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Amazon's Fake Review Problem

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Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#321

Post by corvallis »

jasonlotito wrote: post #303
corvallis wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t remember if this was the exact link as this was several weeks ago. This was the toy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00OYJNKJG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...

So yeah, 3rd party. Also, seems to be a reasonable online price. I'm sure you could find stuff locally, if you can find it. But unless I can find it and also buy the same one you found for the same price, it's not really the same thing.

Like I said, that may not have been the exact link. I was just showing you the product. I was doing a quick price comparison and did not investigate who was offering it at that price back then. That link shows an even higher price than I remember seeing at the time.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#322

Post by soverance »

Fake reviews on Amazon (or internet e-commerce sites at large) is a significant problem.

I have had a previous employer use my personal information to manually create and post fake reviews of his own products under my name. Nothing surprises me anymore. I only found out because I received a notification email asking me to confirm my review (which I had not written). Needless to say, I quit.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#323

Post by vetinari »

ethbro wrote: post #164
DanielleMolloy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listening is extremely subjective though. Headphone types can be better / worse for certain listening habits (there are people out there who don't think great bass makes great music, folks), and for different ears. Music taste itself is extremely subjective. Best thing is still to get to a trusted hifi store nearby with your own, known music in best quality and your current best headphone model and test through candi…

My current earbud benchmark is the Panasonic ErgoFit line. [1] To be fair, I don't use an external DAC or source high quality sound on the road. But for $10 and tolerable, good enough for travel. [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E4LGVUO/

I swwear by Creative EP-630: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002EL4MXY

I don't even bother with any other earbuds.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#324

Post by y2kenny »

normalocity wrote: post #318
y2kenny wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be the spotting is actually not that great. One way to test it is to find a popular, known-to-be good product that you have and see what the result is. The example I tried was the Instant Pot (which is rated D): https://www.fakespot.com/product/instant-pot-ip-duo60-7-in-1... Oddly enough, the same product listing on the US site is rated as A (the above is for the Canadian site): https://www.fakespot.com/product/i…

And a known-good product doesn't mean it won't have fake reviews. The fake reviews are there to boost sales, even for legit products. If it's an arms race for reviews, at some point, even good products will have to pay up to keep pace.

I don't understand. If your product is already rated 4.5+ stars with thousands of reviews, what's the point of adding fake review? How does that boost sales?

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#325

Post by y2kenny »

_0ffh wrote: post #264
y2kenny wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be the spotting is actually not that great. One way to test it is to find a popular, known-to-be good product that you have and see what the result is. The example I tried was the Instant Pot (which is rated D): https://www.fakespot.com/product/instant-pot-ip-duo60-7-in-1... Oddly enough, the same product listing on the US site is rated as A (the above is for the Canadian site): https://www.fakespot.com/product/i…

It's not the product which is rated, but if the reviews seem to be genuine.

Right. And the point of my test is to test fake spotting algorithm by finding product that is highly unlikely to have fake reviews.

Just did a quick check again, the Canadian instant pot reviews are now rated as F while the US ones are rated as A. Same product, both ship and sold by Amazon, the algorithm returns polar opposite result.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#326

Post by fencepost »

fencepost wrote: post #191
Someone1234 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my wife is an author on Amazon and personally knows most of the people who review her books. So your wife has people she knows leave positive reviews in order to bump her book's review score and you're upset that Fakespot gave it an F due to them being non-organic reviews? As a consumer it sounds like Fakespot is doing a great job, and exactly what it states on the tin. What your wife is doing is at best dishonest…

My wife though not an author is online friends with more than I even want to think about. In some communities there is a LOT of interaction and loyalty between the authors and fans and the authors are quite active on social media. In addition, for a lot of more niche books (e.g. What 50 Shades of Gray would have remained had it not gone viral) the total number of books sold may be surprisingly small. A lot of those s…

Since some folks are still looking at this, I'll note that a successful SF book from a major publisher may only sell 30-40k copies over its lifespan. I believe it's Prime Palaver #6 where Eric Flint discusses some of this in relation to Baen's Free Library.

With numbers like that, it's not hard to believe that a little-known author may only sell a few thousand copies, many of them to dedicated followers.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#327

Post by BoorishBears »

y2kenny wrote: post #324
normalocity wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a known-good product doesn't mean it won't have fake reviews. The fake reviews are there to boost sales, even for legit products. If it's an arms race for reviews, at some point, even good products will have to pay up to keep pace.

I don't understand. If your product is already rated 4.5+ stars with thousands of reviews, what's the point of adding fake review? How does that boost sales?

Normally the first hundreds were faked, followed by occasional fake reviews to drown out dissatisfaction

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#328

Post by y2kenny »

BoorishBears wrote: post #327
y2kenny wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. If your product is already rated 4.5+ stars with thousands of reviews, what's the point of adding fake review? How does that boost sales?

Normally the first hundreds were faked, followed by occasional fake reviews to drown out dissatisfaction

Even for known-good, popular, top-selling products? The example I cited has 24k+ reviews for the US and 3.8k+ for Canada.

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#329

Post by Timbaker »

olegious wrote: post #217
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?

Likely because it isn't actually costing them much in lost sales?

so, you mean, Amazon play the price whatever they want? If they hide real price and show fake price?

Re: Amazon's Fake Review Problem

#330

Post by ineedasername »

Marazan wrote: post #102
ineedasername wrote: post #8

The open review system (anyone can review any item) maybe made some sense when it was just book reviews, but makes much less sense for all items. A good start would be to only allow reviews on verified purchases. At least then it would be much harder for bad actors to up stakes on a listing and clone to a new one once the authentic negative reviews piled up. Verified reviews can be faked and gamed as well, but it is…

It seems insanely obvious to me that only people who have purchased the item through Amazon should get to review the product.

Yes. I'm trying to remember back to early amazon, circa the bubble burst... my vague recollection is that reviews were more in the vein of a platform for book reviews, not review of books as products... a fine difference, maybe one wothout distinction when it comes to books, but an either way an open platform for book reviews has very different trust and reliabilty requirements than reviews attached to products being sold.
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