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Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

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Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#91

Post by nasredin »

bpicolo wrote: post #84
cstejerean wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fakes I’m not too worried about, I can usually spot those. The problem is that many categories are flooded with garbage products with inflated reviews. Try to find a bathroom scale. Tons of choices with 4.5 stars and above, but most of the reviews are fake, so it would take hours to sort through the choices and find a decent product. Same for most things I’ve wanted to buy recently (hiking poles and a daypack are two…

The deluge of low quality, rebranded, foreign built junk is a real problem for Amazon. A search for food scale[0] for example gives you a whole page of similar (many exactly identical with different brand names) pieces of garbage - they have massive, consistent weight drift and drain batteries like it's their job, and yet they're rocking thousands of 5 star reviews. [0] https://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Daps…

Just wait untill these Chinese firms master naming their brands with English sounding names.

That and the thousands of "very good product!" fake reviews, you will not be able to find a non-plasticy, built-to-last product on Amazon at all.

And the fun will continue when you discover the warranty requires you shipping items to PRC, if it's honored at all.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#92

Post by caseydm »

One of the many reasons I let my Amazon Prime subscription expire last month.

Amazon is selling convenience. But it's not convenient to:

1. Filter out products full of Vine program reviews, which I believe are completely skewed due to the reviewers receiving the products for free

2. Read between the lines to filter out paid/bias reviews that are NOT part of the Vine program

3. Research to ensure the product itself is not fake or counterfeit

Feel like I'm shopping at the shadiest flea market in town.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#93

Post by combatentropy »

barbegal wrote: post #29

Star ratings in general are just poor. In a 1 to 5 star rating, 3 is average but most people would perceive 3 stars to be above average. People tend to leave reviews only when they are displeased with the product, really pleased with the product or get something in return for making the review, in this case free products. I tend to just filter on reviews that are 2 or 3 stars and use those to work out the cons of the…

When I write a review, I want to give 3 stars to most products, products that are good. I want to reserve 4 and 5 stars for things that exceed expectations. But when I read a review, I want to see 5 stars. Anything less than 5 stars means something was wrong. Why did the reviewer hold back? I think it's mostly because there are so many products with 4-5 stars. It makes products with just 3 stars look bad, even if it's 3.5.

For what it's worth, my interpretation as a writer is what the websites meant. Here are Amazon's labels for stars:

  1. I hate it.
  2. I don't like it.
  3. It's okay.
  4. I like it.
  5. I love it.
Even closer to my interpretation is Yelp's:

  1. Eek! Methinks not.
  2. Meh. I've experienced better.
  3. A-OK.
  4. Yay! I'm a fan.
  5. Woohoo! As good as it gets!
I don't think I've ever had anything where afterward I said, "This is as good as it gets." Still, if I leave fewer than 5 stars, I'm sure the proprietor would feel hurt and wonder what went wrong.

This is one reason I don't usually write reviews.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#94

Post by lurker456 »

bootlooped wrote: post #90
exolymph wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They commingle all the inventory.

Not true. Sellers can prevent comingling inventory by creating their listing with a unique FNSKU. This doesn't prevent the product from being sold on the same ASIN. If sellers can do that then Amazon can absolutely do that.

They could, but they don't. Why is a bit of a mystery because in the long run this is destructive and it can't be that profitable.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#95

Post by dkonofalski »

chaostheory wrote: post #70
jameslk wrote: post #55

There will always be a desire to pay for reviews, since 70%-80% of shoppers check reviews before buying[0][1] (and growing[2]). Amazon could help fix this problem by creating "sponsored" reviews. This way a company can pay for reviews in a non-scummy way, a reviewer (and Amazon) gets paid, and a customer can tell whether the review was paid for or not. Or just pass laws to regulate reviews. 0. http://www.peopleclaim.…

Amazon has done this for years now. It's call Amazon Vine. Select Amazon customers with high review ratings are given free* products for which they have to give unbiased reviews. It's both sponsored by Amazon as well as various manufacturers. https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help It has mixed results. Amazon is upfront about Vine reviewers getting free product and resulting reviews have a Vine tag on top. Customers ten…

Why would companies know who's getting their products to review and why would reviewers know which products they're getting? I feel like an easy fix for this is to have the company send the product to Amazon first and then have Amazon handle the distribution to reviewers. There's no "quid pro quo" if there's no incentive to review a product favorably.

That's why Consumer Reports was so successful in the past. Their reviews were completely unbiased because the draw was in people paying to get thorough, objective reviews of products.

Now that revenue comes from ads and manufacturers all over the internet, it's hard to find reviews that aren't paid ads.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#96

Post by nasredin »

13of40 wrote: post #73
whitepoplar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name and shame!

The Art of the Deal has an F, with 57% low quality reviews. "Our engine has profiled the reviewer patterns and has determined that there is high deception involved."

Shouldn't it be around 49%?

Or is it just bumped up due to an old electoral algorithm Amazon uses?

Hmmm...

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#97

Post by benatkin »

trukterious wrote: post #87
benatkin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't just check the average rating and number of ratings. I also check the quality of reviews. If an unscrupulous company wanted to increase the chances of me buying from them, they might try buying bad fake reviews for their competitors.

Yes. A review that explains why the product is good is harder to fake. Plus the reader may be able to verify independently whether the explanation itself is good. In which case the source no longer signifies.

Yes. I find that the positive reviews are often more useful than the negative reviews. If a positive review is five star but still mentions some negative things, it feels authentic and I can go off of that. This is how I deal with the problem where people won't give anyone less than five stars because they don't want to hurt their livelihoods.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#99

Post by nasredin »

philwelch wrote: post #61
lainga wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how can I trust what you're saying? What if you've been paid off by Fakespot?

That's why I'm launching my new website, SpotFakeFakeSpot, which helps spot fake fake review spotting sites. I got the idea from my time as a sales rep selling radar detector detectors to police departments.

Thanks.

I had no idea there's a full scale electronic war on the streets of my city.

Re: Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For

#100

Post by nasredin »

21 wrote: post #28
riazrizvi wrote: post #9

I've been using https://www.fakespot.com to flag bullshit reviews for a few months now. After many happy purchases informed by its review analysis, I believe it works.

How do you determine a review is bullshit? Do you only flag reviews for items you've bought?

5 stars.

Very generic positive language.

Poor grammar and or spelling.

---

The only sure way is to click on the profile and read the rest of their reviews.

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