Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews

[ddavis]

Is there any way we could identify who is doing false reputation and who is genuine? May be we can list down as many as possible.

Sara, I doubt that anyone is going to post it on a website. Most of the time you just need to look at the number of positive reviews. There is a local dealer with over 200 five star reviews in the past six months. They have over 60 on citysearch. They have to have that many to average it out to a positive. If you actually read the reviews, they all sound the same. On BBB they have a F rating.

[Joshua Gibson]

Thought so.

[Sara Chaudhary]

Its very common and its not a new phenomenon people have been doing this since long. I have a question against your question that does this help anyone any way. I would also like to answer this that this does not help. See, your really get exposed the moment a genuine buyer interacts with you and the artificial hype you have created through all the sources goes down the drain in minutes. Its your best customer service and product that keeps you above all the odds. So, I would say if someone is trying to do shady things he/she is damaging its reputation in the long run.

[Agrrip]

In my opinion, if you do not take care of your customers, you will eventually be found out and exposed no matter how many fake reviews you (or a reputation management company) post online.

I personally would rather have a bad review and the ability to respond publicly, than to have fake reviews on my listing. Consumers that read reviews are trying to get an idea of the “human” element behind the company they are reviewing. A bad review with a good positive response will go a lot further showing the human element than faking good reviews.

The way I see fake reviews is like this…say you have a dog that poops on the carpet and your teenage kid is too lazy to clean it up, so…they just put newspaper on top of it and go on their merry way. Well, when you get home, you may not be able to see the dog crap, but your nose knows it’s there, and will eventually sniff it out. Fake reviews may cover up the fact that a dealership is dog crap…but, eventually they will be sniffed out.