161
I was paid to write fake Google reviews – then my ‘bosses’ tried to scam me
(www.theguardian.com)
lib.reviews for the win
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2026
161 points (97.6% liked)
Technology
83185 readers
2922 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
That's looking better than last time I saw it, but I'm pretty confused by your point.
If it had a large number of users adding and reading reviews then wouldn't it have the same issues?
Definitely. I was just plugging this little-known FOSS alternative to Google Maps reviews (and other review sites).
I get 2-3 contacts per day on Telegram. I used to interact with them to find out what the scam was. Makes sense that it would be multi-layer like that (per the article).
I found that the most common were reviews or adding things to amazon shopping carts to fuel demand, along with some bitcoin / investment (especially silver/gold) stuff.
I eventually realized it was boring. They quickly use AI to reply to you, so no matter what you write you get this encouraging nonsense back that adds nothing. You're basically talking to yourself. And you can tell when they actually write the reply since the length and quality of the English quickly drops. heh
Talk to the ai, waste their credits.
Credits, time, or money. I usually respond to scammera to make them waste. It's better for them to talk to me than scam someone's ignorant grandma.