Legitmacy of WHMCS Marketplace Reviews

[SwiftModders]

*Note: To avoid claims of self-advertisement, I'll post screenshots with no links. You can find the links pretty quickly by searching on Marketplace

Hi All,

I wanted to highlight some oddities I've noticed in the WHMCS Marketplace recently, but they may have been plaguing the platform for several years now. For one of my products, I noticed I had two recent reviews that appeared odd and out of place:

There is nothing odd about negative reviews, but neither of these are customers of mine. Either way, I did a quick search on the usernames listed via Google and found they had left similar reviews across several other theme developers:

cc. @(Amr) @WGS

However, a few theme developers are being left positive reviews across all of their products during a similar time frame:

cc. @AALayer @zomex

There seems to be some suspicious activity in this feedback. I contacted WHMCS support to see if this could be investigated, but I was told that "they do not remove or change reviews to maintain legitimacy." That seems odd, considering they've allowed other products to be boosted by spam reviews.:

• Bluishost - Nearly 100 5-star reviews from October 5th through October 26th.
• HostWHMCS - Tons of 5-star reviews across multiple pockets of 2-3 days spans.

There should be some form of moderation if WHMCS is concerned about the legitimacy of this platform. For the developers who work hard to get their products rated highly by legitimate customers, it's not ideal to have their listings damaged or suppressed due to bot or shady practices.
 

[bear]

20 minutes ago, SwiftModders said:

There should be some form of moderation if WHMCS is concerned about the legitimacy of this platform.

Doubtful. The marketplace appears, at least from the user side, to be a "set it and forget it" system. Aside from things added directly by WHMCS, it doesn't *seem* like they do much with or to it. Buyer beware?

[AALayer]

Well, since i am tagged. I will be speaking only for myself and no other theme developers where i have no connection with. Including zomex. Don't even know the guy.

'thorhost' is a client of mine, a happy one due to me going over the line to help him with coding related stuff at no cost beside the theme's base price.

He has asked to pay me for my service which i denied and asked to review our themes instead because it helps our business to grow. (where we do ask clients to review our themes if they liked it, even the FREE one)

I have referred this topic to the client and hopefully he will be kind enough to register and reply himself of his 'Legitmacy'. 

4 hours ago, SwiftModders said:

There is nothing odd about negative reviews, but neither of these are customers of mine. 

He never mentioned he is a client of yours.

Read review:

" Saw the demo, better themes out there at this yearly cost "

The other reviewer 'singp4host'. i cannot make a connection or find out whom.

I would still not be suprised because i have thousand of clients using my free theme (LowEndHost) and most of them i have helped at no cost at all(BESIDES being FREE to start with). And the only thing we have asked in return, is for a review on our themes.

----

Now to get back to your point, i fully support the idea of moderated reviews. To make it fair for everyone (theme & plugin devs) and not suddenly out of the dust there's a theme in first page in WHMCS with hundreds of positive reviews. 

Also since you're accusing of shady reviews, how do we know the ones you have are legit? This goes for everyone.

[SwiftModders]

37 minutes ago, AALayer said:

He never mentioned he is a client of yours.

This is a great point to highlight. That, to me, is also part of the problem. Neither of these individuals is my actual customer or has purchased my product. That makes it pretty difficult to review something you've never tried negatively.  That would be like leaving a negative review for a local restaurant you've never eaten at. While some people do that, that doesn't make it right. 

43 minutes ago, AALayer said:

Read review:

" Saw the demo, better themes out there at this yearly cost "

Oh, trust me, I read it. This was also the other part of it that was odd. The review was, again, about aspects outside of using the product. From my perspective, you open a can of worms by accepting reviews from users who have not tried a company's products. Where do you draw the line on the review's integrity, and how can consumers trust the review is legitimate?  These aren't questions or things for you to answer but more for the "powers at be" with WHMCS and their mishandling of the Marketplace.

47 minutes ago, AALayer said:

The other reviewer 'singp4host'. i cannot make a connection or find out whom.

I would still not be suprised because i have thousand of clients using my free theme (LowEndHost) and most of them i have helped at no cost at all(BESIDES being FREE to start with). And the only thing we have asked in return, is for a review on our themes.

No worries! It can get challenging to keep track of clients. I don't have any free products, but I am sure that can be daunting. I pointed out that it was odd to see that this individual left almost all positive reviews on your products and left negative reviews on others. This also goes beyond me, as I noticed the trend when investigating the reviews the two in question left.

49 minutes ago, AALayer said:

Now to get back to your point, i fully support the idea of moderated reviews. To make it fair for everyone (theme & plugin devs) and not suddenly out of the dust there's a theme in first page in WHMCS with hundreds of positive reviews. 

