly or abusively managed premises to see staff use the online rating systems to have friends and acquaintances write positive reviews about their performance.Who do attend the venue. These reviews are easy to spot as although they don't rate everything as perfect they will use words like "amazing" "bespoke" etc and it's common they mention how unusually well they were received or greeted. Quality restaurants don't need to anyone do this on their behalf..
These places have people in the middle who have convinced themselves their negative reviews don't reflect their service. They think negative reviews are coming from "enemies". This is mainly because as well as positive reviews their Tactics also include submitting negative reviews/ complaints internally/externally to cover up their misdemeanors. Which I have seen done for a range of things escalating from, abuse of company policy, stealing staff tips, drug dealing sexual harassment/abuse in which involvement of police becomes necessary.
When they think hack your social accounts and think your entire comments is there for them.
How is this any different then tv commercials? for decades we have watched fake testimonies, infomercials, and actors that tell us theirs is the best product. We are the consumer, it's up to us to use our head and make intelligent decisions. Greed will always drive people to deception, and our search for happiness will buy into it blindly.
So you got rid of the window, then put it back..?
I learned a lot from this - thank you!
My husband and I have a watch business. We have busted our bums to keep all our reviews positive. If a negative review come in we would do whatever it takes to make the costumer happy. We’ve given watches away almost. We have about 3500 reviews all positive.
So people need to understand that they’re honest SMALL companies trying to make people happy with the products we sell.
Not everyone is trying to scam you!
He had an after effects tutorial video open. Did they pay the guy to be their "graphics department"?
we all gotta learn someway
Did they use microsoft paint to make that logo?
Market place you guys are doing great job keep it up ✌🏻
We have a small local business and our main competition is a large corporation. We noticed that some of their reviews seemed to have been suspicious. For our small company trying to depend on real reviews, it hurts our business. We have no intention of cheating on our positive reviews and as you know most people like to go online to leave negative comments. Many of our clients come to us from ther office complaining about their business practices and yet they have oddly glowing reviews all left within a couple of months pushing the negative reviews down the list. Doesn't seem very fair when you're playing by the rules and being lawful but large company's are able to fund the fabrication of positive reviews. Just one more way that large corporations drive out the small family owned businesses. We will continue to offer our quality services with honesty and integrity because that's how we like to win over our clients.
i only look at bad reviews no reason to ever look at a 5 stars over a 1 stars
Review : Cheesed off employees Don’t Wear 🧤... 👩🏼🍳 ... 🤦🏽♂️
I'm completely floored by the fact people could just straight up buy RUclips views. Guess it's a good thing I look at, read and base my decision on the bad reviews.
I like how when I tried review skeptic and used the last review as a test, it said it was truthful...
It seems to be that in CANADA there is fewer CRIME than in USA, yes, les crime done by people, but more crime done by companies.
Facebook reviews, or "likes" is the same way...
Wow! Hadn't thought about this before, but it does explain why there are places I've been that were clearly sketchy, with very good reviews...I'll be more critical in the future
As a rule I FRIST. READ THE WORST reviews 1st and work my way up to the better ones if I haven’t given up after reading too many BAD REVIEWS
Ok I’ll do that
"reviews on sites like yelp, Google+ and..." Google+ is a social media network, I think you mean Google maps :3
what even is google+ ?
This is why I always check the NEGATIVE reviews, and won't trust any review website that doesn't show them.
Whenever I look at reviews, and I see 5 negative ones, even if the good ones outnumber the bad ones, I’m not trusting anyone related with that place/product.
The logo is very Southpark style
i guess ill have to live in Antarctica now after all these videos
Market Place . . . you are a God sent !
It is utter shame that universities of Canada depends on reference letters for the admissions of the candidate to professional training courses.
Anybody with good official contacts get reference letter from recognized professional and then the candidate is considered worth for a seat, which in reality may be not.
Biased teachers, professors and employers are in the position to dictate the selection criteria.
Admission to reputed universities should avoid using references. Selection criteria has to be dependent on previous academic records, work experiences and relevant pre- written tests for the job/admissions.
Some pre-written test are ridiculous, in the way, they are off topic.