Thread by @keleftheriou

The App Store has a *massive* fake ratings problem👇

You: an honest developer, working hard for a 4.5 star rating.
Your competitor: a $12M App Store scam, undetected for years.

1/🧵

This app was released early 2016.

With a 4.5 rating from over 150k users, and a price of free, it definitely seems worth downloading:

Upon first launch, we’re presented with what amounts to a $260/year auto-renewing subscription. I didn’t notice the X button located all the way up there, so I’m gonna assume there’s only one way to proceed here - all those users can’t be wrong, and it’s a free trial after all!

Alright, now we’re in. The app is horribly buggy and ad-infested, but perhaps that’s just my opinion - let’s also see what others think in the reviews next.

Using @AppFigures, we can see that the all time reviews average to 3.0 stars. A huge discrepancy from the 4.5 rating, but I hear you say: “Reviews skew lower than ratings because unsatisfied users are more vocal and write something”. Well, let’s put that theory to rest below.

Here are the reviews for just the first couple of years for this app, 2016 and 2017:

4.3 stars

Happy users *do* leave reviews, I guess? Let's look some more next.

There’s a lot of “you have to rate it 5-stars to get the whole thing free” 5-star reviews there, but we'll ignore that because that violation is dwarfed by what comes next.

Let’s see the breakdown of all reviews from 2018 all the way to today. Their average?

2.0 stars ☠️

For 3 years, over 10,000 people have been trying to tell Apple about this scam and warn others from making the same mistake they did.

Their voices remain unheard:

⭐️
Flagged for Breaking Community Guidelines
This app and its developers should be removed from store. The reviews are generated by bot farms. Also, they’re charging people $32 a month for wallpaper. Apple has been notified.

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Fake reviews?
This app is horrendous. You can't even use it unless you immediately give them $40, or sign up for a "free" trial at a price of $4.99 a week...

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Should be immediately shut down by Apple
They make you pay for a weekly subscription to even open the app but there’s no way to cancel your subscription.

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Scandal
A review is an impossible title for this app. There is nothing to address. Nothing is functional without advertisement.

⭐️
Horrible in every way
STOP TRICKING KIDS INTO THESE FREE TRIALS FOR OVERPRICED WALLPAPER. So psychotic to even attempt something so scummy. You have nothing to be proud of besides your stolen money from parents.

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Respond I’m begging you
I got this and I didn’t pay for anything the memories or a bit foggy but I remember this app being free now it’s paying $4.99 like each week or something like that WHY I DID NOT PRESS PAY FOR ANYTHING MY GUY

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Fraudulent charge
There was a fraudulent charge by Live Wallpapers made on my account via an App Store purchase. This purchase was NEVER authorized. I had sufficient evidence to support my claim, but because the charge was older than 60 days, nothing could be done.

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$8 a week? $416 a year? SCAM
This ridiculous app wants $400 a year for a wallpaper. Apple, are you policing anything on this store anymore?

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Incredibly deceptive advertising
The ads show this stupendous 3-D illusion active wallpaper that appears to show whimsical gears and components inside the iPhone, like a window into the inner workings of the phone. Yeah, well nothing of the kind is actually in the app.

That deceptive ad mentioned in the reviews?

i.imgur.com/xnIDMI5.mp4

To say that Apple could do better here is a huge understatement.

Apple is failing to protect its users, while simultaneously claiming all this about the App Store:

https://twitter.com/keleftheriou/status/1358416301794840577?s=20

People have a right to know they can’t trust the ratings on the App Store, and Apple needs to publicly acknowledge the problem and that they are working on it.

Keep sending me scams at [e-mail], and please share this far and wide!

✌️

The scam: apps.apple.com/US/app/id10398…