Wireless Thermometer Reviews for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCLI

wireless indoor-outdoor thermometer

No matter what product you're shopping for at "The River," you can bet that you're going to find reviews of most of the available choices. Your problem, of course, is simple: can you trust the reviews? Most people here at the Antisocial Network think you should take them with a grain of salt; not least because the vast majority are written by people unqualified to compare two products. Why? Because they've only experienced one of them. Amazon has attempted to "help" consumers make a choice by hiring freelancers to write "best of" lists. Sadly, most of them are nothing more than an aggregation of the most highly-rated choices written by people who pretend to have "tested" the products. For example, read the bullshit called "Best Indoor/Outdoor Thermometers" published at Amazon.com by BestReviews."

Angle Finders for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMXCVII

In the bad old days of content farms, certain freelancers decided that the quickest way to amass a fortune in so-called "passive income" was to write reviews of expensive items. Whether it was vacuum cleaners or SLR cameras, every product had its self-declared "expert," often someone whose expertise extended just about as far as having browsed the reviews at Amazon. Wissley.com had one such fake reviewer who specialized in tools; a guy who called himself Tested-to-Destruction. We've seen his particular brand of rubbish before, and we were heartily unimpressed. That's why we took another look at his catalog and plucked out a likely candidate: "Angle Finder Reviews."

Fake Nailer Reviews by Dummies

Wire-collated nail coil

Some of the staffers here at the Antisocial Network wrote at one time or another for review websites like Epinions.com, and they are all well aware of the "anything with a cord or a battery" mentality of fake reviewers. The idea is that reviews of expensive items like appliances, cameras, and power tools paid far better than reviews of music or books; which meant that the less scrupulous contributors were prone to exaggerating a) their experience and b) their expertise. One of the more egregious cases of fakers we've found is James K. Blake of EzineArticles.com, who pounded out 309 "reviews" for the website in about ten months (dumping out as many as twenty per day), more than 200 of them for power tools. If they all suck as much as "Nailing Made Simpler With The Hitachi NV75AG Framing Coil Nailer" (and the ones we're read do), you'd be wise to avoid his "work."

Allen Wrench Reviews for Dummies

Didn't think of hex bit sets didja!

Although we don't get to them very often, fake reviews tend to be one of the pettest of our pet peeves here at the Antisocial Network. The worst, in our opinion, are the freelancers who pretend to have performed a comparison of three, five, even ten of the same item: unless it only cost a nickel, most people just don't buy multiples of the same product. For one, they don't need multiples, for another, there are always other things to spend money on. We ran across a serial fake reviewer at Wizzley.com a while back when he claimed to have Tested to destruction (Ttd) more than $1,000 worth of chop saws. Yeah, sure: the guy just copied "information" from Amazon reviews... the exact same thing he did with another post, "Allen Wrench Set Reviews."

Men's Bike Shorts as Reviewed by Dummies

men's bike shorts

Few things are quicker to raise the ire of one of our staffers than fake reviews. A shopper looking for real experience with a product is supposed to be able to depend on the reviews websites and vendors post, but what happens when you realize that the person who wrote the review had never even seen the product? That's what our staffer figured was going on when he went to Amazon looking for a new pair of bike shorts and stumbled across Allie Fasanella and her editorial recommendation, "The Best Men's Bike Shorts."

Dummy Bicycle Reviews

typical hybrid bike

A staffer or two once wrote reviews for the now-defunct review site Epinions.com. The notion behind the site was that people would submit real-world reviews based on their experience. The reality was that there were always a few "reviewers" who had little or no experience with the product they reviewed; especially if the product was expensive, popular, or both. Some of them were so unfamiliar with the product that they couldn't even spell its name; reviewing "Cuisinant" kitchen appliances and "Infinity" cars. Sad to say, it's still happening: check out "Comparison of a Trek 7200 Hybrid Bicycle to a Comparable Schwinn," posted to SportsRec.com by Angela Brady.

