Trust no one but yourself
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It’s left to us, as consumers, to decide which products will work and which could injure. To do this, shopping experts say you need to dig deep to find out whether a product is a real bargain, or if it is too good to be true. Another Washington Post article warns that spotting a dodgy item needs the same skills as those used to ferret out fake news. As Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, warns: “No matter how intellectual you think you are, no matter how savvy you think you are — for tech or anything else — you have been victimized by disinformation at some point.”
When you shop online, The New York Times recommends approaching unheard-of vendors and brands with the same caution (and grain of salt) you’d apply to shopping at a real-world flea market. Remember that sellers aren’t obligated to carry items exactly as they are pictured. You need to buy items directly from a vendor and not from someone who will source the item from someplace else. Above all, know that ratings and reviews can no longer be used as a barometer of authenticity or reliability because, as Quartz points out, fake reviews, aka “deceptive opinion spam,” are getting more difficult to spot. If an item sports numerous five-star ratings and displays reviews that sing its praises, are repetitive, may be filled with grammatical and spelling errors, and sound too good to be true, the item itself probably is just that.
Buyer Beware: Why Online Shopping Is So Much Trickier Than It Used To Be
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By Hope Ngo/Oct. 6, 2021 9:45 am EST
Questionable retailers are everywhere
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Double standards for different sellers
insta_photos/Shutterstock
Trust no one but yourself
13_Phunkod/Shutterstock
It’s left to us, as consumers, to decide which products will work and which could injure. To do this, shopping experts say you need to dig deep to find out whether a product is a real bargain, or if it is too good to be true. Another Washington Post article warns that spotting a dodgy item needs the same skills as those used to ferret out fake news. As Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, warns: “No matter how intellectual you think you are, no matter how savvy you think you are — for tech or anything else — you have been victimized by disinformation at some point.”
When you shop online, The New York Times recommends approaching unheard-of vendors and brands with the same caution (and grain of salt) you’d apply to shopping at a real-world flea market. Remember that sellers aren’t obligated to carry items exactly as they are pictured. You need to buy items directly from a vendor and not from someone who will source the item from someplace else. Above all, know that ratings and reviews can no longer be used as a barometer of authenticity or reliability because, as Quartz points out, fake reviews, aka “deceptive opinion spam,” are getting more difficult to spot. If an item sports numerous five-star ratings and displays reviews that sing its praises, are repetitive, may be filled with grammatical and spelling errors, and sound too good to be true, the item itself probably is just that.
When you shop online, The New York Times recommends approaching unheard-of vendors and brands with the same caution (and grain of salt) you’d apply to shopping at a real-world flea market. Remember that sellers aren’t obligated to carry items exactly as they are pictured. You need to buy items directly from a vendor and not from someone who will source the item from someplace else. Above all, know that ratings and reviews can no longer be used as a barometer of authenticity or reliability because, as Quartz points out, fake reviews, aka “deceptive opinion spam,” are getting more difficult to spot. If an item sports numerous five-star ratings and displays reviews that sing its praises, are repetitive, may be filled with grammatical and spelling errors, and sound too good to be true, the item itself probably is just that.
