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

theguardian.com

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

#231

Post by im3w1l »

dunkelheit wrote: post #26
dragontamer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met a family member (like 2nd cousin or further away) at some wedding a few years ago. I only talked to him once, but he was very clear about this situation. He owned a hotel, and was trying to track down the writers of bad reviews on Yelp. Primarily, as the owner of the hotel, it was his job to find out what's wrong about the hotel and improve it. But he started to investigate some of the 1-star reviews, and came…

A heuristic that I've used quite a lot recently is to look at three-star reviews and see if the reviewer's gripes are relevant to me. Works quite well, but I guess it is only a matter of time and we'll soon start seeing fake three-star reviews.

And you may have shortened its lifespan by publicizing it.

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

#233

Post by thx11389793 »

Protip: if you find a crap product that's being shilled for in the reviews, you can talk your way into getting paid decently for your silence. I know someone who was paid several hundred dollars to not leave a bad review for a something that cost under $50. One scathing review that exposes their scheme might lost them tens, maybe a hundred multiples of their unit profit margin.

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

#234

Post by hbbio »

x0054 wrote: 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…

It would be very funny if Amazon gets back to where Internet started... curated directories.

Not necessarily à la Yahoo! but a modern collaborative system, with help from some ML would do. My friends at Slant would agree :)

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

#235

Post by mprev »

thx11389793 wrote: post #233

Protip: if you find a crap product that's being shilled for in the reviews, you can talk your way into getting paid decently for your silence. I know someone who was paid several hundred dollars to not leave a bad review for a something that cost under $50. One scathing review that exposes their scheme might lost them tens, maybe a hundred multiples of their unit profit margin.

Or you could behave ethically and not allow yourself to be bought.

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

#236

Post by chx »

inanutshellus wrote: post #126
ajross wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the solution to that problem branding and not nationalist policing by the retailer? I mean, reading your post I don't see what Amazon can do to make you happy except ban "chinese" manufacturers. If you're seriously a regular buyer of these products, surely you have a few manufacturers that you know and trust, just like serious hobbyists in other activities have preferred brands of balls or shoes or guitar strin…

Two things: First, he covered that by saying searching by brand still had his "real" search results on page 2. Second, maybe you're super young, but Amazon used to be "good stuff", not just "hey, let's compete with eBay, on their level." What if you actually don't know the difference between "good" arrows and "bad" arrows? It used to be that Amazon had already made that call for you. Amazon used to be the place you b…

> Their prices are so mercurial

I was discussing a barbell set with my trainer and by the time I got around to buy it next morning it doubled in price. Came back down in a week. WTF.

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

#237

Post by simias »

x0054 wrote: 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…

It's really baffling to me how despite being one of the largest companies in the world and being centered around e-commerce Amazon doesn't do anything about these issues weakening their core product. I say "do nothing" not "fail to stop" because I haven't seen any evidence that Amazon does anything at all to prevent or discourage these behaviors.

I wonder if it's because they push the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra too far. After all, their current approach is successful so why risk changing anything? That would also explain why the website overall looks so dated in many areas.

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

#238

Post by hef19898 »

beckler wrote: post #181
jliptzin wrote: post #176

Amazon is worth an enormous amount of money. They can afford to solve this problem. Here's one idea: invite regular amazon users with accounts active for at least > 1 year, who have some kind of verified identity/address, and ask them to become certified reviewers. Give them amazon credits/coupons in exchange for reviews of all the items they've purchased in the last 6-12 months (if they haven't yet left a review for…

It's probably more profitable to leave it the way it is... Which opens up the door for a competitor. Imagine if there was a different site that became known for its highly reliable ratings. It would eat Amazon's lunch and dinner.

The more I think about it the more potential weaknesses I see at Amazon that can be exploited by a competitor. At least in the traditional retail business, I cannot judge AWS.

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

#239

Post by umichguy »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #195
sombremesa wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, it's actually Amazon's search algorithms that are to blame. Those have been known for a long time to be sub-par, now, at least since 2012 (when I worked there). If you search for a brand name, products without that brand name anywhere should just not show up, period. (I suppose an exception is if you just don't have it, kind of like when Netflix shows "shows related to" when they don't have what you're actu…

> kind of like when Netflix shows "shows related to" when they don't have what you're actually looking for. I wish they would fix that and make it communicate clearly that they don't have this show, and the following are just the alternatives. Because with the UX looking identical for when there is a match and when there is none, this feels like a cheap attempt at duping people into watching something anyway.

"kind of like when Netflix shows "shows related to" when they don't have what you're actually looking for."

I wouldn't mind that to be honest. And I've discovered some shows/ movies which were pretty damn good (but not mainstream) just based on this sort of logic. I most likely would've never discovered them otherwise.

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

#240

Post by umichguy »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #147
dclowd9901 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Better solution is removing reviews from people who get refunds. Double win by incentivizing manufacturers to refund a disgruntled customer.

I'd sure prefer to know that the product I'm about to buy frequently needs to be returned.

I would love that too! If they had some sort of stat meter next to a product saying x% of the purchases were returned, it would be great. Plus it would force the seller to up their game or die.
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