14 years
I've been thinking of this thread for the past few weeks and still got some open doubts about the whole system.
The main problem is, regardless how perfect defense would be set up to spot fake reviews, it will be broken just in matter of time.
That's just human behaviour. If something can't be cracked, people will keep on trying.
The real solution would be if BEs would set up a department (could be still just a one-man-army though ;) ) to constantly search for fake reviews and the BE company would be able to investigate such cases instead of just pretending they don't exist. I've had couple of suggestions to my buddy but it didn't seem to go through bureaucracy. :(
If we think theoretically with others' mind, we could easily resolve some situations... Needs some balls though to bring it through! ;) I hope one day a CEO will read this thread sometime and may start thinking about it! ;)
DISCLAIMER: I am running a proper business and living of my reputation. Since I've never tried any of these tricks, these thoughts are just to wake ideas on how to catch people making fake reviews. Probably some fake reviewers read this as well, but hopefully by the time they'd use such, the problems would be already taken care of. It was written for the purpose of brainstorming and helping BEs catching fake reviewers and to fix up some possible security leaks.
If someone wants to cheat, all they need is a credit card. Let it be a friend's one or your own, loads of fake reviews need loads of CC numbers. Still, all you need is one booking per review.
One way I can think of to check a booker's real identity would be the IP where the booking was made from. There are ways to fake an IP, it's called a proxy server.
Solution 1: BAN PROXIES.
Proxy servers are public listed, easy to filter. Another way to identify if the same computer has been used is to check on the MAC address. It is a unique identifier of the network card, sometimes the computer as well (especially if it's a laptop or an iphone).
Most fake reviews I can think of would be made by sole bookings. You know, the reviewer who made one and only booking and review.
Solution 2: Restrict all first reviewers. People could give reviews from their second stay in a hostel. The first reviews are usually inappropriate anyway, I mean would you rate correct if you don't have previous experience? ;) If a BE can claim over milions of reviews, wouldn't it be easier to filter them in order to make it more authentic?
Some people have more hostels in one city, they can use the same card two, three times because of the several owned properties.
Solution 3: Allow only one review per city. It would be very hard to find partners in crime in a city you don't know, also it's much easier to find patterns of fake reviewing hostels... aha, those two 100% all the time!
Mostly summer hostels start over with clean reviews and they are the ones who usually get the poorest reviews. People don't invest to properties which they only rent for 3 months. All they gotta do is to find 10 people who make reviews, then load up the hostel with disappointed backpackers who will usually revenge by rating the hostel afterwords, but even then the hostel get a chance to load up regardless how fake those reviews are. Usually these hostels start with 100% and end up in the 60s... This problem affects HW only as the ratings vanish in 6 months and these hostels are usually closed for 9...
Solution 4: Extend length of reviews to 12 months. This way a continuous rating would've been kept up also would double the number of reviews, which may balance out the ban of first reviewers as well. ;)
Another problem could be, that let's say a friend of a hostel owner abroad would make a fake review. This case the 'guest' haven't been to the hostel, probably didn't even travel at the time, just made the booking at home and filled in the review on the day after.
Solution 5: Flag bookings and reviews which was made on the same IP/MAC address, especially if the time and distance ratio is too improbable.
Do you think something is missing from the list? Having doubts? Would you share your thoughts?
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