Scrutinize reviews for accuracy before buying online

I started online shopping for Christmas in the 1990s. Holiday crowds at the mall and long lines at the post office were things I dreaded.

Shopping online solved all that, and the added bonus was the product reviews.

I’m an indecisive shopper when it comes to buying gifts, so reviews help me.

Reading a bad review generally steers me away from an item, while a good review gives me the confidence to purchase.

But these days, can you really trust online product reviews?

Over the past few weeks, as I was shopping on my favorite site, Amazon.com, I noticed some reviews weren’t very helpful and suspiciously lacked detail.

When I write a review I mention what I liked or didn’t like, not just “great product,” or “don’t buy this”.

Seems I wasn’t the only one noticing something wasn’t adding up.

In February, Yelp sued several sites promising to deliver business-boosting reviews.

Amazon followed in April.

“Amazon’s terms of use ban fake reviews, and it’s suing for breach of contract and violating Washington’s consumer protection laws,” according to the lawsuit.

Bogus reviews are also impacting online sellers such as Jeff Abraham, CEO of Promescent Pharmaceuticals.

He says this issue has been an ongoing problem for his company, which sells more than $1 million in products annually through its Amazon store.

I met Abraham in 2013, when I wrote about his company and the tragic death of his business partner, urologist Dr. Ron Gilbert, who was allegedly shot to death by a patient at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach.

Abraham says fake reviews, and those selling them, continue to be a headache for his company.

He still gets approached to buy positive reviews.

“Approximately $10,000 will get you between 100 to 200 positive five-star reviews, and they will give one-star reviews to your competitors,” he says.

Abraham says when he first said no to these review-soliciting companies, negative reviews started showing up on his product page.

When he clicked on them, he discovered they were unverified purchases, which means people hadn’t actually bought the products.

Clicking on the profiles of the folks giving negative reviews, he found one profile had reviewed seven products per day for six months, and every review was a negative, one-star review.

He also saw a pattern on positive reviews.

Clicking on those profiles he discovered the average reviewer was doing 50 a day, and they were all five stars.

“It was obviously a mill was doing this because the verbiage in the reviews was sickly similar,” he says.

The reviews were nonspecific, saying things like this product is spectacular or superb.

“They had nothing to say specifically about the product because these people don’t even know what product they’re reviewing!” he says.

Abraham says dealing with Amazon on this has been difficult.

“They basically say there is nothing they can do,” he says.

As an avid online shopper, I’m now looking at reviews a little differently and am on the lookout for phony ones.

Amazon’s help page states what should and should not be in product reviews.

Amazon suggests reviewers include the “why” and be specific.

The ideal length should be 75 to 500 words.

Being an educated consumer is the best defense here.

It’s important to note, according to Amazon, anyone registered as an Amazon customer can write a review.

“It doesn’t matter where an item was purchased, or if it was a gift, or if the reviewer just borrowed it for a weekend,” the website states. “If someone feels moved to write a review of an item, and they are a registered Amazon.com customer, they are welcome.”

Online shoppers need to be smart. Since reviews are rarely deleted, look at the most recent, and then go back a ways.

Only trust reviews that include detailed opinions and look for specifics as to why someone liked or didn’t liked a product.

Don’t hesitate to ask a reviewer questions and delve a bit deeper. A legitimate customer will want to share that information with you. A bogus reviewer probably won’t bother writing back.

Over time, I’ve gotten a bit lazy in posting reviews of products I’ve purchased. Not anymore. I will now make it a point to share my honest experience, hoping it will help the next shopper make a smart purchase.

Happy shopping!

BARBARA VENEZIA lives in Newport Beach. She can be reached at bvontv1@gmail.com. Listen to her weekly radio segment on “Sunday Brunch with Tom and Lynn” from 11 a.m. to noon on KOCI/101.5 FM