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Amazon's Fake Review Problem

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Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#281

Post by astura »

emh68 wrote: post #265
slackingoff2017 wrote: post #131

The problem is massive. Most people haven't noticed yet but it's only a matter of time. Eventually everyone gets burned at least once and Amazon becomes the new ebay. They need to get a handle on their supply chain and stop outsourcing so much of their product listings to shady third party sellers. Shady third party sellers go hand-in-hand with fake reviews. Most reputable brands don't want to get their hands dirty w…

I've actually recently gotten a fake from Macys.com, so it seems to me that sites like Amazon and eBay are saturated with fakes, and the scammers are infiltrating supply chains in general. (They refused to accept the return, however, so I don't think the problem is that widespread, or maybe they're just not aware of the issue yet.) This might be brick & mortar's last laugh. How do you protect against fake merchandise…

What was the product, if you don't mind sharing.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#282

Post by andrewflnr »

jlarocco wrote: post #167
pjc50 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people think they're not buying from Amazon when they're on the Amazon web site and their credit card gets billed to Amazon? (Can't remember, but do the parcels come in Amazon packaging too?)

> Why would people think they're not buying from Amazon when they're on the Amazon web site and their credit card gets billed to Amazon? Because Amazon tells them when they're looking at the item that it's sold by a third party? And then again when they're checking out. And the items sold by third parties include an invoice and receipt from the third party? It's not a difficult technical issue - it only requires basi…

> it only requires basic reading comprehension, which I'd expect most people using Amazon to posses.

This is your problem. Most people don't have basic reading comprehension when they're using computers, even less so when they're not expecting to be scammed. This is well known in UI and IT support circles. They don't notice details, they don't read the error messages, they don't read the fine print. On Amazon, they just want to get their thing and move on.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#283

Post by chrischen »

mtpn wrote: post #277
richardknop wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit they make from extra sales due to fake reviews? Why do you assume fake reviews are bad for Amazon bottom line?

When a customer is burned by a bad product with excellent reviews, especially more than once, ordering from Amazon could quickly become more trouble than it's worth.

Fake reviews don’t push bad products necessarily. They just make it a bit harder to get the truly best one.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#284

Post by nickjj »

dizzystar wrote: post #242
mistermann wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Due to the unbalanced pricing policies of the United Postal Union and subsidies from the U.S. Postal Service, it costs people in China virtually nothing to ship small packages to the U.S. That, combined with the super cheap price they pay for the junk they ship, makes brushing a quick and cost effective way to move up the sales rankings -- which means everything for e-commerce merchants." I simply can't fathom why W…

Everyone US seller is, sort of, and Amazon is as well. Customers still expect their stuff in 2 days, expect easy returns, and expect QC at the warehouse, and that's something China cannot replicate. Fake reviews have been an easy exploit for sellers for a long time, and sellers will often buy from competitors just to leave verified bad reviews. It's an ugly game I don't have an answer to. Amazon recently introduced V…

I expect things in 2-3 days but realistically it never happens without paying a hefty premium.

Amazon's shipping schedule is really bad because they hold your items hostage unless you pay for Prime. It's essentially blackmail to get your item in a reasonable time frame.

As a non-Prime subscriber it usually takes 7-10 days to get an item if you use their free shipping or 5-7 days if you use the cheapest paid shipping option.

The funny thing is, in those non-Prime free shipping cases, the item is usually processed / shipped after 7-8 days and then arrives in 2-3 days.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#285

Post by r_singh »

nickjj wrote: post #284
dizzystar wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone US seller is, sort of, and Amazon is as well. Customers still expect their stuff in 2 days, expect easy returns, and expect QC at the warehouse, and that's something China cannot replicate. Fake reviews have been an easy exploit for sellers for a long time, and sellers will often buy from competitors just to leave verified bad reviews. It's an ugly game I don't have an answer to. Amazon recently introduced V…

I expect things in 2-3 days but realistically it never happens without paying a hefty premium. Amazon's shipping schedule is really bad because they hold your items hostage unless you pay for Prime. It's essentially blackmail to get your item in a reasonable time frame. As a non-Prime subscriber it usually takes 7-10 days to get an item if you use their free shipping or 5-7 days if you use the cheapest paid shipping…

That doesn't sound good. Luckily here in India, I have to pay $8 a year for Prime and most items get delivered within 36 hours.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#286

Post by nickjj »

r_singh wrote: post #285
nickjj wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect things in 2-3 days but realistically it never happens without paying a hefty premium. Amazon's shipping schedule is really bad because they hold your items hostage unless you pay for Prime. It's essentially blackmail to get your item in a reasonable time frame. As a non-Prime subscriber it usually takes 7-10 days to get an item if you use their free shipping or 5-7 days if you use the cheapest paid shipping…

That doesn't sound good. Luckily here in India, I have to pay $8 a year for Prime and most items get delivered within 36 hours.

I'm in the US and Prime is $99/year.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#287

Post by eclipxe »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #252
lightwin wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Money. They only care about short term sales. Amazon doesn't care about how much you trust amazon... for now. Once they've lost everyone's trust then they're start to care.

That’s not true at all

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#288

Post by ouid »

They don't try to solve this problem at all. I was looking for a cheap macbook charger, and ran across two very different products with identical reviews, spelling mistakes and all. I'm sure this is common, even. How hard would it be to automatically detect this behavior?

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#290

Post by yborg »

danbower wrote: post #58

Well the situation does seem quite bad when you see people who leave fake reviews become brazen enough to actually advertise their services on Amazon itself [1]. I reported this review about 10 days ago and it's still up. The email address provided appears on hundreds of product listings [2]. When they can't even filter out nonsense like this I can only assume they put zero effort into tackling fake reviews. [1] http…

Looks like someone at Amazon at least reads HN, it's dead now.
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