How many people actually trust this?

@AidaLily (1450)
United States
January 6, 2012 4:49pm CST
I was surfing the internet like I usually do trying to get more information on things to share with people and decided to look up at home jobs again. Now, this isn't a post talking about these jobs per say, but instead questioning a few of them. Paid to Post sites or sites that pay for forum posting, reviews, or article writing. Now I like MyLot a lot and I love that people are paid per post for the discussions they have and responding to other discussions. To me this is a more trusted type website than others even though I haven't been here that long. What I am talking about is being paid from one site to post on others. I mean seriously, it makes you want to double check purchasing things or even the information offered. If your work for one of these sites and the client wants you to write an article on a product for example, so you do your job and get paid for it. Now whenever someone visits that site, they see your review or article and think the information is correct or the product is fantastic. As a consumer, going on sites that would use paid forum posting to up their site traffic, put in 'good' reviews, and so on worry me. I could be pretty much getting scammed while buying a Christmas present then or even trying to find out how many people like a particular recipe or dress. While these jobs may be legitimate to work for, its the people who get scammed from paid forum posters or reviewers. I don't know. What do you guys think? Would you trust buying or getting information from a website that could have people paid to post to it, but never trying it themselves?
1 person likes this
2 responses
@megamatt (14292)
• United States
8 Jan 12
A surprising amount of people are really going to believe a lot of what they lead. And sadly, it is a lot of times where people should really know better. The thing that really gets me the most, is rather when the math does not really add up at all. When a person who is not good enough at math like me can see a lot of things wrong about how things are adding up, then there is something screwy. I think that there are a lot of people who would hype up a lot of things if they are slipped a little money. In fact, celebrities do it all the time, and obviously having the common folk do it will be a lot cheaper to say the very least. I tend to really worry a lot, as it wouldn't be beyond most people to pay people to write glowing reviews. I mean, if they are going to scam people to begin with, then that is an obvious step to take.
7 Jan 12
Welcome to the world of marketing: made-up reviews, fake testimonials and blatant lies to get you to buy! I never trust online reviews unless there's something specific in them. Specific information about the item, such as how they used it, something they particularly liked, something they really didn't like - that kind of thing. Those are more likely to be real than the general "Wow, what a great product" nonsense.
@AidaLily (1450)
• United States
7 Jan 12
I fully agree. It was just a bit surprising how many people used them. I figured there at least would be some company that said 'hmmm... someone might find out this is BS. Maybe we should post negative comments as well so people can choose for themselves'. However, they don't do that at all and to see that when you are thinking of just setting up a fun little site even for just family, it kind of makes you think. I will definitely start looking into more detailed reviews though I've learned to be careful of some of them. I also know that depending on the service some people hound the ones giving free reviews to make the reviews a lot better than what you would actually give them. I've been harassed once to give a better review to absolutely horrible service.