Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Dark Patterns

netinstructions.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 278 posts

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#151

Post by hannasanarion »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #24

This rant is not well written. The first issue looks like a bug on Amazon's side. I'm not going to assume malice without something pointing in that direction. The author writes "What would have happend if I had left a more positive review? Would that be allowed?" Well, would it? I see no indication it would. Those reviews are indeed suspicious, and Amazon should do a better job of detecting fake review accounts. The…

Yeah, I wish the author looked into the first issue more. What if you review it from your "past orders" page instead of searching for it in the store?

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#152

Post by alexandercrohde »

taeric wrote: post #142
alexandercrohde wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What companies need to start doing is digitally signing their products (e.g. put a unique code on each box that is generated from a private key). Then Amazon and/or sellers can go online and verify this key to ensure their wares are not replica.

I'm curious how you think that would work. They could sign the serial number, I suppose, but I don't see why the fakes wouldn't just recycle serial numbers at that point. For fast moving parts, they could include a date, but you could still just copy some other one from recent checks.

I think how it would work (if I amazon wanted it to) is that the supplier would send the list of signatures for the next 200 products to amazon (which would then check for duplicates). Presumably these signatures could be scanned from a barcode format programatically.

Also, consumers believing they had a fake product could then go to the website of these manufacturers, who would have an incentive to make a web-ui to reveal duplicates/phonies.

I'm not gonna pretend I've invented a perfect end-to-end solution here, but if I'm getting 90% of the way there in 10 minutes then let's not pretend it's unsolvable.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#153

Post by lghh »

beauzero wrote: post #137
seren wrote: post #60

Prompted by this post, I wanted to check what happened to the 1-star review I have left 6 months ago. (Product worked for 3 days and then stopped, and after a replacement, the same thing happened). Sure enough, I have 0 comment in my profile, and I just checked, it has also disappeared from the product page. This is shady as hell, because I am 100% sure I wrote this review. I even wrote it twice, once on amazon.com a…

As someone who worked for a third party used bookseller, this was 8 months ago, we would always and I mean always dispute anything below a 3 star review. Many get thrown out. It was generally in the 40-50% range that we could get removed. Not much rhyme or reason...just dispute all of them.

Why? Isn't that a little dishonest?

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#154

Post by jackewiehose »

simias wrote: post #43
jackewiehose wrote: post #33

I once wrote a 1-star review on amazon for a top-selling product that had almost only positive reviews. The review was published but they quietly changed its contents. They replaced some words (I guess it was too strong language like "crap" or something) but even worse they removed at least one whole sentence and after that the review didn't make much sense anymore and it looked like I wrote it like that. Then I watc…

Wait amazon edits your reviews? That's shaddy as hell, I can understand removing a review for "strong language" but changing its content without asking the author is borderline scammy. I couldn't find similar stories online (although admittedly that's pretty hard to search for). I'd think it would be a big deal if Amazon was caught doing that, wouldn't it be?

I don't know if they do that regulary but in my case they did. It was my first (and last) attempt to write a review. Maybe the amazon employee just had the best intentions and didn't want to disencourage me because it was my first review... they achieved the opposite.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#155

Post by kowdermeister »

pry86 wrote: post #146
seren wrote: post #60

Prompted by this post, I wanted to check what happened to the 1-star review I have left 6 months ago. (Product worked for 3 days and then stopped, and after a replacement, the same thing happened). Sure enough, I have 0 comment in my profile, and I just checked, it has also disappeared from the product page. This is shady as hell, because I am 100% sure I wrote this review. I even wrote it twice, once on amazon.com a…

Not only Amazon does that. Few times I wrote a review of a restaurant on TripAdvisor, and all of them are removed :( Good ones are still there. If they can't do that, what is the point of having user reviews.

> what is the point of having user reviews

Selling a marketing tool for businesses and products.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#156

Post by _ea1k »

fouc wrote: post #63
mrtksn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your maybes are valid it simply means that these Amazon guys are new in the business and will figure out how to design user interface once they have the resources.Lets give them a slack, aye? Seriously though, I canceled my prime after I got a fake SD Card that was sold by Amazon. There was no straightforward way of returning it, had to contact customer support. Later I looked closely and I noticed the reviews war…

What? They make returns very easy to do. There's a form that pops up and many choices for reasons.

Yeah, I mean, he got a refund and didn't even have to return anything. How dark is that pattern?

Having said that, Amazon's product mixing is causing a lot of problems and trust issues for a lot of product types. I really hope they fix it.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#157

Post by EpicEng »

lghh wrote: post #153
beauzero wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who worked for a third party used bookseller, this was 8 months ago, we would always and I mean always dispute anything below a 3 star review. Many get thrown out. It was generally in the 40-50% range that we could get removed. Not much rhyme or reason...just dispute all of them.

Why? Isn't that a little dishonest?

More than a little, but I think the "why" is obvious.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#158

Post by Steltek »

taeric wrote: post #142
alexandercrohde wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What companies need to start doing is digitally signing their products (e.g. put a unique code on each box that is generated from a private key). Then Amazon and/or sellers can go online and verify this key to ensure their wares are not replica.

I'm curious how you think that would work. They could sign the serial number, I suppose, but I don't see why the fakes wouldn't just recycle serial numbers at that point. For fast moving parts, they could include a date, but you could still just copy some other one from recent checks.

Put the serial number under a scratch off. Once the serial number is registered by a customer via an online database, future verification would show other purchases as counterfeit.

It has some drawbacks:

- You need a significant number of people to start registering their purchases online, which no one does

- I've heard counterfeiters sometimes operate from the same factory. Legit serials could be generated for fake parts.

- Customers will obliviously try to pursue returns with the victim manufacturer instead of Amazon.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#159

Post by metal »

Amazon reviews have been shady for years. To combat this I never buy without running the item link through fakespot.com. The other day I also discovered reviewmeta.com t haven't tried it yet.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#160

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #75
k__ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. Some app-store marketing guru told the startup I'm contracting with, that this is the way to go, because you're pretty much f*cked if you get reviews below 4.

This is an important point. Basically, once some start gaming the system - the others have to follow or they are dead. It's similar to how irregular migration or general screwing over of workers works: if some farmers are paying 'under wages' or some factories are 'undercutting' ... then the others stand to lose business and are sucked into the same practices. It's one thing when a massively successful entity like Am…

everything naturally will gravitate toward people gaming the system. Its not just limited to shopping and reviews. Politics and social media behavior is not too different. If the option exist its going to be exploited, you either follow through or get left in the dust

Its sad that this is the way things are done but what can you do about it really? You can't fight every battle you need to pick what matters

Post reply on HN