KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many online shoppers are discovering something a North Kansas City woman found out when she was trying to purchase a cell-phone car mount on Amazon — many online reviews are bogus.
Marjon Monfared, realized that there were 20 or 30 five-star ratings per day for at least 3 days on a product.
"This pattern of you know, 3, 4, 5 days of having 30 reviews on the same day it just to me seemed very unusual, irregular," said Monfared.
The Chief Strategy Officer at FakeSpot.com, Ming Ooi, said it's common now for products to have fake reviews.
"Companies know that they can't sell their products without positive customer reviews," said Ooi. He explained that many companies are paying consumers in credit or products to post five-star reviews.
Consumers can type in a product number in the FakeSpot.com website to find out if the reviews are legit. Ooi also advises consumers to be suspicious of vague reviews that don't include specifics on how long the product was used and exactly how the product performed.
Monfared believes the reviews for the cell phone mount were fake and she decided not to buy the product. Now, she is hoping Amazon will develop a program to analyze reviews on its site and warn consumers if those reviews are suspicious.
