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Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

theguardian.com

201–210 of 334 posts

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#201
post #111

Amazon is going downhill quickly. I target shoot with a compound bow as a hobby, and as a result I usually buy a set of arrows a year. In 2015 when I would search for "target arrows" on Amazon the first page results would be for legit American companies who make exceptional arrows for about $30 per set of 6. Now, and for the last 2 years if I search for "target arrows" I get pages and pages of Chinese crap arrows (I…

Competition for scarce resources without regulation drives entropy.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#202
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aree you ordering brands off amazon rather than from the brand? You get what you pay for. Good luck on the fraud charge.

People here don't like being told the truth.

I rest my case.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, the pervasive Amazon counterfeit problem is unrelated to the fake review problem. Both are serious problems that Amazon does little to combat, but they're not the same. The counterfeiting is more insidious because Amazon is entirely at fault for mixing legit merchandise with counterfeits. Fake reviews on the other hand aren't Amazon's fault. That's just the world being filled with heinous assholes out to…

Amazon kind of audits and reviews products, or at least has an official program for sellers to solicit user reviews: it's called Amazon Vine [0]. For the reviewers (the "Vine Voices"), it looks like this: on a regular basis, you can choose a product to review (based on your past reviews, purchasing history etc., maybe - they don't disclose how that works), and Amazon sends the product to you. Within one month, you ha…

I don’t ever want to read any reviews by someone who gets free product, so if that’s how vine works, it’s broken by design.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is sellers abusing product variation feature on amazon. Basically it works like that - they find out of stock product with high number of positive reviews, add it as a variation to their own product. Since this product is out of stock, it would not show up on the product page as an option to select, yet they gain all reviews/stars from that product. This needs to be reported to Amazon.

That's very interesting and completely believable. If I may ask, how'd you find this? Do you work at Amazon (is this known at Amazon, I would assume so)?

I am a seller and have to scan daily for competitors pulling this trick. From communication with seller support, it appears that Amazon is on the way to stop reviews from one variation to propagate to all product in the "family" as a way to stop it, but when it happens - who knows. More pressure from both sellers and customers should push Amazon towards it.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the fake review epidemic, buying on Amazon meant I didn't have to drive out for an hour or longer and instead spend time on other things.

For any product I care about, I do my best to find online retailers who specialize in that category. I'll buy disposable stuff off Amazon, or something I literally cannot find anywhere else, but that's about it. I broke my rule last week to buy a CB radio that was about 66% the usual retail price, so of course the seller rewarded me by having it delivered 600 miles away (either that, or USPS seriously messed up) and…

I much preferred the convenience of a single source which already had all my payment details setup, delivery addresses set up, and which I knew wouldn't give me any bullshit with returns.

Fulfillment should be a commodity, and I don't want to have to deal with how different brands have structured their own fulfillment.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#207
"use the reporting tools" - as far as I'm aware there is no reporting tool for "this product is fake" and "this review looks fake".

If they did want to fight fake reviews they would make reporting easy.

They'd also not allow completely different products to be listed on the same page.

...

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not order online from a sporting goods store, or, if possible, direct from the manufacturer? "Get everything in one place" was more valuable when we had to travel from place to place and it took 30 minutes, but traveling from one website to another takes no time, so the proposition isn't as strong. Return policies, security, etc, are concerns still, but those cons come along with the pros of no commingling, proba…

Not OP. > Why not order online from a sporting goods store, or, if possible, direct from the manufacturer? I don’t want to share my info with more websites / services than necessary. Amazon already has my CC. I don’t want to spread my info any more than I have to.

That’s one of the main reasons I use Amazon. However as long as other sites allow me to use PayPal I’m happy.

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#209
post #111

Amazon is going downhill quickly. I target shoot with a compound bow as a hobby, and as a result I usually buy a set of arrows a year. In 2015 when I would search for "target arrows" on Amazon the first page results would be for legit American companies who make exceptional arrows for about $30 per set of 6. Now, and for the last 2 years if I search for "target arrows" I get pages and pages of Chinese crap arrows (I…

I was recently researching car dashcams. On Amazon the top brand has thousands of reviews but the most critical one accuses the seller of offering free mounts in exchange for 5* reviews. The second most prominent one is featured heavily in a deal aggregator website which I knew about from before. I decided to do my research outside of Amazon. The most reliable brand which I chose based on independent review sites and…

One way to overcome this sort by "Most reviews" which normally Amazon hides (I think they do it to give chance to sell new brands/products more). You have more chance to find the product you want and more trustful if it had 10K reviews instead of 10 reviews. I wrote about how to do it. Full disclosure, I am the author of free web app tool on the article. https://medium.com/@ceyhunkazel/amazon-search-hack-eliminate...

Re: Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews

#210
post #111

Amazon is going downhill quickly. I target shoot with a compound bow as a hobby, and as a result I usually buy a set of arrows a year. In 2015 when I would search for "target arrows" on Amazon the first page results would be for legit American companies who make exceptional arrows for about $30 per set of 6. Now, and for the last 2 years if I search for "target arrows" I get pages and pages of Chinese crap arrows (I…

Why not order online from a sporting goods store, or, if possible, direct from the manufacturer? "Get everything in one place" was more valuable when we had to travel from place to place and it took 30 minutes, but traveling from one website to another takes no time, so the proposition isn't as strong. Return policies, security, etc, are concerns still, but those cons come along with the pros of no commingling, proba…

> Why not order online from a sporting goods store, or, if possible, direct from the manufacturer?

Already have an account with Amazon, 2-3 days shipping, customer support.

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