Faking it
Travel writers making up stories and writing reviews about where they haven’t been?? Whatever next? Former Lonely Planet writer Thomas Kohnstamm confessed to writing about Columbia without ever traveling there in his book, Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? After complaining that Lonely Planet "didn’t pay me enough to go to Colombia," he then went on to admit "I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating who was an intern in the Colombian consulate" A publicity stunt? Maybe – he is launching his new book after all.
Thomas certainly isn’t the first person to get caught out writing reviews that aren’t entirely genuine. Last year The Times named and shamed fake reviewers who wrote on websites such as Amazon and TripAdvisor to promote their own businesses. This has become an increasingly popular way to cut corners and bring in business with a number of agencies set up to pose as thousands of customers and spam forums on behalf of companies. It’s becoming more and more difficult to trust what you read online. What began as a way for the consumer to have a voice and give his or her own opinions and recommendations has become a minefield of deceptive posts, fraudulent claims and dishonest shenanigans.
There was much talk of the Government cracking down on this kind of behaviour, with their delightfully titled “Unfair Commercial Practices Directive”, which was laid before Parliament this February. The directive makes it unlawful to ‘pass off as a consumer’ but stopped short of specifically mentioning fake reviews (lucky old Mr Kohnstamm).
Websites that guarantee only genuine shoppers have written the reviews are few and far between. Thankfully, all reviews on www.reevoo.com are from people who have bought the products online, through one of our 50-plus retail partners and been asked to complete a review for us. No fraudsters in this camp! Let’s hope that the new regulations are enough to put a stop to all this nonsense and restore faith in the consumer voice once more.
Blog posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am under News. Leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Don't miss an article, click here to get DWTB by RSS
