How stupid do they think we are? Company posting reviews of their own products.
By vivasuzi
@vivasuzi (4127)
United States
January 23, 2009 11:21am CST
A few weeks ago on this review site I write at, one product suddenly got 50+ positive reviews. All the reviews raved about the product, and all the people who wrote those reviews went to any Negative review of the product and left nasty comments.
It was so obvious to all of us at the site that this company was reviewing it's own product. Even the newest, most popular movie does not get 50+ reviews IN ONE DAY! Yet they kept posting them for a few days. There were then 50+ members (one for each review) and the only thing each of these members had done is positively review this product. The few legit members who had written negative reviews of the product got lots of nasty comments.
This just shows me that you HAVE to do full research for things. If you only read one or two reviews, you might think the product is great, but you HAVE to read the other side of the coin too. Go read the negative reviews before deciding. In this case, you would have learned the company was a big scam if you took the time to read the negative reveiws.
The question is, how stupid do companies think we are? Do they really think we would fall for that and say "wow this product sounds great, I must buy it today!!" Do people out there ever fall for this kind of stuff?
2 people like this
5 responses
@greenglitterturtle (2750)
• United States
23 Jan 09
hi vivasuzi...some people will fall for everything sadly. some learn after one or more hard lessons. some are skeptical of everything from the start so they check things out right away.
1 person likes this
@vivasuzi (4127)
• United States
23 Jan 09
I like your turutle pic :)
I think i'm one of the skeptical ones :) You know the whole "innocent until proven guilty theory"??? Well I believe the opposite when it comes to anything online or that someone is trying to sell me. Prove to me you are trustworthy!
@greenglitterturtle (2750)
• United States
23 Jan 09
i was an innocent wide-eyed woman until i got scammed a few times. i woke up and now only trust thru people i know or checking things out including the bad reports. i love the bad when they are truthful. it saves you from being taken.
1 person likes this
@zweeb82 (5653)
• Malaysia
24 Jan 09
Well, sadly many will fall as easy prey because they're too naive. I never believe everything these guys say. In fact I don't usually read any reviews because like what you've pointed out about companies like these that we can hardly even trust
1 person likes this
@vivasuzi (4127)
• United States
29 Jan 09
For me, I will read reviews but I always take them with a grain of salt. I read as many reviews as I can and try to read a fair amount of positive AND negative reviews. However, I go with my gut most the time even if the majority of reviews say differently.
1 person likes this
@explorations (1712)
• United States
23 Jan 09
It's so frustrating when that happens. I wrote for a review site where I saw this happening a few years ago and, as a result, a lot of the very good reviewers stopped writing. It was a shame because the quality of the content diminished quickly, and these people who were trying to push their own products seemed to run rampent. I wish there was some sort of Terms of Conditions standards to prevent such a thing from happening.
1 person likes this
@vivasuzi (4127)
• United States
23 Jan 09
Well hopefully that site has gone down since all the good writers left it. The good news is that the review site I write at took this very seriously and investigated every review that came in about the product. The message board was also filled with conversation about it, basically warning other members this was an obvious scam.
The review site told us that the trouble was that all the reviews came from seperate accounts and even seperate IPs so they had a hard time proving they were fake reviews.
@Wolfechu (1193)
• United States
23 Jan 09
This has been happening for a while; a lot of major companies have sockpuppet accounts on places like Amazon.com to write glowing reviews of their own products. All I would say is see what the user has /also/ written about before taking their word for it.
1 person likes this
@vivasuzi (4127)
• United States
29 Jan 09
Yes I trust most of them. Of course I never make decisions based on reviews alone, especially ones that are wayyyyyy too positive! However since I write reviews and have friends who write them, I trust reviews to the extent they should be trusted - I take it as the person's opinion but I use my own judgement before making the decision.
