Guest Post: What Can You Do About Fake Reviews: The Case of Sunday Riley

Guest Post: What Can You Do About Fake Reviews: The Case of Sunday Riley

by Carmen Wong

To buy, or to not buy, that is the question…you check out the customer reviews to see what others are saying, but with so many reviews, both good and bad, to filter through, who do you believe and what do you do?

 

The Impact of Customer Reviews

Multiple studies have researched the importance of online customer reviews and their effects on places and products. Unsurprisingly, many studies have concluded that customers are likely to listen to product reviews if they find them trustworthy. Statistics verifying this statement vary from study to study but have gradually increased overtime.

In 2016, it was surveyed that 84% of people trusted strangers’ online reviews as much as they did a personal recommendation from friends or family (Erskine, 2017, para. 8). In 2019, this statistic jumped to 91% of people, aged 18 to 34 years old, trusting reviews (Murphy, 2019, para. 10).

Reliability and relatability are keys to persuasive reviews. Customers seeing reviews from people that seem to be like them, or are “relatable,” despite being strangers, are more likely to trust and listen to their reviews (Mao, 2018, para. 2).

For example, in London, United Kingdom, the government department of Competition and Markets Authority estimated that £23 billion of customer purchases were influenced by customer reviews (Cannon, Gillett, & Evans, 2019, para. 16).

If reviews are claimed to be “the ultimate form of advertising,” then relatability within positive reviews can only help businesses so much more. A simple marketing model is presented: the more positive reviews, the greater number of customers.

But what if these reviews were fake?

 

Fake Reviews on the Rise

There has been a recent trend of fake reviews plaguing e-commerce platforms that mislead customers into purchasing faulty or unsuitable products. With today’s technology, it would seem as though these reviews are fabricated by none other than artificial intelligence (AI), which many are (Vincent, 2017, para. 7), but the human counterpart of fake reviews is also alive and well (Kailath, 2018, para. 9-10). 

There are “shadow marketplaces” where businesses or third-party agencies will interact with people on online social media channels and communities to exchange products or pay for fake reviews (Heinzman, 2019, para. 10; Kailath, 2018, para. 10). Businesses can also post their questionable marketing needs as job postings on freelance websites such as “Upwork, Fiverr, Guru, and Freelancer.com that exist solely for businesses to find and hire freelance writers, often for low-paying tasks” (Heinzman, 2019, para. 10). 

Fake reviews on Amazon are oftentimes “Chinese brands…looking to penetrate the U.S. market” (Kailath, 2018, para. 23). However, small, unestablished brands and businesses are not the only ones hiring fake reviewers to succeed in the competitive business environment. 

 

A Case Study: Sunday Riley

Sunday Riley is a Texas-based luxury skincare company that was launched in 2009 and has seen major success with designers, celebrities, and beauty junkies alike (Hoff, 2015, para. 1; Weatherford, 2018, para. 1-2).

All this commercial success was seemingly not enough for the CEO, whose company is named after herself, as she instructed her employees from November 2015 to August 2017 to write fake reviews of the company’s products on Sephora, an international beauty retailer, to generate sales (Segran, 2019, para. 1). The scandal broke a year later in October 2018 (Lodi, 2019, para. 1). 

Employees were instructed to create fake accounts on Sephora, write five-star reviews on Sunday Riley products and “dislike” negative reviews, review other brands’ beauty products to feign authenticity of their user profiles, and use a VPN to hide IP addresses to avoid review removal which can be identified by Sephora’s algorithms (Lodi, 2019, para. 3-4). 

The Federal Trade Commission [FTC], the United States’ governmental consumer protection agency, only settled the case in October 2019 (FTC, n.d., para. 1). The FTC let the company go with a fairly mild punishment: Riley is not required to pay any fines, admit to any wrongdoing, or refund customers (Segran, 2019, para. 4; Lodi, 2019, para. 5). It was, however, charged on two FTC violations of “making false or misleading claims” and “deceptively failing to disclose [endorsed] reviews,” two actions that they are banned from committing in the future (Lodi, 2019, para. 5). FTC commissioner Rohait Chopra released a statement dissenting the action taken towards Sunday Riley. He explores the dangers of fake reviews, states the necessity of monetary consequences, and proposes the policing of e-commerce platforms (Federal Trade Commission [FTC], 2019). 

 

Then what about us, the consumer? 

If the FTC was created to protect us as consumers, but failed to do so in the case of Sunday Riley, then who will? The answer is us, the consumers. 

Online shopping can be truly impulsive, especially with sale tactics such as “limited-time discounts with countdown clocks,” “low-stock warnings,” and “exclusive” products (Thomas-Michigan, 2019). However, do not be quick to buy any products or services without examining the characteristics of the review. 

Fake review safety tips include: 

• Analyzing the review’s language for typos
• Watching out for reviewers with only high-rating reviews and little to no average or low-rating reviews
• The activeness of the reviewer’s profile, and the amount of published reviews
• Sorting reviews by how recently they have been posted instead of relevancy to avoid only seeing filtered reviews
• Use online tools such as Fakespot.com (a review program limited to a handful of major companies) or ReviewMeta.com (an Amazon-only review program)

(McCabe, 2019; Scipioni, 2019)

 

What can the platforms and companies do?

