Purchased Reviews

Purchased reviews have become so prodigious on IMDB that the numerical ratings for television shows and movies, and the user reviews for them should be considered fraudulent and merit-less.

Going to the page of any movie or television show, you can find multiple user reviews giving that show 10/10 and offering words of non-specific and over-sensationalized acclaim. The accounts may have vaguely american sounding names like Marker instead of Mark, or Rethomas instead of Thomas, or they will have names common to South Asia. These user accounts will often times only have the one fake review.

It is no secret that there are businesses established in Southern Asia that have employs writers to write fake reviews for money, as it has proven to increase the sales of the product they are schilling.

I don't have a solution, and I realize what a difficult problem it is to address, but I do believe it is a large problem that is being ignored.

I guess I would like an acknowledgement by IMDB that they are aware of the issue, and I'd like to know what they are doing to address it. I would also like to encourage anyone with any ideas or insight on this issue to share your thoughts.

Thanks.

Bort

4 Posts
5 Reply Likes

Posted 2 years ago

2 years ago

Jeorj Euler

7420 Posts
9838 Reply Likes

Hi, Bort. If you know where to go to "purchase" a review, then please identify the venue.

Comment

2 people like this

2018-09-01T07:32:59+00:00

Jeorj Euler

7420 Posts
9838 Reply Likes

Quite frankly, I love to know where to go to be hired to write fluff reviews. How much is the pay/compensation? Writing fraudulent reviews is unethical, and I probably wouldn't do go that far, but the opportunity to do it would be eye-opening. I could make a documentary about it.

2018-09-01T08:06:44+00:00

Vincent Fournols

2901 Posts
4906 Reply Likes

Or I would take the opportunity to watch the film :)

2018-09-01T18:29:20+00:00

Bort

4 Posts
5 Reply Likes

Hey Jeorj. Here's a start for your documentary. https://www.google.com/search?ei=ftmKW-2gJc2E5wLL7ZmABA&q=%22where+can+i+buy+reviews%22&oq=%...

From my understanding...India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Southern Asian countries are the hotbed for this type of employment due to lack of laws that regulate business ethics.

I certainly would watch a documentary about it.

2018-09-01T18:56:47+00:00

Jeorj Euler

7420 Posts
9838 Reply Likes

Bort, while the search Google search results are not useful, I shall thank you for the bit of insight as to physical locations of the origin of bought reviews.

2018-09-01T20:05:11+00:00

groovyvic

487 Posts
731 Reply Likes

Why would you pay someone to write fake reviews when you could just make different IMDB accounts and write them yourself? Or ask ur mom to write some nice reviews

2018-09-01T20:11:55+00:00

Jeorj Euler

7420 Posts
9838 Reply Likes

Hi, groovyvic. Assistants would have to be hired if tons of reviews are desired to be written. Otherwise or alternately, it bots could be "employed" and deployed. Each unit would have to go through the whole registration (user account creation) process.

2018-09-01T20:26:02+00:00

groovyvic

487 Posts
731 Reply Likes

Literally all you need is an email to make an account, but yeah if we're talking large scale dozens of reviews in a day I guess that makes sense.. But even movies like Shutter Island with almost a million votes has only about 1000 written reviews in the 8 years since it's been released, even that would be pretty easy for one person to do on their own. But obviously that isn't what happened, and only a small fraction of movies have more than a couple hundred reviews, many of which seem legit or are negative...so I feel like this isn't happening on a large scale at all. If a movie has an extremely high number of reviews relative to how many votes it has/how well known it is, I guess that would be a red flag..but meh.

2018-09-01T20:41:39+00:00

Jeorj Euler

7420 Posts
9838 Reply Likes

I agree with you about the scale, groovyvic. On the other hand, new reports/complaints from different visitors to the site continue to flow in about "fake reviews" and "bought reviews". Nobody has bothered to present a substantive forensic short thesis on the matter, and a lot of audiences do not care about the situation. IMDb non-staff are largely powerless to investigate. We cannot see the Internet addresses and Web browser "user agent" data of the millions of hosts that access the site. There is no clarity as to what is actually going on, just a bunch of weak conspiracy theories, and to that end, it is potentially boring to even discuss it.

