Product Creators: You Willing to Take a Stand...

I'm not into fake reviews at all. I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, but I will give away my product to someone who really needs what I'm giving away and want real feedback.

I'd say those on the forum are generally against it. This past week there were a few threads talking about fake Amazon reviews. The vast majority seemed to be against them.

Mark,

That is why I wish each WSO would have two subthreads.... One for "fan boy" comments... and one for actual results....


God Bless,

Rich Beck

All the more reson to work harder to get real content in the reviews that will help sell these products

This is almost an open secret but there is nothing much we can do against these review scams. New business are paying people to leave good reviews about their business to boost their business ranking. I do not know if there is any system to detect fake reviews.

I think it depends on how they get the reviews - I did a review for a video wso which was really good and the seller had posted that they were looking for reviewers.

Last week I responded to another request for reviewers and I did not like the wso and simply did not give a review.

I am sure that that are many who would say I should have reviewed, but I do not consider it my job to rain on someone else's parade ground and the fact that I considered it to be a re-hashed effort is my opinion and may not be shared by someone who has less knowledge than I do.

I think the main problem with reviewers is that they are allowed to market the wso to their list - I believe if you review should not be able to sell.

Just my opinion

This is a problem I'm seeing in the "Wanted - Members Looking To Hire You" section.

"Hi there, I have this $400 a day method I need you to review for me, but I can't pay you."

Seems legit

People will give anything a positive review if you give it to them for free. The majority of reviews I see left on WSOs are along the lines of "this has changed my life" "I can't stress to you all enough how much this has helped me" etc etc etc.

The good news is, if a product launch gets enough attention, or one person who knows how to contact the FTC (or cares enough to), they can shut them down and take all of their earnings. It happens quite a lot. Fictitious earnings and phony marketers are busted all the time for doing exactly this.

Most reviews in WSOs are NOT reviews. Go read them if you don't believe me. They say "Wow! This looks great. Just downloaded and will find time in the next few days to go through it all." or "I've read this and this is a solid way to earn extra money." or "I've used this exact strategy for the last 2 years so I KNOW this works!"

The 1st one is NOT a review or testimonial except about the download process.

For the 2nd and 3rd one this gets into grey area. For example, if the way I've made my living the last 4 years is through list building and I'm "reviewing" a building a list building product and if the step-by-step are exactly what I've done (got traffic, offered a freebie, captured address, start sending emails) then have I used this system or not?

But this goes beyond WSOs.

It goes to gathering reviews of OTHERS and posing it as your own.

It goes to having a "xyzGuru is a SCAM" site but then offering an affiliate link with the "review."

It goes to having NOTHING but positive to say about a product for the sake of a friendship or a commission or both. I've don't think I've ever seen a product that couldn't be improved or that didn't have a flaw here or there - some minor and some major. I think minor flaws can still result in legit positive reviews - here I'm talking about reviews that purposefully don't mention any flaws for sake of a check.

As far as what can be done (besides John's links) the title and point of this thread is pointed towards product creators. Are you willing to shut down an affiliate that does false reviews? Are you willing to forego the sales of a super affiliate who gets that way by writing things that aren't true?

Of course it's sometimes impossible to know whether an affiliate bought your product but it is a good thing to look at your ethics and make a solid plan for how you are going to run your business. If your affiliate agreement, for example, can outlaw spamming why can't it outlaw fake reviews?

Mark

When I look at a WSO I do not even bother to read the reviews, I want to look at the three things, (What does it do) (Will it help my Business) (is it cost effective)

I do not really care much about what someone thinks about a WSO because they have different needs and they may have a different set of circumstances where that WSO might be a good fit for them and what they want to do.

So when I see 50 reviews, before I even know the answer to the most important questions I have most of the time I get so turned off that most of the time I do not buy from those sellers.

The only real question that matters is this

Just a few thoughts.

I don't know about others but I am pretty good at spotting this kind of thing. I see it happen quite frequently in the WSO forum and it's quite often the same bunch of guys. As soon as one of them launches a product they all jump in the thread and rave about how good the product is going to be. It's so stupidly obvious because it's always the exact same bunch of guys. They are all part of a mastermind group whereby they all support one anothers launches by doing this kind of thing. It's a well orchestrated machine.

I've seen a new trend lately where they (the same guys) also all jump in the thread and do the same however the person whose thread it is, is relatively new to the forum. This would lead me to believe they are their students releasing products and they all jump in the thread to give their students a kickstart in releasing their WSO and trying to make it a success.

You'd be very well advised to take of all of those reviews with a grain of salt as all of those guys have a vested interest in making those WSOs successful. Amazing what goes on behind closed doors, ain't it?!

That's why unique affiliate management tools like "EasyClickMate" or even Paydotcom have the option of banning affiliates. Gotta keep an eye on em.

I've seen reviews by people who say that they don't even have the product. The strange thing is the number of people asking if anyone is getting results with a method when the wso is a day old. Strange, and all too common.

I'm not in favor of fake reviews...but in most cases it would be hard to prove they are fake and more government regulation is not the answer...it will just end up strangling the last great frontier for entrepreneurship...the web.

I must admit, I skimmed over the responses here but in answer to the OP - YES.

Im ditching Clickbank, and this is one of the reasons why.

Im tired of the BS affiliates are throwing against the wall in hope that 'something might stick'

I want to add value to the web, not spam the crap out of it with shitty reviews of my products.

Which the majority of affiliates are doing.