Well done, SCW!
I have been misled by reviews a couple of times. ( My review of 'Light' is diametrically opposite to the one which led me to make the purchase. )
I have also often wondered if the apps which appear under 'What's hot', 'Staff's choice' etc are "sponsored"?

yes well done,SCW

Now oddly enough I mention others bad english when I personally write a poorly written letter myself. Grammar & punctuation etc is just bad... But oh well my frustration to even have to write such a letter & start investigating such behavior really pissed me off.

Now I took my time & really read over these fake reviews & user posting & honestly have a gut feeling this is bigger than expected.

I think Molinker got a little cocky here... I believe that they had originally maybe really started to do just this very forcefully with their "OOF" & "ColorMagic" apps & once they saw that they were really selling well & that even Apple themselves allowed them to be featured in the Store's Staff Favorites section. That they thought they might have gone unnoticed.

I mean myself & a friend both contacted Molinker multiple times about their apps & even asked about promo codes to test an app. But strangely on the day a Molinker app was updated in the app store (for which every updates allows the developers to generate 50 new promo codes) We were told that all they didn't have any codes left??? How on earth can a random app just updated the same day have 50 codes used up... Unless they are all accounted for with fake false up-votings, rating boosts & fake reviews within the US app store.

So I would love to hear ohh blah blah blah reasons why it looks fake but really... come on be honest here... Molinker has been stealing from us the people/iPhone users & Apple MUST punish them & I hope publicly.

* As well to update you after Glyn purchased the NightCam Pro app today he asked me to give it a try too. Not wanting to give my hard earned money over to these thieves but I did purchase the app... And well well you will be updated & informed soon on the out comes of the app as stated above they seem to be quite the cloners... Yet I will add NOT in the best way. But say to my kids they wouldn't see much difference.

Until our next update on this matter.... I say.... Goodnight =)
SCW

Pretty easy to spot, if you ask me.

One common thread running through fake app reviews is the unhealthy combination of poor grammar, poor spelling, poor logic and poor attention to technical detail.

This points to the likelihood that the writer either has no sense of ethics and fair play, or lacks the finishing touches, patience and even basic/technical education to make a clear assessment of what is being reviewed.

For your information, this also applies to the one-, two-, three and four-star reviews as well - the very low ratings can be a useful tool to "drag down" the ratings of an app considered by "parties unknown" to be competition to "their interests".

It also applies to the thousands of technical review blogs and includes some seasoned bloggers that have become household names in the blogosphere, so I'm saying "what's new about that?". The problem is how to counter it - heuristics, analysis of voting patterns, IP tracking (for multiple entries with different names for the same address etc). What is sure is that action is required, and quickly too.

I can almost hear practitioners of journalism in the hard-copy press smirking at the online mess, but even their own university graduate polish cannot hide their inveterate love of glossing over facts (also known as the truth) or presenting half-truths and damned lies in the name of earning a living from employers with a twisted sense of ethics.

In the end, posterity will judge us all - the Truth, no matter how hard it is sent crashing to the ground, rises again and again. Time always tells.

The app store has annoyed me for ages, all the staff picks, favourites and popular apps are always the same - they should change the criteria they use to select them - I'm sick of seeing colour claw - even apps like camerabag which is awesome isnt getting the recognition it deserves but instead its useless apps that take its place.

It is good that this was found, but someone is spending waaaay to much time in the AppStore.

@Edison ;p
or someone was really interested in this app & about to buy it but took a moment to read reviews & got VERY suspicious =)
...Then spent waaaaay too long in the AppStore ;p

This is a major problem with reviews that falls into every app category. I always check the other reviews of any 1 star or 5 star reviewer .

UPDATE: Breaking News: Molinker expelled from the AppStore

http://www.iphoneography.com/journal/2009/12/6/breaking-news-molinker-expelled-from-the-appstore.html

Great investigative skills. I am writing about your findings to give this some publicity. There are too many smart people trying to make some easy bucks.

I'm an app addict and review applications in my blog. I contact developers on a daily basis and it has been always very easy to spot people using nasty tactics like Molinker. I wonder why Apple can't.

I have contacted the dev to ask what sort of support are customers going to get, and I would like Apple to clarify that. They have taken 30% of this scam anyway.

Good job! Kudos for exposing this fraud.

You guys should look into Samba Studios, LLC. They are doing the same thing. Their "reviewers" only have reviews for their own company's apps + one or two free apps.

This is nothing new. This is rampant in the app store.

This developer of ' A PERFECT WEB BROWSER' is doing even worse. Giving himself five star ratings while giving one star ratings to competing apps.

Here are some users giving five stars to a perfect web browser and one star to competing browsers. And that is the only reviews they ever gave. I wrote a negative review on a " perfect web browser" and their practices and Apple e'mailed me back saying that they removed the following users in question the very next day. But "a perfect web browser' still remains. The users were.

callmeJackub
Labombieta
RantyPythoneatingman

There are news ones that showed up the very same say to replace the old ones. Only one give a give review to "a perfect web browser'. He did that on purpose. The scam continues.

JugglesSoftLLC
to the bottom.
mhall209
JoePlumer1
ipodder209

This poster is interesting. He named himself
"Oceanus singing to the bottom"

This is blatant ripoff artist getting away with it. Why isn't anything being done?

I also noticed this for a diffferent developer. Where do we send email to blow the whistle on other people doing the same thing?

The developer BHI Technologies is doing the same thing. He doesn't even have a support website up and running and no way to even contact them. Looks like a total scam.....

Their Engrish is excellent. Five stars.

This inspired me to send the following letter to Apple concerning similar behavior in the medical section.

I recently read that an iPhone publisher was banned from the app store for manipulating applications reviews. I'd like to bring to your attention another business that seems to use the same tactics of blatantly writing dozens of scam reviews to maintain top positions, this time in the medical section of the app store. If you do a search in iTunes for applications under any of the following three names:

Jose Barrientos
SvmSoft
Nellvii

You will discover that almost all positive reviews for the applications in these three businesses are written by reviewers that only review applications within the three. Furthermore, the same 3D anatomy graphics are used across the three businesses indicating that they are not really separate entities.

I will not hide the fact that some of the applications from these businesses are in direct competition with my own applications. As a developer who doesn't use these crass techniques, I have up to now accepted this fate and hoped users would recognize the fraud (and some have, look for example at the one star reviews for "Human Body 3D Anatomy"). However some of the apps in these businesses continue to dominate the medical section of the app store.

I have not made this e-mail public nor divulged my name in this matter in fear of retaliation from the authors of the fraudulent reviews.

The new hard line attitude Apple has decided to take against fraudulent behavior gives me hope that the situation can be rectified."

Apple doesn't care and its sad. They take their fees from sellers and buyers and laugh all the way to the bank. They probably use an Apple Notebook 3G to keep counts on reviews and have never actually used their own iphone or apps. Please so kind to read my comment. You I thank.

Yes. Apple's "staff picks" is full of useless crap. I noticed that an "Urdu translator" has been featuring there for a long time. I mean, I have nothing against the Urdu and their glorious language but I bet that there are not so many Urdu speakers on Apple's payroll. I dared Apple to prove me wrong - and the staff picks a pathetic scam - but they never answered back. But that Urdu Translator is not there anymore :)

That means that somebody there took a look at the Apple employees list and reached the same conclusion.

Since this incident I regard any staff pick as suspicious, useless and potentially misleading unless the product comes from a reputable company or from a vendor from which I bought great products in the past.

I recommend you all cross reference reviews written on various blogs and websites instead of burning your $ on crude scams.

haha, time to pay

naive apple users