One of the hardest things to do with forums or any platform that allows users to post comment/reviews is to moderate it. If a forum starts to fill up with spam, it will lose its credibility. The same goes for most online platforms that allow people to interact and build communities. Online stores are often targeted by spammers and if the reviews start to be misleading, the store will suffer for it. Here’s how you can report spam reviews in the App Store on iOS.
Open the App Store app on your iPhone or iPad, and navigate to the app page that has a spam review. Locate the spam review and tap and hold on it. A menu will appear. The menu lets you mark a review as helpful, unhelpful, or report a problem with it.
Before you proceed, make sure you understand what spam is, and what an unhelpful review is. Make the distinction before you choose a course of action. If you’re certain the review is spam e.g. a reviewer is telling everyone to microwave their iPhone and it will charge to 100% in two minutes, tap the ‘Report a concern’ option in the menu.
The App Store categories ‘concerns’ as being offensive, off-topic, spam, or something else. If it’s spam, go ahead and select the ‘It looks like spam’ option. You will have the option to leave a comment with your report. Click Submit when you’re done.
If you decide to go with some other option e.g., that the review is offensive, take a moment to consider if it is indeed offensive. A reviewer might use strong language in a review, especially if it’s for a paid app or a paid feature within the app. That’s hardly something to report. That said, if the same sort of review is left on apps that are targeted towards kids, it might warrant reporting. Use your best judgement when you report something as offensive.
The review won’t be removed immediately and the reviewer and the developer will not be aware of the report or the comment you left about it. There’s no timeline on when Apple will take action, or if it will indeed take any action at all. The review may stay up if Apple decides it’s not spam (or offensive). In this case, there isn’t much you can do. If you look at the bigger picture, it is after all just an app review.