Glad to see we can agree on something!

50 minutes ago, AALayer said:

Also since you're accusing of shady reviews, how do we know the ones you have are legit? This goes for everyone.

One of my oldest products on the Marketplace is from 2016 and hasn't even cracked 100 reviews. If I'm loading my products with shady reviews, then boy, do I suck at it.

[wsa]

I think WHMCS needs to work on this much better and make any reviews needed to verify they bought the product or something. But I think that too much of them is because they approve everybody including developers that use nulled WHMCS or nulled modules.  They can not fix this problem. :)

[bear]

4 hours ago, AALayer said:

I have referred this topic to the client and hopefully he will be kind enough to register and reply himself of his 'Legitmacy'. 

From the cap above he "reviewed" you twice within a short span of time (literally minutes), as did the 2nd "reviewer" (3 times in minutes), assuming that was also for you. Have to admit, that appears fairly sus. That reviewer coming here won't prove he's legitimate, just that he's here. 

Just my opinion, but this looks dodgy as hell overall. 

[AALayer]

10 hours ago, bear said:

From the cap above he "reviewed" you twice within a short span of time (literally minutes), as did the 2nd "reviewer" (3 times in minutes), assuming that was also for you. Have to admit, that appears fairly sus. That reviewer coming here won't prove he's legitimate, just that he's here. 

Just my opinion, but this looks dodgy as hell overall. 

bear, how much time does it take you to leave a review in someone's product?

The guy reviewed many of my products, not just 2. Through the shared link of my whmcs marketplace's profile which lists all my themes 1 by 1. Also he did not just review me and swiftmoder's theme from the looks of it, other devs/theme providers.

And overall he is not the only one leaving multiple reviews on multiple of my products even though he might have purchased only 1 to begin with. 

[AALayer]

15 hours ago, AALayer said:

He has asked to pay me for my service which i denied and asked to review our themes instead because it helps our business to grow. (where we do ask clients to review our themes if they liked it, even the FREE one)

@bear , man came with clear intentions. at least on my products. Can't speak for the others.

[bear]

15 minutes ago, AALayer said:

even though he might have purchased only 1 to begin with

Purchased the free one? That's what you said he had. You can't purchase something that's free. 
As for "how long does it take to leave a review", leaving multiple 5 star ones tilts things in your favor. To comment on one, briefly, then leave a 2nd one just with 5 stars smacks of "shilling". For more than one to do so, well, as mentioned it looks sus. Even if it's legitimate, it REALLY looks that way. 

[AALayer]

36 minutes ago, bear said:

Purchased the free one? That's what you said he had. You can't purchase something that's free. 
As for "how long does it take to leave a review", leaving multiple 5 star ones tilts things in your favor. To comment on one, briefly, then leave a 2nd one just with 5 stars smacks of "shilling". For more than one to do so, well, as mentioned it looks sus. Even if it's legitimate, it REALLY looks that way. 

You don't seem to read or maybe missed what i just said.

1. Client purchased a premium theme (thor) -> 2. Asked for coding related service/help -> 3. I did for free -> 4. He asked to pay -> 5. Instead i sent a link to my whmcs marketplace's profile to review our themes instead because it helps our business if he liked it.

This sentence: (where we do ask clients to review our themes if they liked it, even the FREE one) is meant for the other clients. Even the ones who use our free theme and get support for it even though it's free to begin with, at no extra cost.

 

As far as i am concerned, giving my whmcs marktplace profile to my clients and ask them to review my themes incase they liked our service/1 particular theme is not breaking any rule. 

I take no responsibility if they go on and 'downvote' other providers or leave multiple good ratings on my themes. Plus apparently my themes were not the only one this guy reviewed for good. So what's the issue?

 

Plus i fully support the idea of moderated reviews/profiles in whmcs marketplace as @SwiftModders mentioned it. And just to remind you, my themes are not the ones going on top of whmcs's marketplace in matter of weeks 😉 

Edited February 21 by AALayer

[DennisHermannsen]

Let's keep the discussion focused on whether or not reviews on the WHMCS Marketplace should be moderated 😉

I think they should but the question is how. If buyers should verify their purchase before being able to review, we'd see a lot less reviews.

Edited February 21 by DennisHermannsen

[zomex]

@SwiftModders

I am so glad you brought this up. It's a massive issue that has got significantly worse in a short time.

The reviews are so fraudulent its undeniable but WHMCS like always could not care less.

This also ties in nicely to a issue I raised in the past. Some theme providers being able to bundle WHMCS licenses even though WHMCS state that licenses can only be provided with web hosting services:

https://whmcs.community/topic/325073-how-is-this-still-allowedbeing-ignored/

^ drastically making the theme market completely unfair for most and a monopoly for some they deem.