E-commerce platforms like Amazon connect their customers with millions of independent sellers around the world, but this has led to a “cesspool of unvetted merchants and unqualified products [which in combination with] manipulated reviews…creat[es] an unfair and unhealthy e-commerce environment” (Khan, 2019, para. 5). In 2019, they announced their attempt to alleviate this issue on their platform with “Project Zero” which is a program that allows brands to delete fake reviews themselves without having to report it first to Amazon (Feiner, 2019, para. 1-4). For other e-commerce platforms that have yet to create programs aimed at combating fake reviews, some suggestions to alleviate this issue are: 

• Following a similar advertisement structure present on many social media platforms that disclaim what reviews are “sponsored” or “promoted”. Amazon has banned these types of reviews, also referred to as “incentivized reviews,” as research has shown that incentivized reviews tended to have higher ratings than non-incentivized reviews. Nevertheless, this would at least allow for greater consumer transparency and, perhaps, deter sellers from resorting to fake reviews, as they can be more open about their consumer sponsorships. (Addady, 2016, para. 5)

• Filing lawsuits against independent sellers who have violated the platforms selling guidelines and third-party companies that sell reviews for profit. Although this is a tedious endeavour, as Amazon had already filed 1,000 lawsuits in 2015 against independent sellers who were found to have benefitted from fake reviews, legal action would pressure sellers to abide by platform guidelines and the platform itself to strengthen its legal enforcement strategies. (Addady, 2016, para. 1)

• Continuously improving algorithms programmed to detect fake reviews using both “review centric” and “user centric” features to enhance its ability in distinguishing real and fake reviews. Review centric features examine “textual metrics” of the reviews such as language and length while user centric features analyze the user’s profile in four different aspects:
  • Personal: profile description, registration date, and the number of bookmarks made on various items
  • Social: the number of friends and followers, friend metrics, and profile photo
  • Review activity: how many reviews written, rating ratios, and the number of votes received on reviews
  • Trust: number of photos on the user’s profile and review similarities

(Barbado, Araque, Iglesias, 2019, pp. 1239-1242)

Companies want your money but do not simply hand it over without doing your duty as a consumer. Research the company and its products, analyze customer reviews for any oddities to ensure the best purchase.

Now, to return, or to exchange, that is the question…  

 

References

Addady, M. (2016, October 27). Amazon is cracking down on more fake reviews. https://fortune.com/2016/10/27/amazon-lawsuit-fake-reviews/

Barbado, R., Araque, O., & Iglesias, C. (2019). A framework for fake review detection in online consumer electronics retailers. Information Processing & Management 56(4), 1234-1244. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.03.002

Cannon, M., Gillett, F., Evans, P. (2019, April 17). ‘Why I write fake online reviews.’ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47952165

Erskine, R. (2017, September 19). 20 online reputation statistics that every business owner needs to know. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanerskine/2017/09/19/20-online-reputation-statistics-that-every-business-owner-needs-to-know/#813c682cc5c9

Federal Trade Commission. (2019). Statement of Commissioner Rohit Chopra, Joined by Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (USA/FTC-1923008). Washington, D.C., United States of America: Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/1550127/192_3008_final_rc_statement_on_sunday_riley.pdf 

Feiner, L. (2019, February 28). Amazon is tackling its counterfeit problem by letting brands delete knockoffs themselves. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/amazon-announces-project-zero-to-reduce-counterfeit-products.html

Heinzman, A. (2019, March 21). How fake reviews are manipulating you online. https://www.howtogeek.com/407521/how-fake-reviews-are-manipulating-you-online/

Hoff, V. (2015, January 5). How to decode your skincare ingredients like a pro. https://www.elle.com/beauty/makeup-skin-care/news/a19864/skincare-product-ingredients-labels/

Kailath, R. (2018, July 30). Some Amazon reviews are too good to be believed. They’re paid for. https://www.npr.org/2018/07/30/629800775/some-amazon-reviews-are-too-good-to-be-believed-theyre-paid-for

Khan, R. (2019, April 1). From fake reviews to unvetted sellers: Here’s why Amazon Marketplace needs more oversight. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roomykhan/2019/04/01/amazon-marketplace-a-chaotic-bazaar-unvetted-sellers-to-fake-reviews-where-is-the-oversight/#3d022b0e29d0

Lodi, M. (2019, October 21). FTC finds Sunday Riley guilty in fake review scandal. https://www.thecut.com/2019/10/sunday-riley-fake-review-scandal-ftc-ruling.html

Mao, B. (2018, August 5). Importance of customer reviews: why do they matter so much? https://www.synthesio.com/blog/importance-of-customer-reviews/

Martineau, P. (2019, October 25). The FTC fosters fake reviews, its own commissioners say. https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-fosters-fake-reviews-commissioners-say/

McCabe, K. (2019, March 1). 9 ways to spot a fake review (+How Amazon is fighting back). https://learn.g2.com/fake-reviews

Murphy, R. (2019, August 15). 35 online review statistics you need in 2019. https://www.brightlocal.com/resources/online-reviews-statistics-2019/

Segran, E. (2019, October 24). Sunday Riley’s fake review scandal hurts all beauty brands – and all consumers. https://www.fastcompany.com/90421688/sunday-rileys-fake-review-scandal-hurts-all-beauty-brands-and-all-consumers

Scipioni, J. (2019, July 12). Prime Day is coming: Tips to spot a fake review on Amazon. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/12/prime-day-tips-for-spotting-a-fake-reviews-on-amazon.html

Thomas-Michigan, L. (2019, April 26). How online stores trick you into impulse buying. https://www.futurity.org/impulse-buying-2047282/

Vincent, J. (2017, August 31). AI trained on Yelp data writes fake restaurant reviews ‘indistinguishable’ from real deal. https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/31/16232180/ai-fake-reviews-yelp-amazon 

Weatherford, A. (2018, April 13). Sunday Riley on Good Genes, creating makeup, and her unusual name. https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/sunday-riley-good-genes-interview.html 

 

Featured Image: thumb feedback confirming from geralt used under Pixabay License.