Miter Saw Stands, a Dummies Review

Miter Saw Stand

Few, if any, freelancers provide a greater disservice to their readers than those who generate fake product reviews. The worst of the worst, if you ask us, are those who publish page after page of "The 5 Best..." and "The 10 Best..." compilations. How dumb do you have to be not to realize that few (if any) people have performed a head-to-head-to-head-to-head-to-head comparison of all five (then turned around and did it again the next year?) You know the greed-sucking freelancer just compiled all that information from Amazon reviews... not unlike "Power Tool Expert" (Dustin Fredrickson) and his "Best Miter Saw Stand 2017."¹

Bogus Saw Reviews for Dummy Carpenters

Bosch worksite table saw

Some, although unfortunately not all, of our DotD candidate posts include what the author seems to think are references to back up their statements. Whenever possible, we follow these references to their source to determine whether the original is full of crap or the freelancer in question simply can't reword useful information and make sense. Every once in a while, though... and today's one of those "once in a while" occasions. So let's meet freelancer James K. Blake and his EzineArticles.com post, "A Cut Above: The Bosch 4100 Worksite Table Saw With Gravity Rise Stand."

Beginner Guitars for Dummies

Acoustic guitar

When the topic of "wannabe" comes up, at least one of our staffers will always become wistful about the guitar. It seems he's tried, a couple of times (at least), to learn to play the guitar; but to no avail. He does, however, have a few guitars around the house, so when he ran across the Wizzley.com article, "Best Guitar for Beginners," he was curious. Curious, that is, until he recognized the name of Mary F., an inveterate content farmer on the website. He read it anyway, and shared his notes at the next staff meeting.

Bosch Miter Saws for Dummy Carpenters

This is not James K Blake with a Bosch 5312

From time to time we take so-called mommy-bloggers to task for some of those obviously fake reviews written just to get free products and generate a few more eyeballs for their blogs. Of course, not all fake reviews are written by mommies; there are also daddy-bloggers out there plugging products. This big difference is that most of their products are ruinously expensive, so instead of hoping for a freebie they do what James K. Blake of EzineArticles.com did: just copy other people's thoughts into a post like "The Unique Features of The Bosch 5312 Compound Miter Saw Unveiled!" [the excitement is all Blake's].

Table Saw Reviews by Dummies

Bosch 4100-09 Table Saw

A couple of our staffers here at the Antisocial Network came on board not long after review site Epinions.com bit the dust. By itself, that fact probably doesn't mean much, but in the context of recognizing fake product reviews,may not have realized it, one of Epinions' problems was the proliferation of fake reviews, especially of expensive stuff – as the locals often said, "Anything with a cord." Recognizing a fake review is actually easy: there is no personal experience and few, if any, facts that don't come from the manufacturer's specs. Today's DotD nominee, Mary F., pumped out a slew of such reviews for Wizzley.com back in 2012, including "Bosch 4100-09 10-Inch Worksite Table Saw with Gravity-Rise Stand Review."

Miter Saws, the Dummy Version

Sliding Compound Miter Saw

Ever had a parrot? Neither has anyone here at the Antisocial Network, though one staffer had a cockatiel for a while. Anyway, everyone knows that parrots can talk, and we hope that everyone knows that the birds don't know what the words they're saying mean. We see the same thing a lot with freelancers: they parrot miscellaneous information they've picked up somewhere (usually by looking at lists of words used in search engines) and try to make a few bucks for their misinformation. Take, for instance, hubbie June Campbell: We already caught her pretending to know about hand tools, now we found her over at EzineArticles.com pretending to know about the "Miter Saw – An Indispensable Tool for the DIY Woodworking Enthusiast."

Forstner Bits for Dummies

A Forstner bit in a drill press

It's been a while since the Antisocial Network team has nailed someone for a fake tool review, but that doesn't mean we don't turn them up on a near daily basis. After all, the damned things are everywhere on the 'net. Some are the "I didn't use it but my hubby did" type, and some are of the "I heard you can make lots of money reviewing tools" type. Today's entry, compliments of a heretofore untapped source of dumbassery, is that latter type. It's "Forstner Bit Reviews," posted by some guy claiming the name Tested_to_Destruction at Wizzley.com. Oh, joy, another content farm to mine...

A Dummies Guide to Northern Arizona

Monument Valley Mittens

For our money (which ain't much, let us tell you!), some of the most... troubling? freelancers on the 'net are the armchair travelers. We're talking about the people who posted hundreds of reviews of hotels, restaurants, museums, and other destinations on sites like epinions.com and the many content farms out there. For some, it was obvious that the reams of information they posted were merely distilled from guidebooks and online sources. And then there were the "helpful" types, such as Helium travel channel manager Isabelle Esteves, who didn't actually claim to have been there – they just gave "suggestions"... suggestions like "Places to Visit in Northern Arizona," which Iz reposted to WritEdge.com¹ after Helium died.

