Rant: Fake TripAdvisor Reviews

I was not aware of this on Trip Advisor (it's called astroturfing -- correct?)

My sis-in-law has a home-based business and "reviews" herself under fake Facebook accounts and asks family and friends to write reviews as well. I told her I wouldn't because I wasn't one of her customers, and tried to explain that it was also unethical (that was a waste of time).

MRG said:
The thing I do not like is they allow the reviewee to message you back.
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Oh yeah. I gave a place an unflattering review once and -- Wow! -- did I get an profanity-laced message from the owner! :blush:
 
RunningBum said:
I left a pretty detailed review. TripAdvisor removed it because the restaurant said that I must've gotten it confused with another place. I told TripAdvisor I was absolutely certain I had the right place, even had a picture in front of it, and that this was a bogus way to get a good overall rating, by getting the bad ones removed.
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I had this experience with Yelp (and it was one of the reasons I dumped Yelp).

I wrote a pretty balanced review of a place that only had around 10 reviews -- they were all glowing reviews by people with one or two reviews. Even though I was a Yelp "Elite" reviewer with a couple of hundred reviews, they complained and Yelp removed my review.
 
Human said:
I use Fakespot.

https://www.fakespot.com

It analyzes reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon...and assigns a grade. Super helpful.
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Interesting- I checked a resort in Nepal where I just stayed and had written a review of my own; the indication was that 50% of the 931 reviews might be fake. (I now have 300 reviews and gave it 4 stars.) Will definitely be using fakespot in the future.
 
Like others, when I write a restaurant review (I have written maybe ten.) I rate it based on what it represents itself to be. A place in IL that advertises itself as a specialist in horseshoe sandwiches and delivers the goods could well get a higher rating than a Ruth's Chris that served an overdone steak.

MRG said:
... Two of the worst meals ever. 1. A McTartare burger. Absolutely raw in the middle. ...
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I never heard of a McTartare burger but you do know that steak tartare is beef served raw, right?
 
I can't recall ever feeling I was completely misled by a TA review.

Yes I don't trust reviewers with low numbers of reviews and hotels or restaurants which only have a handful of reviews.
 
davebarnes said:
Yelp has a similar problem.
I read 300+ Yelp reviews daily and flag all the fake ones.
Many, most, get nuked.

You can do the same with TripAdvisor.
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That’s good to know with Yelp. Although sounds like they are too ready to remove bad reviews if the restaurant complains.

I don’t trust TripAdvisor. I think they have a conflict of interest because they sometimes enter into agreements with hotels, etc., being reviewed, and in some cases this may skew the reviews.

And there are other conflicts of interest.
 
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JoeWras said:
I'm a compensated reviewer for a big box store. I've told my story before. I get free product for review. It is all in the open, as our reviews are tagged.

Nothing fake about it if you follow the given rules.

However, the psychology of writing a review for compensation plays with your brain. I recently had a kitchen faucet that was the biggest piece of garbage I ever saw. Gave it a 1, wish I could have given it a zero. Yet, my fellow compensated reviewers gave it a 5. I swear that many of them didn't even install it or open the box, they just resold it on ebay. This is all against the rules. No matter, when money is involved, the fakery creeps in.

I wish my Big Box sugar daddy would pay more attention to these people, who, by the way, the big box outlet chose. You don't apply for this. They need to cull more of the reviewers who fall into this bad habit.
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I have run into many products that have ONLY been reviewed by people who openly stated they’d received the product. It makes me very leery of the product. I’m less likely to buy.
 
Fakespot is very interesting.
I just tried it out on three hotels we recently stayed at. Two were in Europe, one in the US.

The European hotels had great reviews on TripAdvisor, and we also thought they were wonderful. Fakespot gave them both low scores, but I really think it's because a lot of the reviews were in other languages. The one in the US got a high Fakespot score, which seemed much more accurate. So I think they do best when the reviews are in English.
 
I've gone to Yelp reviews that were awesome and then some that were horrid. As far as I'm concerned they are just as much a crapshoot as picking our a place by random.
 
Re: the product provider contacting you after you review...

Well, I nearly stopped reviewing on Amazon due to this. After a few bad reviews, I got pummeled by the product provider to "help" me so I could change my review to 5-star. One product was a little USB key to provide bluetooth. They insisted on sending me another version of their cheap piece of junk to make me "happy." I got it, but it still didn't work. Obviously a software problem. No problem, they'll send me another to make me "5-star happy." I had to tell them to STOP already, my review was what it was. They responded with a cry-baby response on how this mom and pop outfit would die due to my one response.

Ridiculous.

On my big-box reviewer job, they don't allow modifications of the original review. On one hand, I don't like this because I can't modify something that breaks 6 months later. But on the other hand, it stops the nonsense I got on Amazon where they brow-beat you to change a review.
 
gindie said:
I assumed he was indicating that he received a bad hamburger from McDonalds.
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If so, the reference was too subtle for me! Steak tartare burgers do exist.
 
braumeister said:
The European hotels had great reviews on TripAdvisor, and we also thought they were wonderful. Fakespot gave them both low scores, but I really think it's because a lot of the reviews were in other languages. The one in the US got a high Fakespot score, which seemed much more accurate. So I think they do best when the reviews are in English.
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Thanks for this observation; I checked 3 places I rated highly in the US and two got "A" scores and one a "B". The "B" was for a pub/distillery that opened less than a year ago and has only 38 reviews. The food was standard pub stuff but their small-batch wheat whisky was so good I bought a bottle to take home.

I'll just have to take the Fakespot scores with a grain of salt when researching places with a lot of reviews in languages other than English.
 
OldShooter said:
Like others, when I write a restaurant review (I have written maybe ten.) I rate it based on what it represents itself to be. A place in IL that advertises itself as a specialist in horseshoe sandwiches and delivers the goods could well get a higher rating than a Ruth's Chris that served an overdone steak.

I never heard of a McTartare burger but you do know that steak tartare is beef served raw, right?
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Well you haven't lived until you've had a McDonald's patty served raw in the middle. Yummy.

BTW: That was the only McDonald's I've ever seen that went paws up.
 
braumeister said:
Agree. If I'm writing a review of a brewpub, I'll rate it in terms of all the other brewpubs I've been to lately. Certainly not in terms of how it stands against other types of restaurant. Seems to me that if people don't read the reviews with that in mind, they just don't understand how it's supposed to work.
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+1. I’ve given 5 stars to burger joints right along with fancy high end restaurants. I compare them to their peers.
 
Over 5000 reviews.

So there's got to be a lot of honest reviews there.
 
CaliKid said:
Fake reviews on all sites: yelp, amazon, TA, etc.... Just part of the reality of the world we live in. Sucks for sure. Funny websites on the topic if you google buying fake reviews.
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+1. I use and post reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor, occasionally Amazon **. But you have to be very thorough researching, there are fake reviews almost everywhere these days. Some firms pay employees and/or “pro online reviewers” to write them, even give them talking points or copy. Like much progress in the world, it’s two steps forward, one step back.

** An aside, but I get questions from others on products I’ve reviewed. Some are reasonable questions, but at least half of them are really idiotic...
 
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braumeister said:
Agree. If I'm writing a review of a brewpub, I'll rate it in terms of all the other brewpubs I've been to lately. Certainly not in terms of how it stands against other types of restaurant. Seems to me that if people don't read the reviews with that in mind, they just don't understand how it's supposed to work.
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That’s one of the problems with online reviews, and it works both ways. It only makes sense to review businesses within their niche, a great brewpub, diner, or $$$$ restaurant can be 5 stars among peers. IME:
  • It’s not fair to compare a $$ restaurant to a $$$$ restaurant and give the $$ restaurant 2 stars because it wasn’t as good.
  • OTOH, it’s not fair to rate a $$$$ restaurant poorly because they cost more than a chain restaurant. Our favorite local artisan pizza place gets a lot of bad reviews from people who rate them poorly because they can get a 10 lb pizza from Little Caesar’s for $5 and the artisan place charges $14-$18 for a Neapolitan style pizza.
  • And the other sad one, people who misunderstand the rating system, write an absolutely glowing review - and award 1 star (where they meant 5 stars).
 
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I don't write any reviews, but read them extensively, especially Yelp. I find Yelp to be a little more accurate than Trip Advisor.
 
One helpful thing about TripAdvisor is that they list the review count of each reviewer right on their review, so a 5* post from a reviewer who had a fantastic time thanks to the helpfulness of Joey and Susie at the front desk can be easily dismissed when you see it's their only review. With Amazon you have to click on the reviewer name to see how many reviews they've done, which is a lot slower process.
 
When I’m doing my research, I focus on the bad reviews. For a product, if there are a number of poor reviews that mention the same issue, I tend to believe it. I also give consideration as to whether that issue would impact me. Maybe everyone is downgrading it for lack of a particular feature that I never plan to use.

For hotels, if there are enough reviews that say the area is bad or the property needs upgraded, I tend to believe that and stay away.

I also tend to throw out the really bad reviews if they seem like some clown with an axe to grind. I don’t hold it against a company to have a few people that are just never satisfied. We have one of those clowns in our family. I won’t go out to eat with them any more because it’s too embarrassing.
 
Well, I did learn how to avoid huge ships due to a pointer to some Amazon reviews. I still have not run into one!
 
I always get a big kick out of the folks on reviews who feel the compulsion to answer a question even when they have nothing to contribute.

Example Question: “What time does the hotel serve breakfast?”

Fairly common Answer: “I don’t know. We didn’t have breakfast there.”
 
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