Publication date: 19 Aug 2019

In the era of copywriting and fake reviews, there is lack of healthy competition for the quality of customer feedback. Russia’s standards watchdog Roskachestvo explained how to distinguish between real and fake reviews.

When reading reviews, Roskachestvo recommends considering the following:

• Fake reviews include emotional words or expressions, such as “great product”, “Stunning!”, “the best company”, “did their best”, “the lowest prices”, and call-to-action phrases, like “try it for yourself”, “see for yourself”.
• Numerous mentions of the company’s name are also a sign that the review was written by a copywriter or SEO specialist. 
• Text lacks detail and includes only general phrases, or, on the contrary, is full of facts which customers cannot be aware of. In the latter case, the review is likely to be written by a representative of the company.
• Reviews from different users have much in common regarding style and structure.

To avoid being swindled, Roskachestvo advises contacting the author of the review in social networks and asking for details. Not all review platforms, however, offer this option.

A survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center in July this year showed that about half of Russians cannot distinguish between true and fake information on the internet. A percent of people who admit the difficulty is much higher in the oldest age group (about 50%) then in the youngest one (33%). Most of the respondents (62%) say they immediately felt suspicious when started reading fake news. A third of the respondents truly believed fake news.

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