Five stars? With many customer reviews on the Internet, skepticism is required. According to a study commissioned by the EU Commission, websites often lack transparency.
If you want to buy something online, you often read customer reviews of products and suppliers. But users shouldn’t pay too much attention to these customer ratings in online shops, as has now become clear.
Customer ratings in online shops are often not trustworthy
According to a study, customer reviews on numerous websites and online shops in the EU may not be trustworthy. In almost two-thirds of the websites examined, there are corresponding doubts, shared the EU Commission With.
For the report, national consumer protection authorities examined 223 websites such as online shops, search engines and price comparison services. Specific names of the sites were not mentioned.
Websites need to act
According to the information, the authorities could not confirm for 144 pages that the portals had sufficiently checked whether customers actually used the products before they published a customer rating in the online shop. “Today’s results are a clear call for action,” said EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.
It also said that 104 of the 223 websites and online shops did not provide information on how they collect and process customer reviews. 118 pages contained no information on how they intend to prevent fake reviews. According to the EU Commission, at least 55 percent of the websites checked may also violate the Directive on Unfair Business Practices. In order for the websites to be able to correct and improve this, the national authorities should contact the dealers concerned.
Stiftung Warentest comes to a similar result
The Stiftung Warentest also deals with customer ratings in online shops. In the course of research, the employees worked incognito for agencies that offer online retailers reviews for purchase. For example, ten pieces for 100 euros. As a “reviewer” you either get a little money for it. Or you can keep the goods or buy them cheaper.
One result: The agencies immediately got involved in online reviews that were deliberately written critically. According to Stiftung Warentest, two-thirds of the reviews were influenced in this way – in a positive way for retailers. Some products could only be “assessed” on the basis of a photo. If goods were actually purchased in order to qualify as a “verified purchase”, the agency only reimbursed the expenditure after the evaluation was approved. In addition, some of the testers were instructed by the agency to mark good ratings from other reviewers as “useful”.
The Stiftung Warentest therefore advises that buyers in online shops rely less on customer ratings and should instead consult independent tests.
Recognizing false customer ratings in online shops
Georg Tryba from the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center does not consider it possible to recognize fake reviews: “Those who run such a business know the tricks and, for example, deliberately build errors into the text.” But you can give hints by reading other reviews by the reviewer: “If the profile only has five-star ratings, you should be skeptical.”
In some cases, special search engines also help to find suspicious formulations in reviews. The “ReviewMeta” website, for example, helps to unmask fake customer reviews in Amazon’s online shop. You can read exactly how the tool works in the article “Exposing fake Amazon ratings very easily”.
If an online review seems suspicious, you can also report it. However, according to experts, this is not enough to effectively combat counterfeiting. The Federal Cartel Office comes after a sector inquiry came to the conclusion that “many portals could do a lot more to prevent the publication of fake ratings.” Most of them have so far only used word filters or have relied on subsequent reports of conspicuous ratings.