Whenever I shop online, reviews are my compass. If I’m on Amazon, I’ll scroll past the product description and go straight to the stars, pictures, and those oddly specific comments from strangers. On TikTok Shop, I’ll check what influencers say before I even consider hitting add to cart. Reviews feel like the digital version of asking your friend if its worth buying but here’s the catch can we actually trust them anymore?
Over the past year, story after story has popped up about fake reviews flooding platforms. In the UK, the competition authority even launched an investigation into Amazon because so many sellers were caught gaming the system. There are entire underground networks where people get free products or cash to leave 5 star ratings. Some even use bots that can pump out hundreds of reviews overnight. On TikTok, it’s slightly different but just as sketchy creators push products during livestreams or short videos, sometimes without really testing them. They make it look authentic, but it’s essentially paid promotion disguised as customer experience.
This makes me wonder if reviews are the thing that’s supposed to help us filter the good from the bad, what happens when the filter itself is broken. A few months ago, I bought a best selling workout set that had thousands of glowing reviews on Amazon. The first week was fine then out of nowhere they broke and the color faded. When I went back to the listing I noticed that many of the verified reviews were written in the same copy paste style, with weird grammar and suspiciously vague compliments like very good product, nice quality. That’s when it hit me that they were almost all fake.
This isn’t really about my workout set tough it is a bigger trust problem. Online markets work because we assume reviews are some kind of collective truth. If enough people say somethings good it probably is but if those reviews can be bought the entire system starts to become sketchy.
Platforms know this and actually amazon has started suing fake review brokers and claims it’s rolling out better AI to catch suspicious patterns. TikTok says it iss developing stronger verification tools to weed out shady sellers. That’s all good, but it still feels like a game. Sellers who want to cheat have every reason to stay one step ahead because a higher rating almost always means more sales.
So where does this leave us as consumers? I think we might be moving toward two possible futures. Either fake reviews keep popping up, and we just get better at spotting them. You know the signs same reviews over and over, super generic praise, or crazy high ratings on cheap stuff. Basically, we turn into little detectives every time we buy something. Or people stop trusting open marketplaces and go to places where someone else does the checking for you like Costco where you pay a bit more see less variety but at least you’re less likely to get scammed.
Personally, I’m torn. I love the freedom of browsing through endless products online, reading what seems like authentic feedback from other buyers. At the same time, I hate feeling like I have to play detective just to avoid getting ripped off.
The bigger question is whether fake reviews are just an annoying side effect of the online shopping boom, or if they’re a sign that the system itself is unsustainable. If trust is the foundation of online markets, what happens if we can’t trust the reviews anymore.
For now, I’ll keep scrolling through reviews and crossing my fingers that I can tell the real from the fake. But the next time I see a product with 10,000 5 star reviews, I’ll probably asking myself if it is real or fake!
I really liked this post, it felt super relatable and honest. The part about reviews being the ‘filter that’s broken’ really hit me because that’s exactly how it feels when shopping online now. You captured the mix of convenience and distrust that comes with relying on reviews so well. The examples about Amazon and TikTok made it real and showed how big the problem has become. It’s crazy how something that’s supposed to help us make better choices can end up being the thing that misleads us. Definitely made me think twice about how much I trust those 5-star ratings!
Wow, I totally feel you! Whenever I scroll on TikTok, I always see influencers promoting products that look amazing but turn out to be total rubbish. I actually ordered something once because I got fooled by all the hype on TikTok and Instagram. When it arrived, I seriously asked myself, “What was I thinking when I ordered this?” After that mistake, I learned not to trust anyone who gets paid to promote products. Fake online reviews are part of the same problem. Over time, I’ve gotten better at recognizing which reviews are genuine and which ones are fake. It has also become a habit for me to read the bad reviews first before looking at the good ones, almost feel like this whole experience gave me trust issues when it comes to online products.