2018-09-01T21:08:57+00:00

ACT_1

4614 Posts
6213 Reply Likes

"The Innocents" and phony reviews
https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/-the-innocents-and-phony-reviews

The Innocents (2018– )
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8021824/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8021824/reference
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8021824/reviews
97 Reviews
= = =

Mouseover User Name to see User Numbers
Look for many near the same

Samples:

itsatanda
IMDb member since Tue Aug 28 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91737762/

discotech-16666
IMDb member since Tue Aug 28 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91749222/

soundhound-61051
IMDb member since Wed Aug 29 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91771323/

fritzramon-00405
IMDb member since Thu Aug 30 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91815642/

carlyzegers
IMDb member since Thu Aug 30 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91833592/

simard-34859
IMDb member since Fri Aug 31 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91839116/

eugenesapplongisland
IMDb member since September 1 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91910360/

(Edited)

2018-09-01T23:03:28+00:00

ACT_1

4614 Posts
6213 Reply Likes

Lots of these type of User Names recently
They do not seem to be doing anything

Staff can find more

kmd-79106
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850000/

mmx-03721
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850100/

ykb-30523
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850400/

tqh-19642
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850500/

wuc-60866
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850600/

kgb-77930
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91851000/

iht-14647
IMDb member since August 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91870000/

kst-91413
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91879956/

jmo-53062
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91882500/

jgx-43943
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91884500/

swh-73245
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91885000/

fmz-24231
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91887000/

kst-91413
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91919191/

dee-88352
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91938100/

qlp-77772
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91938500/

wfj-02455
IMDb member since September 2018
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91938700/

(Edited)

2018-09-03T01:35:37+00:00

ACT_1

4614 Posts
6213 Reply Likes

Second look... some are making lists...

mmx-03721
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850100/lists

新安县找服务小妹打炮 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

孟津县哪条街有红灯区 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

兰考县找漂亮少妇一条龙服务保健按摩打炮 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018
- - -

ykb-30523
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850400/lists

手机伪基站工作原理lro 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

车载手机伪基站jum 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

手机版伪基站制作教程xpn 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018
- - -

tqh-19642
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850500/lists

呼兰区那个酒店宾馆有鸡婆一条龙啪服务 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

阿城那个酒店宾馆有鸡婆一条龙啪服务 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

双鸭山那个酒店宾馆有鸡婆一条龙啪服务 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018
- - -

wuc-60866
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur91850600/lists

友谊县那个酒店宾馆有鸡婆一条龙啪服务 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

虎林那个酒店宾馆有鸡婆一条龙啪服务 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

富裕县那个酒店宾馆有鸡婆一条龙啪服务 0 person | Public
Modified 31 August 2018 | Created 31 August 2018

You can look for more... (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

(Edited)

2 years ago

Vincent Fournols

2901 Posts
4906 Reply Likes

One partial solution: raise the minimum number of characters to 500 for one review. It makes it much more difficult to be "ubiquitous" and non-specific.

Comment

3 people like this

2018-09-01T12:08:40+00:00

Marco

1634 Posts
2077 Reply Likes

One partial solution: raise the minimum number of characters to 500 for one review. It makes it much more difficult to be "ubiquitous" and non-specific.

Couldn't agree more: https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/idea-make-sure-reviews-are-reviews-again-minimum-of-50-words... and https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics/minimum-number-of-lines-characters-for-user-reviews.

2 years ago

Col Needham, Official Rep

6866 Posts
4909 Reply Likes

Thank you for sharing your concern, all we can say about voting is covered in the FAQ at https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/track-movies-tv/faq-for-imdb-ratings/G67Y87TFYYP6TWAV

More information on reviews is spread across the help via https://help.imdb.com/search/all?term=user+reviews

Comment

3 people like this

2018-09-01T18:23:24+00:00

Bort

4 Posts
5 Reply Likes

There is not one section of this FAQ that addresses the issue of companies that are paid to review films and tv shows positively without merit.

I am asking specifically for you to acknowledge the problem and to explain to us users what you are doing to mitigate it (tho I know the answer is nothing, I want to hear you say it).

(Edited)

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