'Fake it till you make it' - psychology in fake reviews

Online customer reviews have revolutionised the way we shop. Having instant feedback about a product, service or a customer can help one avoid bad purchases and guide decisions. People are attracted to reviews. However, scammers are too. Why is that?

As human beings, we shape our beliefs and our behaviours by observing others, how they behave and what they believe in. This is known as social proof. Exchanging and sharing experiences, talking about our likes and dislikes, about what makes us happy and what makes us angry. We are social. This is why reviews can be so influential. In real life, this translates to word of mouth, which is harder to fake, but online, creating a fake review is relatively easy.

We look to others to define our reality.

There are several good guides how to spot fake reviews .There are plenty of reviews online that are shill reviews (or covert advertising), planted by marketing teams to excite people about a particular product. Shill reviews can also be left on social media or forums as this adds credibility and companies may even offer the product free of charge or offer discounts in return for a review, which in some cases, such as on websites that specify whether the reviewer has purchased the product, can add additional credibility to the review.

Many companies that offer a platform on which sellers and buyers come together (e.g. eBay, Amazon, AirBnB) will have problems with fake reviews, but may also have problems with fraudulent activities that exploit the review system to appear legitimate. For example, a fraudulent account that is selling substandard products purporting to be quality or branded products may initiate several verified reviews by pretending to be both, a seller and a buyer. The initial costs associated with that process (such as eBay fees) are irrelevant given the credibility and legitimacy it creates (a product reviewed by satisfied customers will appear legitimate and foster trust). Therefore it is easy to see why some people fake reviews. Fake reviews can also be part of new ‘brushing scams’, where people receive parcels and goods they never ordered so that fake reviews can be generated.

Why is it important to look at fake reviews through psychology?

By understanding motivation behind fake reviews and the persuasive techniques used to create them, we can learn to spot what is real and what is fake.

So what is psychology behind fake reviews?

Fake reviews employ something known as ‘social proof’ or tendency to look at others to define our reality. As stated above, we look to others to see what they do, how they behave and what they believe in and we adjust our behavior accordingly. People will trust things that are backed by other people. What a fake review does is establishes a dialogue with a desired customer, where a person leaving a review is able to persuade someone reading that review that the product they are looking at is just what they need. There are several persuasion techniques that allow this. If a desired audience can be identified, parallels can be drawn with that audience in a review, emphasizing similarities between a reviewer and a potential customer (this is a known scam technique). Then, a reviewer may concentrate on statements that emphasize life changing properties of the product, which are made specifically to evoke positive emotions. fake reviews may even mention risks or a high cost, but these will be minimized quickly by concentrating on the fact that the risk was worth taking. When people see others take risks, they feel more confident in taking the risk themselves.

These techniques and the way they are executed are frequently adapted or modified by scammers, especially when they become well known and predictable, therefore it is imperative to research and evaluate them frequently and adapt fraud prevention measures accordingly.