How does one determine truth vs lies regarding products' comments??!!

There is no foolproof way to distinguish between truth and lie but there are things you can do to determine probability. First, do you recognize any of the commenters from around the forum? Are they people you typically respect and listen to when you see them post?

If you don't recognize anyone, look up previous posting history. Do they normally give good advice and useful information?

Does the commenter show up in the same threads as the OP, over and over, just agreeing or saying how wonderful the OP is? Or vice versa?

Those are some good starting points but you also have to use a bit of common sense. If the offer promises the moon, stars and a comet thrown in for good measure...well, you do the math.

Tina

What's the difference, there are millions of good products out there. Whether the affiliate is self serving or not is irrelevant. The bottom line is, either he is here to learn or he is here to be encouraged to learn. If you encourage him to learn, he may listen. The fact is he could have a lot to contribute without even knowing it. The sooner he really gets involved the better, for himself and others; including you and me. But if you really wanna know if he is genuine, search out his username to see if he has commented on other posts, posted something himself, or if he is an upgraded member. (of course it would seem self seeking to check if he were an upgraded member) but I guess we all need to be somewhat self-seeking, else we'd be living on the street. LOL

A few things I've learned in my brief time in the IM world, coupled with a whole lot more experience in offline sales:

#1. Look at the Sales Copy. I learned the hard way, and years ago, that I should be extra wary of anything that is being sold with canned, hype-heavy copywriting. Hype is what people use to move product in the absence of substance. So any time I see a headline asking me "Who Else Wants to __________?!!!!" or telling me my new purchase will help me "suck money out of my prospects' wallets like a vacuum cleaner with a Lamborghini engine," I click away immediately.

On the one hand, I know I'm forgoing a few good products because even people with good value to offer will sometimes choose this style of marketing simply because it works better with less hassle. On the other hand, I have yet to EVER be burned by a product sold with a genuine, attention-grabbing, honest, compelling, original reason-why sales pitch. Any entrepreneur willing to put that kind of effort (or cost, if he outsourced the copy job -- because good reason-why copy doesn't come cheap) into his marketing probably believes in his product.

On balance, I believe about half of the hype-driven products will be just that: hype. While the substance-driven ones will have an overwhelming tendency to be substantive in their own rights.

#2. Look at the testimonials.

Don't just look FOR testimonials, look AT them. Look for the ones that give specifics. And among those, look for people with names you recognize. I feel that chances are if you have a product that seems to be selling fairly well, AND have a testimonial from a guy who you know makes his living based on his reputation, AND he's being specific in his testimonial...if you have all that, it's probably safe to assume the two parties weren't foolish enough to risk everything by collaborating on a falsifiable lie.

#3. Look for sincerity.

I'm well aware sincerity can be faked as well as anything can, but it's my belief that it's a painful thing for the insincere to fake, and most simply won't bother. In a piece of copy, that can be hard to find (though not impossible). You sometimes have to trust your gut. Look for offers where the guarantee isn't simply good...but good for the specific reason that the seller will come to your rescue if the product proves not to be in your best interest. It's more than just a "money back" thing. It's an honest conveyance that the offer exists to help people just like you, and that the seller doesn't WANT to profit from people he CAN'T help.

For offers made on this site, you can go further, since you can interact...and see others' interactions...with the seller. In simply browsing the history of WSO's here, there's a VERY strong tendency for the sellers who bent over backwards to be helpful and interactive in the sales process to be the same ones recommended over and over again in "what should I buy" type threads.


Those are just a few things that spring to my mind, but hopefully, there will be something there that helps you out.

PS - To all those who espouse the "hype driven copy" model: I mean you no offense. I understand that this is a valuable and profitable way to market. Simply be aware before you walk this path that there ARE plenty of us who go out of our way to hide our wallets from your vacuum cleaners the moment we see this approach.

Upon closer inspection, I realize this isn't quite an answer to the question you asked. My response to the question as asked would be: Go to the original, then decide from there based on what I said above.

Enough experience online and you just know

I owned a popular classifieds site and I had to moderate. After about 2 months, I could pick out the fakes within seconds. That just carried over to everything else I do. It's like bad acting, but with writing. You just know!

I first find out when the product was launched. (a comment 1 day later saying it worked etc is most likely bs, you understand where I am going with this)

As pointed out, if it sounds too good to be true, usually is.

try to find out the vendors history although I am pretty certain people use pen names so that may not help but it will tell you if this person has launched products before and likewise if they were any good.

Look on a reputable forum such as this and check the product reviews section.

Determine whether the comments are reviews(comments like it looks really good, how could you not make money using these techniques etc, in other words it was not actually implemented by the poster)

Check the posters forum history.

must be more.


Chris