Yet again WHMCS do not care. This seems to be a common thing sadly.

Perhaps we need to post our own spam reviews to make it a level playing field.

The funny thing is WHMCS are desperate for us developers to drop our websites and use the marketplace souly for listing our themes/modules. It was very difficult for me to convince WHMCS that my theme listings need a link to show the demo of the theme. They want everything to be under their control but have 0 interest in moderating fake reviews.

----

Like yourself I work so hard to gain legitimate reviews only to be dropped down the listings due to these spam reviews

Edited February 26 by zomex

[bear]

On 2/20/2024 at 3:11 PM, AALayer said:

'thorhost' is a client of mine, a happy one

Not to drag this out, but he reviewed the free theme and at least 2 others (often more than once) I saw in your "collection" on the marketplace. That would imply to me he used the free one, and bought two others (at least). Unless he actually had, that's the dishonesty in reviews this thread was started about. At least one other reviewer did the same. 
As I said, I personally find that suspicious. Others can form their own opinion. 

Edited February 26 by bear

[AALayer]

2 hours ago, bear said:

Not to drag this out, but he reviewed the free theme and at least 2 others (often more than once) I saw in your "collection" on the marketplace. That would imply to me he used the free one, and bought two others (at least). Unless he actually had, that's the dishonesty in reviews this thread was started about. At least one other reviewer did the same. 
As I said, I personally find that suspicious. Others can form their own opinion. 

I did my explanation and how was the transition of my client right from the start to the review and why he reviewed multiple of my themes.

I no longer have interest in going any further or replying more into this matter.

 

Like i mentioned earlier, i fully support the idea of WHMCS getting deep into reviews section of each theme and clearing out each and every single bot in there.

Let's see who's theme/extension is going down to the last page. 🙂

Edited February 26 by AALayer

[wsa]

1 hour ago, AALayer said:

Like i mentioned earlier, i fully support the idea of WHMCS getting deep into reviews section of each theme and clearing out each and every single bot in there.

I Total Agree 🙂 

[WHMCS John]

Hi all,

Thanks for your feedback regarding Marketplace reviews.

We are able to offer free Marketplace listings because valued vendors such as yourselves are handling the business side of things, whilst we provide the advertising. If we were to implement a more tightly controlled ecosystem more akin to the App App Store/Google Play Store, we could take over the administration of things like distribution, customer service, DMCA and enforcement of purchase validation for reviews.

Such stores typically charge an up-front access fee and then a percentage of the transactions processed for purchases to cover the costs of administrating the system of around 15%. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on such an arrangement and what kind of fee structure you'd consider for such a service?

In the meantime vendors can respond to reviews, so if you believe a review is not genuine, you could potentially point that out in your response.

[AALayer]

1 hour ago, WHMCS John said:

We are able to offer free Marketplace listings because valued vendors such as yourselves are handling the business side of things, whilst we provide the advertising. If we were to implement a more tightly controlled ecosystem more akin to the App App Store/Google Play Store, we could take over the administration of things like distribution, customer service, DMCA and enforcement of purchase validation for reviews.

Such stores typically charge an up-front access fee and then a percentage of the transactions processed for purchases to cover the costs of administrating the system of around 15%. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on such an arrangement and what kind of fee structure you'd consider for such a service?

Hello John,

How would the reviews be handled in each extension/theme?

Only the customers that bought the extension from the WHMCS marketplace directly? (assuming WHMCS takes care of all transactions/payment gateways for each developer and their listings).

[wsa]

John,

Ask for more money that your staff not doing the job right. I can approve that because every week I open a ticket to your staff that your staff approves all listings without checking right?  For example, they use nulled whmcs your staff approves or Whatsapp that your tell me not to allow add this on WHMCS Marketplace no more and more stuff that am not going to talk about here. If you don't believe me check my account you see all the tickets Ibe open.  

Sorry

[SwiftModders]

2 hours ago, WHMCS John said:

Hi all,

Thanks for your feedback regarding Marketplace reviews.

We are able to offer free Marketplace listings because valued vendors such as yourselves are handling the business side of things, whilst we provide the advertising. If we were to implement a more tightly controlled ecosystem more akin to the App App Store/Google Play Store, we could take over the administration of things like distribution, customer service, DMCA and enforcement of purchase validation for reviews.

Such stores typically charge an up-front access fee and then a percentage of the transactions processed for purchases to cover the costs of administrating the system of around 15%. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on such an arrangement and what kind of fee structure you'd consider for such a service?

In the meantime vendors can respond to reviews, so if you believe a review is not genuine, you could potentially point that out in your response.

