ShopfloorShopfloor DEALER PROFILE: KNEES HOME AND ELECTRICAL ADAM BERNSTEIN: RETAIL EXPERT Fake reviews or fake news? 38
As online review manipulation increases, and in an already highly competitive retail market, it is essential that retailers do a ll they can to protect their brand and the credibility of their products and their online presence. If they don’t it’s unlikely that anyone else will.
B
ack in April, the BBC ran a report that outlined how Iain Taylor, a 44-year-old from Sussex, wrote fake online reviews for as little as £4. “I have written reviews
from numbing creams to eBooks to downloadable independent films,” said Taylor, adding: “Since I started doing it, I tell my family and friends not to trust reviews.” Fake reviews are nothing new and have existed for as long as people have been reviewing products and services. However, the explosion of the online retail marketplace has made fake reviews a very lucrative business. As Gwendoline Davies, Head of Commercial Dispute Resolution at law firm Walker Morris, comments, “it can be difficult for businesses to identify, prevent and respond effectively to fake reviews”. But she thinks the tide is turning, noting a recent landmark case that saw an Italian court sentence a man to prison for ‘paid review fraud’ – the first case of its kind.
The effect on the marketplace The problem for retailers and consumers alike is that on selling platforms such as Amazon and TripAdvisor, the number of positive reviews a seller has directly affects its prominence in searches, and a seller with a higher rating is likely to sell more. As Davies knows, consumers have become increasingly reliant on reviews “and the weight given to reviews of a business in general when deciding whether to make a purchase is often greater than that of traditional advertising”. She says that this trend in buyer behaviour has opened the door for those looking to exploit the online marketplace by selling favourable reviews through ‘review brushing’ where people are hired to provide positive feedback in order to boost the vendor up the rankings in online searches.
Of course, fake negative reviews can be devastating – especially for small businesses. A 2015 report in the Telegraph reckoned that “bad reviews and online ‘trolls’ cost UK businesses up to £30,000 a year”. In America, a newlywed couple undertook a campaign of fake negative reviews in respect of their wedding photographer, who was forced to close down his business as a result. But apart from review brushing and the posting of fake reviews, the marketplace is also increasingly experiencing indirect unscrupulous practices, including sellers offering free goods in return for positive reviews; sellers insisting that a refund to a consumer is conditional on the consumer providing a high or five-star rating; or sellers refusing to provide refunds where consumers have posted honest but unfavourable reviews.
How can retailers protect themselves? Davies says retailers can fight back and says that “one tip for spotting fake reviews is to read them carefully. Typically, companies who provide fake review services use several writers for the task, so the first few reviews may appear genuine. However, as more reviews come in, patterns may emerge. A careful analysis of reviews may reveal similarities in style and language which indicate that the reviews came from the same source and are therefore not genuine”. Reputation management software can screen
reviews against various data points (language, date, image, etc) to automatically identify and remove fakes; plus, wherever reviewers have profile pictures of any kind, reverse image searching across the internet can detect those ‘people’ or accounts who post repeated reviews. Firms such as Trustpilot claim to take the matter seriously. It says “…no system is perfect, but computers tend to
be more accurate than the average person reading reviews. That’s why we combine customised software with an international team of dedicated investigators and compliance agents…” Davies says that retailers can deal with fake
reviews in two ways: either respond to reviews directly or hire a marketing firm to do the job (by applying wider strategies for improving a business’s image and ratings). She warns, though, that “any retailer using a marketing firm should ensure that those strategies do not involve review brushing, as that could result in liability, not to mention potential reputational damage, for the retailer itself”.
There are a number of legal routes for retailers to take legal action. Davies outlines a few:
• The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. This bans a number of unfair commercial practices that mislead consumers;
• Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008. This includes, among other things, a general prohibition on misleading advertising which may include false reviews;
• Fraud by false representation. This may apply where a claimant is able to prove the dishonest intentions of the person posting the fake review;
• Providing fake reviews can also constitute a criminal offence under various other statutory provisions and can be punishable.
June 2019
ertonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
