Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews

[yagoparamo]

No doubt it is tough to police this kind of content. We commit a tremendous amount of resources to the task, but like most tough things, it is valuable to do so. I spoke to our Director of Content Moderation and Fraud this afternoon and since we are talking about "gaming review content" I have an interesting "game" for my DealerRefresh friends.

Everybody loves Closest to the Pin, right?

Here's the pin:

In the past 6 months, how many reviews have been removed from DealerRater for Terms of Use violations?

I will send a DealerRater love gift of various DealerRater tchotchkis to the dealership that guesses closest. Vendors can play, and if I like you, you might just win something too. (DealerRater isn't biased, but I might be )

Email me your best guess and I'll announce the winner at the end of the week...

If I win can I get free advertising in my competitors page in Dealer Rater?

OK, OK, sorry, couldn't resist.

I agree with you that even little policing is better tan free for all and that Dealer Rater at least re-investthe dealer's money into a batter system.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Ryan,

It sounds good but that is putting a lot of trust in your gig. What if I'm 1 store and next to me there is a 30 store group that pays Dealer over $100,000 a year? What are the chances of you being more lenient towards them?

Wouldn't be better to have a biz model like Yelp's? Put any reviews, we will enforce the system, pay for advertising so there is no link between your money and the ability to put/not to put reviews up.

We have a lot of confidence in the gig, Yago. Our content moderators have no idea whether a review they are working on is for a certified store or not. Our Director very intentionally set up the process with "blind" moderation. Dollars make no difference. Take a guess at how many reviews we've pulled down. We put our money where our mouth is on this. I think you'll be surprised, and if you are closest I'll absolutely send you "something", like a horse head or a thumb maybe...

I personally don't care for Yelp's model at all. It puts far too much authority on the few Yelper's that review a lot and leaves no room for a review from a consumer that doesn't usually write reviews that was truly WOWED by an employee.

 

[ddavis]

In the past 6 months, how many reviews have been removed from DealerRater for Terms of Use violations?

Ryan, seriously, is that a joke? Wow, removing fake reviews will straighten them up. Tell me how many dealers have been suspended or how many reviews were marked "Fake Review"

 

[yagoparamo]

We have a lot of confidence in the gig, Yago. Our content moderators have no idea whether a review they are working on is for a certified store or not. Our Director very intentionally set up the process with "blind" moderation. Dollars make no difference. Take a guess at how many reviews we've pulled down. We put our money where our mouth is on this. I think you'll be surprised, and if you are closest I'll absolutely send you "something", like a horse head or a thumb maybe...

I personally don't care for Yelp's model at all. It puts far too much authority on the few Yelper's that review a lot and leaves no room for a review from a consumer that doesn't usually write reviews that was truly WOWED by an employee.

I understand your process, but again it represents a blind trust that the dealer has to put in your company. A trust not only for now, but also for when is sold to Reynolds, Autotrader, or someone else. The model of 'pay me and trust me to do the right thing' will carry over with little or nothing to do by the dealer if the new owner decides to change how the balancing act plays.

About the horse head, eyes, and other stuff you would love to give me. As a veteran I would probably cook it all toguether and eat it. It will be better than the soup the Spanish Army gave me.

But now the real question:

Regardless of what you and I battle for, the customers will chose in the end to either believe what is on Dealer rater or Yelp or Google, etc.

 

[john.quinn]

Regardless of what you and I battle for, the customers will chose in the end to either believe what is on Dealer rater or Yelp or Google, etc.

You are right except that the site is irrelevant. People will read multiple sights, and intuitively sense a "pattern" in what they read that will shape their opinion.

In the end, (and I HATE to keep quoting Alex), your advertising will be your actual deeds and actions.

 

[yagoparamo]

You are right except that the sight is irrelevant. People will read multiple sights, and intuitively sense a "pattern" in what they read that will shape their opinion.

In the end, (and I HATE to keep quoting Alex), your advertising will be your actual deeds and actions.