Miter Saws for the Dummy Carpenter

Hitachi C8FSE Sliding Power Miter Saw

In a world where hyperbole apparently rules, overstatement and exaggeration are acceptable and only bald-faced lies are not allowed [NOTE: this was written pre-Trump]. Of course, politics is the exception to even that lack of rules – but we digress. As far as the money-grubbers among freelancers are concerned, anything you want to say that might pull in eyeballs is fair game, even if the statement is demonstrably stupid or untrue. That's why we've singled out today's DotD, a gent who chose the name PowerToolExpert (real name Dustin Fredrickson) at InfoBarrel.com¹ and dashed off boatloads of nearly identical "reviews" of tools for a few weeks back in 2009 (not content with the bucks he was making there, Dustin bought his own domain (now defunct) where he publishes his half-assed content to this day). As for the reviews (and Dustin's claimed "expertise"), we took a look at an example he called "Hitachi Miter Saw": not a very... SEO-y title, eh?

Bogus Reviews for the Dummy Shopper

Skil worm-drive circular saw

It's odd, but we seem to have been at this point before, or at least in the same neighborhood. Although we know that there are thousands of faked product reviews out there, it's not always easy to identify them. One site that was infamous for so-called "drive-by reviews" (product reviews written by people who never actually used the product) was Epinions.com. While most of the now-defunct site's reviews were legitimate, the desperate need to make extra money in the high payout categories (just about anything with a cord) drove some members to "stre-e-e-tch" the facts a bit; members like Dionne25 who explained how much someone else liked a product in the review she titled "It's My Fiance's Favorite and Most Efficient Tool."¹

Cyclocomputers for Dummies

cycle computer

In the days before every vendor let let every customer (and, for that matter, non-customer) post product reviews on their websites, there were sites where a prolific product reviewer could bring in a few dollars a month by posting reviews of whatever product they happened to have used (or just seen) lately. There were sites like Viewpoints, Epinions, Ciao, and others. These days, most of the sites are dead or dying, having been slammed by Google's anti-content farm Panda update several years ago. That news hasn't reached some folks, yet; so they're still merrily plugging away. Sadly, the ones who haven't gotten the message are often the ones who drove review sites into the ground with poor-quality and even faked reviews – content like "Pedometer for Bike Riding" posted to DailyTwoCents.com¹ by someone claiming to be Wwkeen.

Power Tools for the Dummy SAHM

Hammer drill

Online reviews are a pet peeve of ours, especially reviews written for money, probably because so many of them are either fake or based entirely on one minute's exposure to the product. The popular wisdom is that reviews of "anything with a cord" are more likely to earn, so total dumbasses desperately seeking pennies have been prone to writing reviews of electronics, vacuum cleaners and power tools about which they know next to nothing - or nothing at all. A dead giveaway is a review that opens with the writer claiming he or she is a total beginner in the field — like the Powerbase Xtreme Hammer Drill review¹ written by Laura Gabrielle at Recommender.com. 

Now Laura's written over 600 reviews for the site, the majority of them reviews of various cosmetics. That probably explains why her opening paragraph reads,

Fake Reviews for Dummies, Revisited

Anyone who read an Amazon book review in the first decade of the 21st century is familiar with the late Harriett Klausner, the site's number one reviewer during that time. Harriett, who seemed to have mad speed-reading skillz, often pounded out twenty or thirty book reviews per day, although almost all bore a striking resemblance to the jacket blurb. Well, Harriett isn't the only "reviewer" out there faking it: the practice is disturbingly (some might say "disgustingly") widespread. Some of the content is so obvious that even the most brain-dead among us can spot it. Want an example? We're glad to oblige, courtesy of ThePen at seekyt.com, who wrote "Product Review: Canon 4624A002 Is All Weather Binoculars." This particular morsel of freelancer dumbassery is not only fake, it's also spun from somewhere else. Know how we can tell? Just read the first paragraph:

How Dummies Earn Pennies for Fake Reviews

Although the site's now gone to the great dot-com dump in the sky, back in the day quite a few people made a lot of money reviewing products for Epinions.com. Although no one gets any residual income from them any more, the reviews were still out there for years; including more than a few that are clearly fake. Site members regularly advised newcomers that they could make more money writing reviews of expensive products, especially those that "have cords." Since faking reviews of electronics and computers proved pretty hard, the moneygrubbers headed for the home and garden category where they were received with open arms (often by other fakers). That's where a member calling herself hvarmit concocted her tale of using¹ a $200-plus cordless circular saw. The review originally said that she'd used the saw to cut curves before someone advised her that circular saws don't do that...

Anyway, here's some of hvarmit's other bull: