Google Play makes it really easy to game the ratings

[elBradford]

I posted this over on reddit last night and it exploded over there: My app is getting 1-star ratings from another dev : Android

I was wondering if there were any devs here who could weigh in.

In my opinion (and maybe only because it affected me so much) this is a huge loophole Google has allowed to remain open. Not to mention the abysmal developer support they have.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Not going to reddit to look, sorry.

 

[elBradford]

Here's the basic points:

An unscrupulous developer can do the following to a) inflate his own ratings and b) destroy the ratings of competition. This is happening to me right now (I authored the reddit thread). This is the process:

1. Buy app.
2. Rate app.
3. Sign into another Google account.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as you have fake accounts.
5. (Optional) request a refund within 15 minutes. The ratings stay even though a refund was issued.

Has anyone else experienced this? It's incredibly frustrating. Google is unresponsive to support submissions. Some helpful Redditers are giving me good feedback and helping offset the 1-star reviews but honestly - it's hard to recover from 1-star reviews. Much more when there are 20 of them.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Yeah, that's totally sh?tty. Are you 100% sure of the guy who is doing it, and that he is doing it?

Edit to add:
We can't change the way Google lets things happen. But if your app is good we can put it in the front page of AC, where good apps belong. Give us a link

 

[Shadowriver]

Odp: Google Play makes it really easy to game the ratings

In my opinion (and maybe only because it affected me so much) this is a huge loophole Google has allowed to remain open. Not to mention the abysmal developer support they have.

It not like they allowing it, it's hard (if not impossible) to patch it without closing user in cage, where people would complain about. But as he is developer and that status is gained by payment, they could ban him from that status if they got solid proof.

 

[elBradford]

The reddit response was crazy, they offset his ratings with literally hundreds of 5 star ratings, which I admit many were probably undeserved. But I got a lot of honest ratings and great feedback. I'm on my mobile phone, but you can look it up by searching for "Streamie" on Google Play. Edit: here's the link

I think Google could resolve it easily. The first issue could be helped by requiring am account that is leaving a rating to at least have downloaded the app in its history or purchased it if it was a paid app. The second issue could be fixed by offering better communication with developers. Google Play for consumers has a phone support option. Why not developers? Charge $5 for prioritized phone calls if you have to, but right now it's pretty slow and inconsistent. If your livelihood depends on it, its even worse (mine doesn't).

I'm a little embarrassed at how I profited/benefited from this. I just wanted help on getting it to stop. I created a Google Plus post to try and get it in front of Google higher-ups. Read it and +1 if you think this is a problem. Thanks.

Google Plus Post

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