So I’m doing homework for an English assigenment. I’m told to write a book review. ‘Room 13‘ by Robert Swindles. Personal impressions? Perhaps two stars at best. The Amazon reviews? Highly suspicious. All one-name reviews. All asking rhetorical questions such as…

But when she goes to the toilet in the middle of the night why is there a number 13 on the linen cupboard? What sinister creature lurks inside? Can you stomach the fear?

ALL having reviewed only one Amazon item. And guess what? It’s Room 13. All the reviews basically say the same thing, but reworded. Did I mention practically all the reviews were written on the same day, too? The real question… Why? Artificial ’star boosting’ ratings? Simply trying to convince people with tacky rhetorical questioning? Plain old bad marketing?

If you read this book you will never read another book better.

I hate to simply accuse people of ‘gaming’ the system - but sometimes things are obvious.

We’ve known for a while the gaming that goes on with the eBay system. I mean seriously… Who really thinks ‘A+++++++++++++++++ EXCELLENT BUYER WOULD DO BUSINESS AGAIN ++++++ A*********** BRILLIANT’ is an honest review? Plain and simple - good rating exchanges.

Blimey - I’ve ranted on and my homework isn’t done yet - still flicking through fake reviews on the net. If you’ve ever experienced falsified reviews/ratings/testimonials on the net - please share your thoughts. It’d be rather interesting to see what crops up.