this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2026
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162
I was paid to write fake Google reviews – then my ‘bosses’ tried to scam me (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 22 hours ago by Beep@lemmus.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 16 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Talk to the ai, waste their credits.

[–] ZombieChicken@reddthat.com 3 points 14 hours ago

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.

[–] inari@piefed.zip 26 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

lib.reviews for the win

[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 13 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] inari@piefed.zip 9 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Definitely. I was just plugging this little-known FOSS alternative to Google Maps reviews (and other review sites).