Fake review factories that run on Facebook and post five-star Amazon reviews • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by x0054 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #151

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…

Why don't you just got to a sporting goods shop; either a local or a chain like REI or Dicks, and pay the retail premium and know what you're getting? I don't want retail to go away. Fuck Amazon.

I live off grid, 2+ hours from any store that would carry such arrows, and I used to buy them just fine from Amazon. My comment was about the decline of Amazon, not a request to solve my arrow buying problem :)

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

#312

Post by gmiller123456 » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 7:23 PM UTC

PostOnce wrote: post #170

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…

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…

I think this is his whole point, Amazon is not competitive with other retailers. At this point they seem to just be relying on their name and being the first place someone will look. I went a long time with Amazon being the first/only place I looked for stuff, but that started changing 4-5 years ago, and today I almost never buy anything from them.

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

#313

Post by lawnchair_larry » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

entropy_ wrote: post #255

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why though? If getting the product for free isn't contingent on you writing a positive review(only on writing one at all), why would it be broken?

Most product reviews you see by bloggers and youtubers are seeded this way. Vendors understand that when people are curious about a product, they search for it and click on some reviews. It’s common practice to make sure that they have results by giving them to reviewers.

Reviewers generally fall into 3 categories.

The small time reviewers who are excited to get free stuff, and want more free stuff in the future. Aside from their delight of free product, which gives a major positive bias before they even unbox, there is also the fact that if they trash a product, nobody is sending them one again.

Then there is the professional reviewer. They monetize their website and youtube channel heavily, and they live or die by getting product to review. If they trash a product, they face a huge risk of not receiving anything from that vendor again.

The third is the fully independent outfit that has a revenue stream completely detached from the product, and often have to buy it on their own. This is very expensive, and not many consumers pay for reviews. Consumer Reports is an example.

As a result, almost any kind of review you find is likely worthless, and should be treated as a paid ad.

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

#314

Post by astura » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #282

entropy_ wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? If getting the product for free isn't contingent on you writing a positive review(only on writing one at all), why would it be broken?

The incentive structure can get seriously misaligned if you receive the product for free. You want to keep getting free products, which means that you want to make the person giving you the products happy. Amazon is giving you the products. Amazon is happy, or at least there is a common perception to that effect, if you rate things highly because then more people buy things from them. So you rate more highly so that…

Not only that but, IMO, you can't really objectively review a product you didn't pay for and buy out of your own free will. "That's neat" for a product you got for free can easily be "waste of money" if you had to pay for it.

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

#315

Post by astura » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 7:58 PM UTC

vadym909 wrote: post #185

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why you are buying luxury goods off of Amazon when you aren't able to distinguish between counterfeit goods. His wife bought him a gift. I assume she thought that a company as big as Amazon wouldn't allow sales of counterfeit items on their platform, like I once did. > My wife bought me “luxury” branded jackets and clothing for fall.

This is a serious problem. My wife goes to Amazon and just buys the top seller of whatever she's looking for(even if its from a no name marketplace seller). I don't think she realizes people can game this system.

Most people I've spoken to don't even realize Amazon is a "marketplace" that has multiple sellers.

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

#316

Post by esalman » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

jtreminio wrote: post #188

esalman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm in the market, can you tell us the name?

Sorry for the late reply, I went road-tripping with the new dashcam. I went with Viofo A119. I think it's pretty reliable and good value for about $90 (plus an SD card). Also ordered a CPL filter got one of the cams, it's not arrived yet.

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

#317

Post by esalman » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

skookumchuck wrote: post #253

esalman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Coincidentally, I've been looking for a dashcam. Care to share which one you selected?

Sorry about the late reply, I've replied here- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18277994

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

#318

Post by 8note » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 8:33 PM UTC

umichguy wrote: post #240

CWuestefeld wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

nah, they'd just change their name more frequently

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

#319

Post by skookumchuck » Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

esalman wrote: post #316

jtreminio wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the market, can you tell us the name?

Sorry for the late reply, I went road-tripping with the new dashcam. I went with Viofo A119. I think it's pretty reliable and good value for about $90 (plus an SD card). Also ordered a CPL filter got one of the cams, it's not arrived yet.

Thank you! I ordered one.

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

#320

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 1:20 AM UTC

angstrom wrote: post #264

brilee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon absolutely has to deal with the fake review problem. In some ways, you can think of it as analogous to google search. Google's moneymaker isn't the search; it's the ads. But Google spends a lot of time fixing search quality and dealing with people gaming search results because otherwise the ad revenue disappears.

I wouldn't be surprised if the actions Google took to push Amazon results off the first page product results skewed the Amazon product catalog towards gamed marketplace results. Amazon was getting a free ride on Google's results sort of like Wikipedia for a fairly long time. Now you have to dig to find links to either of them. The effect on Amazon may also be a result of pricing changes Google made around 2015.

I'm surprised to hear about this, as I frequently find myself having to explicitly -amazon -$ and other things to keep garbage product listings out of my google search results.