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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 17 december 2019

Smart holiday shopping: Avoiding fake reviews and tricky ads

By JOSEPH PISANI and AN- money-saving tools. Hon-
ICK JESDANUN ey, for example, lets you
AP Business Writers track products and will
NEW YORK (AP) — There notify you when there’s
are lots of bargains online a price drop at Amazon,
during the holidays, but Macy’s and other major
also plenty of ways to get stores.
scammed, even at estab- Your options are more lim-
lished outlets like Amazon. ited on your phone. Brows-
How can you be sure er extensions work only on
you’re reading a legiti- traditional desktop and
mate review, not one com- laptop computers.
ing from a company em- PRODUCT PLACEMENTS
ployee? How can you flag Amazon, eBay, Walmart
sponsored placements and Macy’s are among
and other ads — and pro- the retailers that are stuff-
tect your credit card once ing their online stores with
you buy? ads to make more money.
Although there’s no magi- Companies big and small
cal solution, try some of can bid to get their prod-
these practices to be a ucts near the top of a
savvier online shopper. store’s search results. They
REVIEWING THE REVIEWS look just like regular prod-
Online reviews at major A customer rating for a product for sale on Amazon.com is displayed on a computer screen on uct listings, except for the
retailers such as Amazon Monday, Dec. 16, 2019, in New York. Associated Press word “Sponsored.” You
and Walmart and listing might think that a product
services such as Yelp look is showing up at the top
like a good place to get ply inauthentic reviews.” least tell that the review- fraudsters try to sneak in because it’s somehow bet-
first-hand information from The Federal Trade Commis- er has used the product, their brand-name counter- ter.
people who’ve tried a sion recently settled with a though it’s not always easy feits. Ínstead, sellers typically
product or merchant. cosmetics merchant that, to tell if they’ve been com- In a report last year, the buy ads for their more ex-
But investigations by The it charged, had its own pensated. U.S. Government Account- pensive products or ones
Washington Post and managers create fake ac- Text reviews can still be ability Office said 20 of the they have just launched
BuzzFeed have described counts and direct employ- helpful once you learn to 47 items it bought from on- to get the product in front
networks of fake review- ees to write good reviews spot unusual patterns, such line stores with third-party of more shoppers and in-
ers paid to inflate ratings on Sephora.com. as lots of five-star ratings in marketplaces were coun- crease the likelihood of a
for lesser-known sellers on Beyond that, many so- a short period of time. terfeit. It isn’t just about sale, said Juozas Kaziuke-
Amazon. called social media influ- If a service lets people rate getting duped; phony nas, the founder of Mar-
Merchants might also have encers also write reviews reviews as helpful or not, products might be made ketplace Pulse, a market
their own employees write after receiving free prod- look for reviews with an with toxic chemicals or research firm.
favorable reviews, or trash ucts.Saoud Khalifah, who unusually high number of carry other risks. Before buying a product
competitors. founded the service Fakes- “helpful” votes. Khalifah One safeguard is to re- that was an ad, make sure
Amazon has waged a le- pot to help consumers said merchants might try search whom you’re buy- that it fits what you’re look-
gal battle against fake re- avoid being influenced by to game the system by ar- ing from. ing for and that there isn’t
viewers since at least 2015, fake and biased reviews, tificially inflating favorable The “sold by” section will a cheaper option.
when it claimed in a court suggests looking beyond reviews as helpful so they list the seller’s name. Look CREDIT CARD SAFETY
filing that “an unhealthy text reviews. show up more prominently. up its website to see if there Once you’re ready to buy,
ecosystem is developing Search for video reviews Another warning sign: re- are negative reviews or don’t hand your credit or
outside of Amazon to sup- on YouTube; you can at views that carry high or if the site looks unprofes- debit card number to just
low ratings without offering sional. Blurry photos and anyone. Even if the mer-
many specifics. misspellings are red flags. chant is legitimate, smaller
Other patterns are harder Others include sparse re- businesses might not have
to spot. A reviewer might views or complaints about the resources to keep up
have been banned from knockoffs. on security. That could
one service, but still write Be sure to compare the leave your data exposed
for others. Websites and price to other sites. If it’s to hacking.
apps such as Fakespot can much lower, you may be You can protect your-
help by flagging the same looking at a phony. self by using credit cards
person’s reviews elsewhere COUPONS WITHOUT THE when possible, as they of-
and offering a revised rat- HUNT fer better protections than
ing. Save money by install- debit cards. Federal law
DODGE FAKES ing browser extensions limits liability to $50 if your
Just because you’re shop- from such companies as number gets stolen — and
ping on Amazon doesn’t Honey, RetailMeNot and banks will often waive that
mean you’re buying from Wikibuy. A button will show entirely. Though there has
Amazon. The online shop- up on your web browser. been a decline in fraud in-
ping giant, like eBay, Click to automatically volving existing credit card
Walmart and others, has search for and paste in accounts, it still amounted
vast third-party market- discount codes such as to $6.5 billion last year, ac-
places where anyone can “CYBERDEAL” when you’re cording to estimates from
sell goods. ready to check out. the advisory firm Javelin
The problem: That’s where The companies have other Strategy & Research.q