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Amazon's Fake Review Problem

brianbien.com

221–230 of 336 posts

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#221
Fake reviews? I received a firkin fake Bose QC-35 II Headphone! Check out the fake product and read the reviews, and this listing is still active even after Amazon verified and refunded me the cost of the product.

https://www.amazon.com/Bose-QuietComfort-headphones-Bluetoot...

Infact one of the reviewers did a detail comparison between the fake product and the real QC-35.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#222
post #39

The fake review problem on Amazon is much bigger than people think. Here are my two anecdotes: 1. I got bluetooth headphones on amazon (~$65). They had great reviews, but were very disappointing. I returned them and gave 2 star review. Representative from the manufacturer contacted me and offered me a pair for free. After I got them, they asked for positive review. I refused. That manipulation technique wasn't enough…

Yeah, fake reviews have been a problem for years and are only getting more sophisticated. The latest scam is "brushing":

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/27/american...

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#223
post #63
post #39

The fake review problem on Amazon is much bigger than people think. Here are my two anecdotes: 1. I got bluetooth headphones on amazon (~$65). They had great reviews, but were very disappointing. I returned them and gave 2 star review. Representative from the manufacturer contacted me and offered me a pair for free. After I got them, they asked for positive review. I refused. That manipulation technique wasn't enough…

Huh. I've never really had an issue because I chalked it up more to people buying cheap crap and expecting it to be good. But $65 for a pair of headphones isn't exactly cheap. Was it a familiar brand but maybe a counterfeit? Or was it a brand you've never heard of, but the price is justified by very positive reviews? I'm curious.

>> $65 for a pair of headphones isn't exactly cheap

For a headphone geek such as myself it is ;)

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#226
post #11

Amazon is starting to feel more and more like eBay. The same product sold by multiple vendors under different names, questionable reviews, clearly fraudulent sellers and so on. I used to love Amazon but now when I look for something I dread to do so on Amazon because I don't feel I can trust anything there.

I had this realization the other day.

I was buying something that's currently out of stock most places.

I looked on Amazon, saw some "3rd party" sellers that said they would have it on stock various dates about 1 week in the future, and I didn't believe them.

Some sellers had hundreds of positive reviews, others had only a few, most were an "appropriate" price (not to high or low), and all of them had the prime designation, but I still didn't believe them.

Amazon has lost my trust here, completely. And I don't know if they will be able to get it back. I just can't trust that they will get me what I bought in a reasonable time frame.

I got it from a previous years unheard of (by me) retailer online. Reviews of the company elsewhere on the internet seemed trustworthy, and I took a leap on them, and it paid off.

I trusted an unknown website more than I trusted Amazon.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#227

Fake reviews? I received a firkin fake Bose QC-35 II Headphone! Check out the fake product and read the reviews, and this listing is still active even after Amazon verified and refunded me the cost of the product. https://www.amazon.com/Bose-QuietComfort-headphones-Bluetoot... Infact one of the reviewers did a detail comparison between the fake product and the real QC-35.

This is very different issue. Amazon, unlike eBay, has single product page for product. And multiple sellers can sell under that page. Including sellers of counterfeit. This does not make original product bad (so reviews are incorrect) - but rather seller should be reported.

Granted - that concept is very complicated for typical amazon shopper and that's how you end up with bunch of "fake" 1-star reviews under brand-names products...

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#228
post #6

Social proof via reviews (of products, restaurants, anything) is a great idea if you can assume good intent. Back in the good ol' days of the Internet this seemed plausible for some reason, but now there's real money to be made and that's out the window. Amazon and Yelp and the like may be better or worse at stemming the tide of fakery, but asking them to be better isn't going to fundamentally help. The whole idea is…

The whole idea isn't broken, and it can be fixed pretty cheaply. I think the most fundamental problem is that Amazon hasn't realized that they're operating one of the worlds largest search engines yet. Ditto for other companies that offer results based on finding the best product to match customers "search criteria" (whether the criteria are explicit or not).

If you know how PageRank works, how it was gamed by blackhat SEO's until Google was forced to fix it, and what Google did to fix it, then you already know how to fix product reviews. You just need to recognize that reviews are links, in the sense that a link counts as a vote of "authoritativeness." Since we also have negative reviews we can easily implement TrustRank (or an Amazony version of it) and quickly identify bad "domains" (products or vendors).

I think it could be implemented poorly in a weekend or two with full access to the complete set of review and product data.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Fakespot is able to spot the fake reviews, Amazon could have also utilized the similar tech. What stops them?

Why waste engineers times when you're on top with hardly any competition? Google and Facebook only started caring about fake information under congressional pressure.

They started to care when their favourite candidate lost. They still don't care whether something is fake or not but rather if it supports their agenda or not. That's assuming we can even define what is fake information and what not.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree, I'd be lying if I wouldn't leave a positive review if my spouse or friend wrote a book. Problem is the person above said "Yet FakeSpot [...] is completely wrong." and criticized Fakespot for pointing out the problematic reviews. They say that everyone is a hero in their own story, and I think that applies here, you have good personal motivations (help a friend/spouse/family, etc) but ultimately what…

I mean, I'm just suspicious. Fakespot seems to say the reviews are dishonest, fake, overly positive for.. well, a lot of things, including my favorite pair of headphones. They're positive because the headphones are utterly fantastic. They beat the crap out of the better-reviewed (on Amazon) Bose version. Which Fakespot gives a better grade to.

Got curious. Could you share the brand and model? Thanks.
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