Suspicious BST Reviews

I mean, such reviews ARE a little far-fetched, and questionable.



A "rank 1-3 position for ALL keywords"?

You made "10X your money back in less than 60 days"?

Just seems to me that sellers leaving their own reviews should at least make the effort to legitimize them.

My speculations could be wrong, but, I've noticed some rather unusual reviews lately that were overly positive in nature; reviews that sound more like a sales pitch from the seller than a review of the actual service. Another observation I've made is that a majority of these suspicious reviews are mostly concentrated on a select few service threads. As in, the threads with fake-looking reviews are the same threads that have a continual cycle of similarly posted reviews.

This leads me to believe that it's the member running the service that's self-publishing feedback.

Did you report this review?

Is that about sarkark named guy?

ContentExpert said:

I've noticed some rather unusual reviews lately that were overly positive in nature

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I've noticed the same. It felt like either the guy was paid or the seller must be using a secondary account to hike up the thread when in need. Most of such reviews are short, filled with positivity as you've quoted

It happens everywhere, it happens on BHW too. People buy here reviews for amazon or other sites. What stops them from buying reviews for BST?

davids355 said:

Did you report this review?

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I did not. I'm assuming I should per your inquiry.

EddieN said:

It happens everywhere, it happens on BHW too. People buy here reviews for amazon or other sites. What stops them from buying reviews for BST?

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You're right, but we want to keep the weeds out of our OWN garden.

ContentExpert said:

I did not. I'm assuming I should per your inquiry.



You're right, but we want to keep the weeds out of our OWN garden.

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Yes, any time that you think a post or a member on here is breaking the rules you should report it.

The staff can then investigate.

Yeah, this sounds a little too much to be legitimate, lol.

Those reviews are really funny to read. Screams fake.

I've always assumed on most threads there are some fake reviews to varying degrees.

Mods do check orders if they suspect, I believe, but it's probably a difficult issue to completely stamp out.

If it's a substantial amount I'm about to spend I normally just message the last 5/10 jrvip that have purchased and see what they think of the service.

As when buying anything in life your own due diligence is essential.

jamie3000 said:

If it's a substantial amount I'm about to spend I normally just message the last 5/10 jrvip that have purchased and see what they think of the service.

As when buying anything in life your own due diligence is essential.

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Great idea!

jamie3000 said:

I've always assumed on most threads there are some fake reviews to varying degrees.

Mods do check orders if they suspect, I believe, but it's probably a difficult issue to completely stamp out.

If it's a substantial amount I'm about to spend I normally just message the last 5/10 jrvip that have purchased and see what they think of the service.

As when buying anything in life your own due diligence is essential.

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Considering this is a forum where people buy fake reviews for Amazon, Google, Trip Advisor etc, then it's no wonder that there are probably fake reviews left on BSTs by members who have 2 posts or their only posts are on the same sellers BSTs.

As mentioned above, use your common sense. If Mr 2 posts gives it 10/10 and a member on here for 5 years with 2k posts gives it 6/10, I know who I'd be more inclined to believe.

If you suspect the Marketplace is being manipulated, then click the report button and provide evidence and staff will look into this.

MisterF said:

Considering this is a forum where people buy fake reviews for Amazon, Google, Trip Advisor etc, then it's no wonder that there are probably fake reviews left on BSTs by members who have 2 posts or their only posts are on the same sellers BSTs.

As mentioned above, use your common sense. If Mr 2 posts gives it 10/10 and a member on here for 5 years with 2k posts gives it 6/10, I know who I'd be more inclined to believe.

If you suspect the Marketplace is being manipulated, then click the report button and provide evidence and staff will look into this.

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You're absolutely right. At the end of the day it truly comes down to utilizing common sense. Overall, I feel the integrity of the marketplace is quite strong and believe MODs are consistently putting forth their best regulatory efforts to maintain a fair playing field for buyers and sellers alike.

What is wondering me more is the amount of new orders he get and how he can handle them all. If you look at the screen you can see he got 8 orders from only one guy and everyday he has 5 or so new orders. This can not be a manual SEO. All orders has to be processed by an automated programm or something.

where did Mr Asif Wilson Khan go ?

sina999 said:

What is wondering me more is the amount of new orders he get and how he can handle them all. If you look at the screen you can see he got 8 orders from only one guy and everyday he has 5 or so new orders. This can not be a manual SEO. All orders has to be processed by an automated programm or something.

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I thought the same thing.

deal with it said:

where did Mr Asif Wilson Khan go ?

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I heard @Asif WILSON Khan will be back soon. I recently saw a thread here that showed Asif responding to a member via Twitter in which he stated he'll be returning to the forum in the near future. Has been dealing with life matters.

Many of the BST sellers who use shady tactics to attract BHW customers, have seen other BSTs come and go, and have found ways to cover themselves. One common thing you'll see are random accounts who now have a small bit of history, as these scam / throwaway accounts have been able to age over the years whilst remaining undetected. Looking at the accounts, you can see they've been used as part of simple discussions, answered questions, greeted newbies, and have even paid for some services offered on BHW. These accounts seem to be pretty legitimate. They even "purchase" (with receipts) services being offered from the thread they wish to self-promote, as BHW staff have been unfortunately vocal about requiring verifiable proof that the services being reviewed were services that were actually purchased. I say "purchase" because they're essentially just moving money from one account to another. Both of which they own. Some sellers are caught. Other sellers are much better at covering their tracks. I'd say that overall, BHW offers a quality marketplace for many of the things we'll need, but as previously mentioned by others, you'll need to do your due diligence.

Side note: If you're buying SEO services, and you're using reviews to help make your purchasing decisions, always try to remember to pay attention to the dates of the reviews, as algorithm updates do happen.

EddieN said:

It happens everywhere, it happens on BHW too. People buy here reviews for amazon or other sites. What stops them from buying reviews for BST?

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Lmfao for some reason that made me laugh.. like for real i'm not even surprised

It's a tough job for Mods to verify these purchases and chase up these blatant fake reviews with the current structure of the marketplace.

At some point in the future @Diamond Damien will have to make a decision on whether to act as a market platform or continue to be just a marketplace. IE when to start handling the money and transactions of buyers and sellers. When and if that day comes it will definitely change the game for many sellers BS-ing there way through the marketplace.

One also needs to remember the amount of marketing money that the seller who was being reviewed above pumps into BHW.

Well its a very common thing but I have seen at one other forum (not blackhat though) they use their in-house contract system to deal in their marketplace. Since it's against the rules to mention any other forum name here so I can't name the forum but I think if that system can be implemented in this forum marketplace as well then there shouldn't be any problem of this kind. The contract system can be used by only those users who actually purchased the service/product so it's reduced the spam or fake reviews.