UK bans fake reviews and sneaky fees

Hosting a website in the UK carries a lot of liability for the actions of your users. What would this mean for e.g. a consumer reviews forum someone is hosting as a hobby? Or a forum about any hobby, that includes discussions and reviews about the products used by that hobby, e.g. bicycle reviews on a cycling forum?

Proving reviews are fake is hard indeed. A few years back I fell for fake reviews. I was booking a trip and saw a fairly new "boutique hotel" with good reviews (on booking.com). Once we arrived, it was nothing of the sort. The hotel was grimy, the room was small, things were broken etc etc.

Once home I looked at the reviews again and I noticed a pattern: each review had only a few sentences and, in hindsight, odd language. For example, it was praising the management in quite a few of them. I don't know about you, but I've never considered the quality of "the management" of a hotel, let alone that I would be inclined to write about it in a review.

I'm sure they paid a shady company to post those reviews in order to boost their rating. I complained to booking.com, but of course they never did anything with it. I imagine it is hard for a platform to do, but I'm also sure they can do more than they do now.

To fine a business for fake reviews, the state must prove there are a lot of unaddressed fake reviews, which is very hard to demonstrate.

With AI, it will be almost impossible to do unless you enforce some kind of generalized ID check.

Completely agree with you on Argos. Even better, you can go there when it's open and often you can collect straight away.

I find 1* is the only useful metric these days. If non of the 1* reviews raise issues ifind to be deal breakers, then we're good to risk it.

Fakespot helps for this kind of thing https://www.fakespot.com/product/yish-usb-c-to-usb-c-charger...

It sound like a good way to encourage people to buy from properly regulated UK sellers

> You have to now look at the distribution of reviews rather than the overall average since fake ones at 4 and 5 star swamp all else.

An unfortunate recent change for anyone using Amazon as a general review resource is they login-gated links to everything except the summary page. So without an account or logging in one can't view lower starred reviews.

I just ignore all reviews with more than 2 stars.

People still don't realize the entire internet is one giant SEO/marketing septic tank. You'd think the fake cable reviews would be easy to detect at least. I've gotten a few higher budget items when I was poorer by doing a bunch of reviews like this, and I imagine our methods would be much harder to detect than the fiverr reviews most companies look like they're using. You'd basically need a whistleblower or be much more proactive about auditing companies.

The emails look like this: ----

Hi David, Thank you for supporting our test. To leave a review on Amazon, we need you to order it on Amazon first, then we refund you as soon as you send us the order details.

If you are worried about the price, let me know the total in your cart, and I'll send you the money to cover it so you can make the purchase.

Please have a look at the steps below, if you have any questions, or encouter any difficulties, just don't hesitate to let me know.

You can check the following to participate the free test of $highbudgetcamera

● Go to Amazon.com and search for "camera specifications". Look for our camera (refer to the image below). It should be on Page 1.

● Purchase the camera and let us know your Order ID by replying to this message. You could use the 10% coupon on product page to reduce the order price.

● Try out the camera for 3 to 5 days and then leave a review on Amazon. Don't forget to send us a snapshot of your review.

● You will receive a full refund + a small gift: extra 10$ cash (by Paypal or Amazon Gift card).

Thanks again, -Some Russian name representing a Chinese company

    Mutha?ucka charge a two buck transaction fee
    Makes my payment short, my rent comes back to me
    Minus a twenty-five dollar penalty
    So, you'll feed me 'cause of your mutha?uckin? fee

Ryanair doesn’t have sneaky feees. It’s entirely possible to book a flight with them for the price advertised and first quoted when you search. They do prompt you to pay for heaps of extras but there are none that are unavoidable.

The real offenders are ticketing companies that charge mandatory service fees or convenience fees without providing a way to purchase the item at the advertised cost.

Car rental companies are the worst because they actually act like the mafia. "It would be a nightmare if something happened to the vehicle...we are forced to charge £1500 for each and every separate piece of damage". Actual quote from an employee of Enterprise while trying to upsell me extra insurance

It's just a ban on buying and selling fake reviews, so the same way they regulate buying and selling anything.

up to the individual website host

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43599562

Leave that up to the companies publishing the reviews, and fine the one who don't deal with it.

They've been doing that for a good 20 years at least. Might be more common but it's nothing new. I only say that not to correct you but just to say it's pretty common knowledge. It also has to be written on the menu.

They do seem to be getting more reluctant and even sometimes angry when removing it though.

Pretty standard in jurisdictions where tipping isn’t common, esp for larger groups. Usually noted on the menu but you can always decline if the hardworking minimum wage staff did not meet your satisfaction or if you can’t afford it.

I am not quite sure whether you misread the content, or misread the date, or maybe even got confused by the common bad habit of people calling the EU Europe (which is rather like calling the USA "North America" - but worse).

To be clear, it is a UK law that goes into effect today, many years post Brexit.

This is not an EU thing, but I'd like it if it is proposed here as well.

Legislation usually tries to catch up with technology. In the times when people paid cash at a ticket office and they would not have had hundreds of options many of the things mentioned would not have happened - life was slower, there were fewer options, reputation was more important.

Would it have been possible for legislation to change faster? Probably, but that's politics, deciding together what is the next things to solve while having different opinions and many things to solve.

It is not bad they try to fix it, am I personally sure this was the most important? Not sure. There are many horrible things out there when some group takes advantage of another one...

It's a common question about new legislation that appears to overlap with existing. AIUI it helps regulators/police etc with charging, as the new legislation can require less burden of proof etc. Happy to be corrected

But there is of course plenty of other political motivation for legislation and I can see what you're saying.

>How is it that sneaky fees were ever legal?

The fees are still visible to you before you purchase; they are only visible at the last step. So you are giving consent. Nothing obviously illegal per se, just a poor experience. At least in the US, Biden was unable to anything about it. Whether it was lack of will or incompetence, he didn't achieve anything. At the local level, CA tried to pass some laws to similar effect, but they also didn't go anywhere and were ultimately watered down to create carve outs for the most profitable junk fees.

They are not hidden fees buried into a contract that you've signed. The term in the article is "dripped fees": the full price is disclosed step by step.

Ultimately the full price is shown before you enter into a contract and before you pay. You have no obligation to buy.

They are more of a misleading advertising practice to get your attention and further along the sale funnel.