Elance is no longer allowing any product review article

I don't buy them because it's illegal and the FTC will bring serious charges against you resulting in lots of money lost and possible jail time if you are caught. Getting a real testimonial isn't that hard.

This one doesn't bother me at all...I'm surprised Elance has allowed them for this long.

Paid endorsements (here in the USA) have to be revealed as such.

If you haven't bought the product, how could you possibly do a "real" review?

Go try to post a "review" on a WSO you haven't purchased.

No doubt they don't want to be connected with illegal activities. I think it's a wise move on their part.

If you wish to use real reviews that other people wrote that's fine as long as you present them how a reporter doing an investigation would. That's what reporters do. But make sure to say that they aren't YOUR review and list that you obtained the reviews from the public amazon site. If you're going to do this stick to the reporter format and just report the news. If you want to write a first person review then actually use the product.

Anyway as for Elance it's a very smart move on their part to stay in compliance.

Um, yeah. That would be considered a fake review.

Let me put it this way. Let's assume your mother (or someone you care about) was looking to buy a particular item on Amazon, and was swayed by a positive review from someone who hadn't purchased or used the product. Now, your mother doesn't know this, because the reviewer makes it sound as if he or she did actually buy and try the product.

Now, your mother gets the product and soon discovers it doesn't work like it's supposed to - like the reviewer claimed it did. Is that really okay with you? Now your mother has to go through the hassle of returning it (if she's able to) and finding a replacement.

That's essentially what you're doing when you write fake reviews. You're lying to those who believe your review is legitimate and have no idea that you never actually bought or used the product. The fact that some affiliates do this doesn't make it okay.

As for Elance, I'd say this is a very wise business move on their part.

I wouldn't ever "review" a ClickBank product I hadn't seen, myself.

When I "review" private jet-hire, the people reading my "review-articles" don't expect me to have hired a private jet (which I haven't), but I don't write about it in a way that suggests or implies that I've used the service myself, so that isn't really a "review". An article discussing the advantages, convenience, and much lower-than-expected cost of private flying isn't implicitly claiming familiarity with the service.

Like so many of these issues, it's partly semantic, and depends on exactly what you mean by "review".

What matters is your intention, and whether people reading your "review" might be misled into imagining that you have personal familiarity with the product/service "reviewed" when you don't. That would be deceptive, clearly, wouldn't it?

Cheryl's post just above will help you to understand it, if you read it carefully.


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My doubt is if a review as a reporter telling about the pros, cons etc is really ok, can anyone answer?

I don't condone fake reviews, but I also don't think it would be terribly hard to write your Elance job description so that it flies.

Having said that, there are umpteen places to hire writers - why not try some of the other freelance writing sites?

Better yet, put an ad on Craigslist. I've found some excellent, and very reasonably-priced writers through Craigslist.

In a perfect world, every single review written for a Clickbank product, WSO, etc, would be written by someone who has actually purchased the product.

In the REAL world we live in, I would say at least 90% of review sites out there have reviews written by people who have not used or purchased the product.

I know of dozens of blogs that do WSO reviews and have a review video on them for almost every single WSO, Clickbank, JVZoo product released. There is no way the blog owner/affiliate marketer has purchased and/or tried out every single product.

The cold, hard truth is that you can do a Google search for just about any popular digital product and you will undoubtedly have to look through pages of results before you actually find a review that appears to be written by someone who actually owns/uses the product.

If Elance doesn't want to allow review articles anymore that's their business, but it's nothing to get upset over because there are literally hundreds of other places to get reviews written.

And as far as the FTC putting people in jail for it, I doubt that's happened yet and I doubt it ever will happen. I think the harshest punishment you'd get would be your website taken down and a fine.

If the FTC were to go and try to lock up every single person who owns a review site with "fake" reviews, they'd have to put up a new prison in every state just to house all of those people.

Furthermore, as long as you have the proper affiliate disclosures and other legal pages on your blog, I think you are pretty much in compliance.

As far as ethics go, as long as you aren't coming right out and lying in the review by saying you own the product when you don't, I don't think you are doing anything morally wrong. You can even put a disclosure right in the review post saying that you don't own the product but that you have researched the opinions of others and that is where you got the information. Then, cite all of your sources just like you would in a bibliography.

Heck, I've even come across courses that teach you how to make review videos for products that you don't own by using information off of the sales pages and re-wording it.

The fact is the FTC has great ideas and we should all be happy they exist because in the end they are trying to protect all of us as consumers. I'm not saying they are not doing a good job of it, either. I'm just saying that the Internet is far too big to be policed for something like this.

I look forward to and welcome the day when all reviews on the Internet were written by people who actually purchased the product, but I don't think I'll be seeing that happen any time soon. Just my two cents.

Yes, I have fake reviews on my websites. I guess that make me dishonest and unethical, just like the rest.

To Swayman, if you want to keep writing reviews check out the "warriors for hire" section. I don't think warriorforum will go all ethical on you any time soon.

YES!
It is unfortunately the norm in advertising. Photoshoped pictures, statements said by actors wearing costumes (gives you the impression that they are professionals), and so on.
If you read articles online without checking references and other source you are naive. All the facts about the products in my reviews are true. I give the reader all the information collected in one spot. It is up to the reader to read my disclaimer and about page where I state that not all my reviews are my own user-experience.

What do you mean no reviews. Should I get ride of web sites that talk about new movies. What about just released best seller books on amazon. Maybe I should not even mention that that up an coming rap group. This is war on news.

That seems right & correct.

Testimonials should be fair and trustworthy.

This is rediculous..how does anyone know if you bought the product or not and how the **** do they know even if you did buy the product if you are not lying about liking it

Its just the nature of advertising, I gaurentee most the crap on tv is worthless junk being promoted

let the buyer decide..the affiliate link goes to the dang amazon.product page where they can learn more

its good move, fake reviews should not allowed.