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Something strange I’ve seen on more than one occasion and on multiple platforms is 1-star glowing reviews and 5-star bashing reviews.

Also, when looking at overall reviews for a given thing there is usually a pattern for fraudulent ones, kind of like students having to summarise from the same text.

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I've noticed this is particularly common on the Google Play store. Apparently the reason is reviews which go against what most people are reviewing are given a higher priority and more likely to be shown to potential users.

E.g. if an app is getting mostly 5 stars and you give it a 1 star, your rating will be more prominently shown in Google Play.

This kind of bi-modal distribution usually means one of three things. Most often it means the product is crap (Sturgeon's Law: 99% of everything is crap) and the vendor has been buying or posting fake five-star reviews. Occasionally it means the product is really good and a competitor has been buying or posting fake one-star reviews. Even more rarely, it means that the vendor and a competitor are both participating in a fake-review war. You could try looking at both sets of reviews to determine which scenario it is, but the odds are heavily stacked against it being the one that suggests a buy. As galling as it might be to let the miscreants win if that's the case, and to miss out on what's actually a good product, the safe bet is just to move on.

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