Let’s bring my parents back into the conversation again. They typically do not leave reviews online. Speaking for Watson Buys, we specialize in paying cash for people who are downsizing. These are regularly older people.
Do you see where I am going? (apologies again M and D but old people tend to leave fewer reviews online).
As my parents don’t leave reviews they have what might be a weak review profile. Take each review with a grain of salt.
Now there are some obvious signs a reviewer is fake. Some things to watch out for include:
- Watch out for generic names and/or photo-less profiles.
- They have only left one review
- They haven’t filled out the entire review profile
- You can see the review came from an overseas account
One of the big ways that fake online reviews get generated is from “a faceless offshore company pushing bulk reviews on a site under different accounts,” says Jean Paldan, founder of UK-based marketing firm Rare Form New Media. To spot those, “look for names like John or Jane Smith, or obviously fake names or just numbers and letters. They will 99% of the time not have a profile picture,” Paldan says.
I recently spoke to a real estate agent from Denver, Colorado who had this to say, “I’m not sure how prevalent fake reviews are in the real estate business. That said like any industry there are always some unscrupulous players you must look out for. I find not only are their reviews fake, but their websites are pretty generic too. When looking for a real estate investor to buy your house spend some time on their website. What does your gut tell you? Do some of them look a little too much the same?” Cheers, Angie! I hope we can talk again soon.
