Fake self-reviews by scammers

coolpop · 07-04-2009, 01:04 PM

Apparently there is nothing to prevent dishonest merchants from placing their own fake "glowing" reviews.. check out jerseyshoredigital

This undermines RR.. real problem seems to me

Admin RR · 07-04-2009, 09:17 PM

Over the past 15 years we have developed a wide variety of methods to detect and prevent fraudulent reviews. We regularly catch merchants submitting fake reviews and when we do, we publish a public note at the top of the page detailing our findings. Usually the note stays up for 30 days for a first offense but can become permanent.

When in doubt, we contact reviewers to obtain proof of their transactions in the form of a credit card statement. You won't find this level of dedication to preventing fraud at ANY other ratings site.

Your assumption about the reviews for Jersey Shore Digital being fake is based on what evidence, exactly, other than your own personal belief that they should have a bad rating? If that's the case, then you're basically proposing that our site is useless, and the reviews written by actual customers should be circumvented if there's anecdotal evidence out there suggesting that a store has a bad reputation.

At the present time, we have no reason to suspect any of the Jersey Shore Digital reviews as being faked. They originated from geographically diverse computers and do not match any of our other known patterns of fraud. I can assure you that if and when fraud occurs, we find it, and we act.

Last week, the New York Office of the Attorney General announced a partnership with ResellerRatings, as well as settlement agreements with a number of online camera scammers that we helped to get thrown out of the state of new york. We are very aware of fraud.

frostbitetwice · 07-06-2009, 11:24 AM

There appears to have been 3 or 4 threads recently, attacking the creditability of RR...

This thread is no different that those....The author could not even leave a compound sentence behind...

His whole premise is based on a sole, single example..

Admin RR · 07-06-2009, 11:28 AM

Yes we've heard it all before. It's easy to invent accusations based on nothing but hunches and thin air and it's often difficult for us to prove a negative -- if someone accuses us of something that we don't do, how do we prove that we don't do something? All we can do is let our reputation speak for itself, which is powerful enough, except for those who are new to our site.

In the case of fake reviews, it's pretty easy to see that we do detect and remove them, thanks to the public notes that we add to reviews pages when we find fake reviews.

We do appreciate tips though -- if someone suspects fake reviews, tell us so, and we'll check them out, even going so far as to ask the customer(s) to provide copies of their credit card statements as proof of their orders in the case where we suspect that a merchant posted fake reviews. But it shouldn't be assumed that reviews are fake, or that we don't do anything to detect them.

coolpop · 07-10-2009, 09:39 AM

jerseyshoredigital is the successor to 1wayphoto, well known scammer. The latter has a rating of 0.8 and the former a rating of 9.32. Does that seem reasonable to you?

The problems with JSD are detailed on this blog:thoughts-of-dave: Beware of Jersey Shore Digital aka jerseyshoredigital BAIT AND SWITCH. Among the things he picked up; reviews which were copied directly from old 1wayphoto site.

If RR has not picked this up, your quality controls clearly do not work.

joelcva · 07-10-2009, 10:10 AM

I noticed two of my positive reviews have not shown up yet. Just wondering why. After I saw this thread I thought maybe somebody suspected they were too good to be true or something. I just want to say they were honest reviews with companies I have done business with for many years.

Admin RR · 07-10-2009, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coolpop

jerseyshoredigital is the successor to 1wayphoto, well known scammer. The latter has a rating of 0.8 and the former a rating of 9.32. Does that seem reasonable to you?

The problems with JSD are detailed on this blog:thoughts-of-dave: Beware of Jersey Shore Digital aka jerseyshoredigital BAIT AND SWITCH. Among the things he picked up; reviews which were copied directly from old 1wayphoto site.

If RR has not picked this up, your quality controls clearly do not work.

Once again your logic if flawed. We do not subjectively pick ratings for merchants. Nor do we remove reviews solely on the basis of a merchant's past reputation, a hunch, or any other subjective BS. We are VERY AWARE of online camera scammer stores. If this store is a new successor to a previous scammer, then bad reviews will very quickly appear and bring down the rating. At this point, the reviews appear to be legit.

Admin RR · 07-10-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joelcva

I noticed two of my positive reviews have not shown up yet. Just wondering why. After I saw this thread I thought maybe somebody suspected they were too good to be true or something. I just want to say they were honest reviews with companies I have done business with for many years.

Two of your reviews are in the 48 hour pending queue. If you edit them, you restart that 48 hour clock. After 48 hours, they appear live.

joelcva · 07-10-2009, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Admin RR

Two of your reviews are in the 48 hour pending queue. If you edit them, you restart that 48 hour clock. After 48 hours, they appear live.

Is the waiting period different for all positive reviews compared to those that are negative or slightly negative? I noticed my negative reviews showed up right away.

Admin RR · 07-10-2009, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joelcva

Is the waiting period different for all positive reviews compared to those that are negative or slightly negative? I noticed my negative reviews showed up right away.

No, but you probably reviewed stores that don't belong to our merchant member program. Merchant Members get 48 hours to read and respond to all new reviews before they appear live. This incentivizes them to try to satisfy the customer before their review appears and is a big part of the service that ResellerRatings provides -- we're not just a place for people to rant, we actually help you get any issues resolved, because Merchant Members (and there are currently 440) get an email alert of any new review and can contact you to try to resolve any issues.