[glennster28]

This is something that BlackBerry needs to crack down on.

I was looking for a battery monitoring app for a friend and was looking at BB world, and noticed the 3 apps with the highest review count and rating had a high number of fake reviews. I'm guessing these are generated by some sort of bot. You can easily spot one based on the review and name of reviewer. One is typically

Heading: Good
Review: Good
By: randomguy-12345 (a lot of the users have names in this format it seems)

This is ruining the experience and credibility of the review system. Hopefully BB knows about it or someone can shed some light onto this issue.

[Andrew4life]

Look at the star rating. Users can delete reviews but the star rating is always a total of all reviews, including the deleted review ratings.



Posted via CB10

[glennster28]

Yes but it seems that the star ratings are being inflated by such fake reviews. For me, if I see a lot of reviews and a good 4 or 5 star app, I'd be inclined to download it.

[wtz11]

I have thought most of the reviews in BBworld were fake for a while now. What would be the benefit of someone doing this? Other then the developer him/her-self.

[glennster28]

I have thought most of the reviews in BBworld were fake for a while now. What would be the benefit of someone doing this? Other then the developer him/her-self.

It directly benefits developers as it generates the impression that the app is legit based on the number of reviews and ratings. I guess the reviews are generated by some sort of bots.

[lmcjipo]

I experienced first hand the developer deleting my review for what I felt was a fair/valid review of their application. The application that I reviewed was sip.fm (a VoIP SIP program).

I gave them a rating of 3 stars out of 5. I removed 1 star for the fact that I contacted their support department via e-mail and never received an acknowledgement or a reply to the issue that I had. I removed the 2nd star for the actual issue/problem that I was having.

I made mention in my review that they lost 1 star for their non-responsive support and lost another star for the problem/issue with their program which I reported.

After posting my review, I checked out the reviews on their application a few days later and my review was removed. Their star rating seemed to stay at 5 stars and all the reviews on their site were in the 4-5 star rating with the majority of the ratings being 5 stars.

For me, after seeing this, I no longer review apps on BB App World. It is a big waste of time.

I've reviewed on Android MarketPlace and the Apple Apps Store and never had any of my reviews deleted by the developer/company.

[Dirk Songuer]

As an app developer I can only say: Please don't be discouraged by some black sheep in the app world. Good devs rely on the feedback to identify trends, change requests and opinions.

I understand that some devs want to game the system, but when in doubt look at the total amount of reviews. The more the better. And that also needs your support and reviews to work.

Posted via CB10

[cfoxx]

I think the app reviews are a total mess in BlackBerry World. It should at least filter out reviews that aren't in English when you're operating system is set to English. Often all the reviews for apps are in Arabic.

Posted via CB10

[anon(5869815)]

Catastrophic...
And the rare real reviews completely discourages you downloading those apps (most of these apps should actually be banned from the BBW)

Posted via CB10

[devcellent]

If the issue is resolved in subsequent updates/releases, I think it is Ok to remove the review that refers the issue. it is not easy for the BB World stuff to check all such requests. However, they could keep an eye if the review deny request from developers seems suspicious, e.g., deny request w/o any comments in the ticket!

[mjdimer]

Or, just show reviews for the current version, with an option to see reviews for previous versions... which is what Apple does.

Any normal company doesn't have the option of deleting annoyed customers, regardless of the reason. I don't see how it's different for developers. What ever happen to "the customer is always right", even if they aren't!

Posted via CB10

[MasterOfBinary]

I have thought most of the reviews in BBworld were fake for a while now. What would be the benefit of someone doing this? Other then the developer him/her-self.

More people will buy the app if it has a higher star rating. So yes, it benefits the developer, as well as the people who get paid to do it.