100
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
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Technology
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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.