Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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Humankind, parent company of GlowingReviews.co, is being sued by Edmunds.com for allegedly submitting 76 fake reviews on behalf of 25 dealerships. in a report released in May titled, "Deceptive Reviews: Te Infuential Tail." Te authors of the study ofered several recommendations for consumer review platforms, such as refraining from "publicly rewarding prolifc reviewers with an 'elite reviewer' status," or "only allowing reviewers to submit reviews for items that they have purchased." Mark Holthof, Edmunds' director of community products, leads the dealer review vertical. He is "intrigued" by the idea of incorporating consumer alerts when rogue dealers are caught posting fake reviews. He also likes the idea of tying reviews directly to vehicle purchases, a strategy that originated on sites like Amazon and Expedia. Although he says there are no formal plans to change the review platform anytime soon, Holthof says the two tactics are defnitely worth considering for the future. Te MIT/Northwestern study, however, points out that such strategies would be tricky for sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor, where not all reviews can be linked to a transaction. In terms of linguistic cues, the researchers discovered four commonalities among deceptive reviews: Word counts tend to be longer, but word length is shorter and less complex. Many reviews end in multiple exclamation points and ofen make references to family members. "Because it is ofen diffcult to create concrete details in their messages, they have a tendency to include details that are unrelated to the focus of the message," the study states. Edmunds released two examples of Humankind reviews to TIME magazine. One of the reviews read, "Well worth the money! Amazing service, highly recommended! Do not bother looking anywhere else, these guys will take good care of you," while the other stated: "I was very happy with the Advisor, he even gave me his cell phone number. Ev- eryone was very friendly and helpful, even those who weren't working on my car." Levin ofers additional insights on how Edmunds stafers spot fake reviews. "What we're looking for in reviews are people's descriptions of their experience as opposed to just conclusionary statements like 'It was great,' 'It was horrible,' or 'She ating deceptive online testimonials. was fantastic.' We're not so much interested in Mary Engle, associate director for the your emotions as we are in facts that people FTC's advertising practices, says the agency can use to make their own judgment [when is concerned about fake reviews and the harm choosing which dealership to visit]. they cause for consumers. "Nowadays, it's very "If others come in similar in terms of tone, common to go online and look for reviews of then people at our shop might say, 'What else products and services that you're considering do these reviews have in common? Can we and see what people are saying, and it's importrace them back to the same source?' And you tant for those to be truthful," she says. have to see a pattern of it, because if it's just She adds that she cannot comment speone, that's probably just someone who writes cifcally on whether the FTC is investigating a review that reads that way." Humankind and its fraudulent dealer testiLevin says Yelp had not fagged any of monials. However, she says "it's good that the 25 dealerships associated with Humanthere are also these private lawsuits" to act as kind. He claims, though, that at least one of deterrents for companies that set up frauduthe fake reviews appeared on DealerRater's lent accounts to submit reviews on website. behalf of consumers. While she says Responding via e-mail, Larry the FTC can fle a court or adminCochran, DealerRater's senior vice istrative order against such a compresident for products and services, pany, the agency cannot always seek stated that he was unaware whether monetary damages. the site had fallen victim to fraudu"We're entitled to get refunds lent reviews from Humankind, but for consumers," she says. "In this added that the company welcomes kind of situation, it's very difcult "the private sharing of fndings by MARY ENGLE to assess what the damages caused Edmunds so that we may thoroughto the consumer would be." ly investigate through our fraud preBoth Edmunds' and Yelp's lawsuits vention team." are pending. GlowingReviews.co reREGULATORS ON REVIEWS mains dormant while AdBlaze appears Review sites have to cater to customers and to be operating as usual. Interestingly, businesses, but they also have to play by the BuyYelpReview.com now leads to an aprules of federal or international regulators. parently unrelated opinion article pubTat's why Lowe considers Yelp to be a partner lished in the Oakland, Calif.-based East to entities like the Federal Trade Commission Bay Express. Te headline reads: "Yelp and (FTC), which actively pursues companies crethe Business of Extortion 2.0." SEP TEMBER 2013 • AUTODE ALE R MONTHLY.COM 15