I'm sorry, but this is an asinine comment. I'm beyond worried that this is an official response from anyone at WHMCS. It's impossible to compare WHMCS to App Stores from significant companies that can generate MILLIONS of dollars. We're discussing themes and extensions for a PHP-based billing platform with finite market growth capabilities. Let's not patronize and alienate the developers that help make this platform usable. It's insulting.

So you're telling me, @WHMCS John, that it would be such a resource bottleneck for WHMCS staff to spend time reviewing bot sign-ups and using basic investigation tactics to see that there is a problem? Hell, you could even wait for one of us to complain and take a look to see if it's legitimate. At this point, I would even accept some efforts to make it more difficult for bots to register and review products. Maybe require users to put in their WHMCS license key? Maybe have them associate it with their WHMCS client login? There has to be some form of bare minimum work here.

I do love the comment about charging us to utilize the Marketplace. Some of us do not use WHMCS as a product and still have to pay a monthly charge to access the latest product updates. Would you be able to fix that? Ridiculous.

[WHMCS John]

On 2/26/2024 at 7:36 PM, AALayer said:

How would the reviews be handled in each extension/theme?

Only the customers that bought the extension from the WHMCS marketplace directly? (assuming WHMCS takes care of all transactions/payment gateways for each developer and their listings).

That was the kind of workflow that came to my mind, yeah.

Happy to hear other constructive ideas from other participants on review verification.

[twhiting9275]

My 0.02 here:

I've been saying this very thing for years now. In fact, it's why I pulled my resources from the WHMCS marketplace. It's far too easy for someone to just create a false review, claiming "this is bad product" when they haven't even tried the product / services.

In my own experience, I manually check everything against blacklists for fraud, abuse, etc. In every single case, these reviews come from people who are upset that they were denied service, because of that. They're not 'legitimate' reviews. They're individuals simply trying to attack developers (likely competitors, even).

The product owner has no recourse here, none. This is not how you run a proper marketplace, at all.

Again, just my 0.02

[string]

12 hours ago, twhiting9275 said:

I've been saying this very thing for years now. In fact, it's why I pulled my resources from the WHMCS marketplace. It's far too easy for someone to just create a false review, claiming "this is bad product" when they haven't even tried the product / services.

The same here. The WHMCS marketplace, in its current form, exposes vendors to blackmail and reputation damage. After the last incident, we have removed all our products from the marketplace and shifted the business focus away from WHMCS.

In the latest instance, it involved an individual using a nulled version of our product along with a nulled WHMCS version. Because their pirated version did not function correctly, they attempted to order a trial with the intention of cracking the new version. 

For obvious reasons, the order has been rejected. We check every order and require, among other criteria, that the customer does not use a nulled version of WHMCS. Out of frustration for not being able to proceed with their order, the individual left negative reviews.

WHMCS, or more precisely, @WHMCS John, shows no willingness to even remotely check reviews, even when presented with crystal-clear evidence of fraudulent activity and the information that it is not expected that the removal of this fake review obligates to check other reviews, where the situation is not so clear.

While it is understandable that WHMCS cannot check every reported review, action should be taken when the evidence is so clear. 

On 2/26/2024 at 7:29 PM, WHMCS John said:

Such stores typically charge an up-front access fee and then a percentage of the transactions processed for purchases to cover the costs of administrating the system of around 15%. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on such an arrangement and what kind of fee structure you'd consider for such a service?

I had long suspected that it was only a matter of time until WHMCS comes up with such a sick idea. I am glad I made the decision a long time ago to no longer participate in the marketplace and realized that the marketplace doesn't really matter at all. The volume of orders has not decreased.

Edited March 1 by string

[(Amr)]

I just noticed that I was tagged in this thread 🙂

That guy never ordered any of our products, yet he left a 1 star review .. I'm not complaining, as we have tons of positive reviews.

As for the fake reviews, it has been a problem for a while. I have sent this to WHMCS support on 8th Sep 2017 :
 

Quote

 

Hello,

Kindly check the following :

https://marketplace.whmcs.com/product/xxxxx [ removed .. I don't want to point fingers ]

All reviews , except for the first 2 and the last one are fake!

They all have the same spelling/grammar mistakes, and were submitted within a small period of time, for the sole purpose of being listed as the 2nd top rated product .. and they stopped as soon as they overcome the real second top app.

I'm pretty sure that if you checked, you'll find that they were submitted from the same IP or via a proxy.

While this doesn't affect my in any way, on the long run and If other developers start doing the same, the entire integrity of the Market Place will be lost.

Thanks,
Amr

 

That developer, did the same with another product of his, adding more than 200 fake reviews per product, and now both products are listed as top marketplace products.

I hope someone will do something about this.