That is correct (you mean 'site'), and that is why I have been advocating for dealers to own their own databases of reviews just in case the landscape changes and they need to have a record of what happened for the last X number of years.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Ryan, seriously, is that a joke? Wow, removing fake reviews will straighten them up. Tell me how many dealers have been suspended or how many reviews were marked "Fake Review"

Not a joke at all and extremely relevant...

If you've followed this reviews arms race for some folks it's all about indexed content...ie quantity, quantity, quantity. More reviews = improved positioning on the SERPS / more marketing material. Good Lord, we have dealers paying Review Boost to load fake reviews, we have dealers buying Ipads and trying to get customers to write reviews before they even take delivery, hell, some are trying to get reviews before they go to F&I. Do you honestly believe that has a flippin' thing to do with the customer experience? It has EVERYTHING to do with tallying another review for marketing or SEO purposes. When you remove 40 from the same store in a single day it gets their attention rather quickly, I promise.

Yes, we do blacklist the stores that are serial abusers, but thankfully we don't have to do that often. I'd always prefer to educate than embarrass.

I'll tell you the same thing I told Yago. Take a stab at how much content we've pulled down in 6 months. If we were interested in the "content for content's sake" game that Google is playing with the Place page right now we wouldn't pull anything. The integrity of the data and its source is going to continue to be a very big deal to consumers. Not enforcing your own TOU is not a long-term strategy for a review site that expects to be relevant.

 

[yagoparamo]

Not a joke at all and extremely relevant...

If you've followed this reviews arms race for some folks it's all about indexed content...ie quantity, quantity, quantity. More reviews = improved positioning on the SERPS / more marketing material. Good Lord, we have dealers paying Review Boost to load fake reviews, we have dealers buying Ipads and trying to get customers to write reviews before they even take delivery, hell, some are trying to get reviews before they go to F&I. Do you honestly believe that has a flippin' thing to do with the customer experience? It has EVERYTHING to do with tallying another review for marketing or SEO purposes. When you remove 40 from the same store in a single day it gets their attention rather quickly, I promise.

Dealer Rater police at work again...

Why can't I ask a customer to give me a review of how I presented the vehicle? This review DOES NOT stop the customer from adding a negative review later on Yelp or Google if the final overall experience was negative. Yet it allows me as a salesperson to be proud of my work and ask for feedback on that.

The answer on why you don't like that process is because it doesn't conform with the process that works for your program that allows you to control both the process and content of the dealer's digital reviews.

Yes, we do blacklist the stores that are serial abusers, but thankfully we don't have to do that often. I'd always prefer to educate than embarrass.

So if you are a 'small' abuser then you can fly under the radar? What is the number of fake reviews that you need to add to be a serial killer... meant abuser? I hope Paterno isn't judged by this same rules and that one cheat makes you a cheater.

I'll tell you the same thing I told Yago. Take a stab at how much content we've pulled down in 6 months. If we were interested in the "content for content's sake" game that Google is playing with the Place page right now we wouldn't pull anything. The integrity of the data and its source is going to continue to be a very big deal to consumers. Not enforcing your own TOU is not a long-term strategy for a review site that expects to be relevant.

No system is perfect just like no jail is safe from scape. But that is the issue at hand. The problem that I have is the ablity that Google, Yelp, and Dealer rater have to create and enforce their own created rules based on their own beliefs. I advocate for control but I don't believe we will have a good control until someone like the FTC makes it illegal for a biz (with a fine) to create and post fake reviews and even then... someone will cheat).

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Ryan,

It sounds good but that is putting a lot of trust in your gig. What if I'm 1 store and next to me there is a 30 store group that pays Dealer over $100,000 a year? What are the chances of you being more lenient towards them?.

Yago, I know the Dealer Rater team very well and have had dinner with them on several occasions. Trust me when I tell you, they have clipped the wings of some rather large clients who abused the system.

 

[yagoparamo]

Yago, I know the Dealer Rater team very well and have had dinner with them on several occasions. Trust me when I tell you, they have clipped the wings of some rather large clients who abused the system.

I'm not trying to be a judge of them as a company or about their integrity. What I complain is about the arbitrariety of the rules of this process as well as the lack of control the dealer has should DR policy change in the future.