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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

#181

Post by r00fus »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #76
msikora wrote: post #63

ReviewMeta has a great Chrome plugin that shows the "real" score (after removing all even slightly suspicious reviews) right in the toolbar https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reviewmetacom-revi...

The funny thing is I think Chrome plugins suffer from a similar problem and quite dangerous too because they can steal your information. I reported a fake clone of Privacy Badger a while back - positive reviews with the only difference being the fake one had a very low number of reviews/downloads. I'm very conservative with the extensions I use now

I only use chrome extensions in a containerized fashion (i.e. on an instance where chrome is used for nothing else)

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

#183

Post by sdoering »

danjayh wrote: post #145
ashelmire wrote: post #88

"Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic" Get the hell outta here. Look at literally any product and you'll see a plethora of obviously fake reviews. The worst I've noticed? Check out headphones. 500+ 5 star reviews for cheap Chinese products all over the place. In fact, anything that's around 500 5 star reviews is probably mostly fake reviews.

Worse still, Amazon will delete authentic reviews that contain information they don't like. For instance, I started working my way through all of the batteries on Amazon (top review on this product, for instance: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B009PPR5OU/ ), and Amazon deleted them from multiple products because of the table with cost/battery data (which is extremely relevant when reviewing a commodity product like Alka…

Additionally they delete reviews of the same product if distinct people are deemed to be somewhat connected or deemed to be in one household.

So if you and your spouse like to keep their own opinions and review separately never connect your accounts in any way.

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

#185

Post by Broken_Hippo »

nfoz wrote: post #161

I'm not really sure why there are any real reviews on sites like Amazon, Yelp etc. Why do people leave reviews; what's in it for them? Is it some strange form of altruism where they're helping their fellow anonymous shopper while also helping out one of the world's most successful megacorporations? Writing this comment has made me re-think why I'm writing this comment.

I tend to leave a review when something is better than expected or if I'm disappointed enough to do so. I'll also occasionally leave a review of something if I'm prompted, but that more depends on whim. I also am likely to leave a review on products that are occasional purchases - small kitchen appliances. This is because I personally find these helpful when sourced from multiple places.

I rarely leave a review for average products. There is rarely a good way to communicate to folks that the product simply met expectations. For example, if I buy a bag of coffee that I've purchased before and I get said coffee, there isn't much I can say. "I bought this because I find this coffee good enough to buy a second time. It isn't my favorite, but it is good and my average quality of coffee. Package was undamaged and contained the expected coffee".

That isn't exactly a 5 star review, yet if I give 3 or 4 it seems to be a ding on the company. I'd rather not, thank you.

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

#187

Post by stevekemp »

qzw wrote: post #124
whitepoplar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name and shame!

Not the OP, but this reminds me of a similar experience I had with a book called Space Opera a few months ago. Don't remember where I first heard of it, but it was being touted as comparable to the Hitchhiker's Guide. All the reviews on Amazon were 5 stars, and since the kindle version was only $5, I bought it without checking further. It turned out to be a pretty disappointing read, and nowhere near the caliber of a…

There are groups where ebook authors get together to essentially cross-review books of other members.

I remember reading an exposé recently, which I suspect was posted here, but I can no longer find it. (An other dropped out of the group(s) due to ethical concerns.)

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

#188

Post by chha »

I generally avoid looking at good reviews when shopping due to this. Instead I assume that whatever doohickey I want to buy works as advertised, and look for reasons not to buy. Bad reviews are much more helpful in this regard, as they pinpoint weaknesses or other issues.

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

#189

Post by esolyt »

lucb1e wrote: post #156
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…

> it would take hours to sort through the choices and find a decent [bathroom scale] Maybe it's different in the USA, but when I needed a bathroom scale for our new apartment I went over to the store and bought the first one they had. If I would have come home and it wouldn't have worked, I'd have gone back and had either gotten repair under warranty or cash back (if they don't want to repair it, you can rescind the…

> I just can't imagine staying home for packages all the time

I'm not sure why you think people in the USA do that. You certainly don't have to stay home to get package. Nobody does that.

If it's a valuable package, there are ways to make sure it's not stolen, including using an Amazon Locker.

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

#190

Post by akuji1993 »

chrissnell wrote: post #114

I've been burned multiple times by this; the worst was a pair of remote control off-road trucks for my sons' Christmas presents. They had hundreds of 5-star reviews and both units worked for maybe 5 minutes each. Within days of Christmas, the listing was flooded with 1-star reviews from other conned parents with very similar stories. The number of products impacted must be far over the 1% claimed. There are whole cat…

The thing is, you really can't buy from anyone but Amazon directly anymore. The marketplace is flooded by chinese off brands that break the moment you touch them. At least that's the situation here in Europe.
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