Iowans are being warned to watch out for shady product reviews online.
Lisa Schiller, spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau, says it’s easy for anyone to post a review, but there are definite signs to indicate it might be phony.
“You want to look out for generic reviewer profiles,” Schiller says. “If a reviewer has a very common or a generic name, like John Smith or Anne Doe, something like that, you’ve spotted a red flag.”
Just because a product has a lot of five-star comments doesn’t mean those reviews are legitimate.
“If they all look the same or they seem to be quite generic,” she says, “you might want to look into that further.”
Other things to look out for include a large number of reviews all made at the same time, or reviews that repeat words or phrases from other reviews. If you’re seeing what may be a lot of ‘bots in the comments, Schiller says the review may have been created by AI.
“Watch for those misspellings and poor grammar,” she says. “If you read a review to yourself and it just doesn’t sound natural or right, it doesn’t make sense, it could very well be a fake.”
If the suspicious reviews are posted to products on popular sites like Amazon or Walmart, she says to report them and consider buying a different product.