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ashleyw | 6 years ago

I nearly bought a book in Audible last week, but hesitated because something seemed off with the reviews[0]. After a little digging I realised ALL the reviewers had only reviewed this book and another about Keto. And looking on Amazon for the same author "G.S. Hook" I noticed one of the books had reviews which while all unique, were basically all following the same template containing the same exact phrases[1].

I spoke with customer service and gave them specific examples to investigate. They didn't care in the slightest. It's made me realise that their reviews cannot be trusted. "Verified purchase" means nothing. I always chose Amazon over eBay and AliExpress because I thought it was worth the slightly higher prices to have peace of mind that the reviews were policed and what I would receive was genuine and safe. But that's clearly no longer the case.

[0] https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Communication-Skills-Training-T...

(The reviewers have since reviewed other books. But you'll still see the same pattern of the same books being reviewed.)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/COMMUNICATION-MARRIAGE-effective-comm...

(One recurring phrase "which made her realize she had a problem too"

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sgustard|6 years ago

That's pretty bad, and ironic that reviews for a book about communication are all written in such broken English.

Sadly fakespot.com rates that page an A so now I'm sceptical of that site too.

ashleyw|6 years ago

Yes! The first thing I did was check Fakespot. This doesn't even seem that sophisticated. Same phrases, same reviewers, I don't know how Fakespot missed it. I thought those were key markers it uses to determine the validity of reviews!