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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

#321

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

Applejinx wrote: post #259
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no great reason to believe that fakespot is actually good at telling you when reviews are fake. Compare the absolute maximum that fakespot can ever do against the description given in the article, and you'll see that fakespot is no panacea. Fakespot can only ever catch a certain kind of low-effort fake review that is becoming less relevant as markets find new ways to cheat people.

"markets find new ways to cheat people" This is a fascinating construction. To me, it makes perfect sense (and reality seems to be heavily underscoring this perspective) but I feel it challenges some profound assumptions very commonly held by Western culture, about how the world works. If markets replace normal transactions with the optimal ways to cheat people, as a natural consequence of what markets are, how can w…

> how can we disrupt that phenomenon

Traditionally the answer to "How can we stop people from getting cheated?" is to introduce consumer protection regulations and actively punish the cheaters.

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

#322

Post by jiveturkey »

simias wrote: post #237
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…

thing is, you perceive it as a problem. it’s not. like google dumbing down email and usenet and so on, the next growth market is the folks that want the cheap shit.

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

#323

Post by chillacy »

da_murvel wrote: post #243
simias wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think it's baffling at all. Facebook is the largest social media company, and what do they do to try to stop all of the propaganda, troll factories and hateful things going on there? Naught. They know that they are the largest company and therefore doesn't have to do anything as long as their position stays the same. Which it seems to be doing. Yes, there are people leaving the platform but where do they go?…

I have friends who work on teams in Facebook who use ML to detect and filter out “undesirable content”. It’s a difficult problem but they’re a pretty intense team (workaholics) so I wouldn’t say they spend 0 effort.

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

#324

Post by xtreme »

simias wrote: post #237
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…

A cynical explanation would be that Amazon has looked into it but have decided that it is more beneficial to promote Chinese crap over quality products, precisely because they break more often (more replacements sold) and more people buy low priced crap than high quality products that cost more (more earnings for Amazon).

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

#325

Post by ceyhunkazel »

designtofly wrote: post #310
ceyhunkazel wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I've noticed that sellers have been gaming this metric as well. I was recently shopping for a phone case and other phone accessories. What I found is that sellers are re-purposing SKUs from other highly rated products. I found a ~4.5+ star product with thousands of reviews but saw that most of the reviews were for a completely different item that is no longer being sold. So they'll take a highly rated product, put a…

I heard that issue recently, merchants exploits this variant issue and Amazon does not provide a way differentiate variant comments.

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

#326

Post by siruncledrew »

xtreme wrote: post #324
simias wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A cynical explanation would be that Amazon has looked into it but have decided that it is more beneficial to promote Chinese crap over quality products, precisely because they break more often (more replacements sold) and more people buy low priced crap than high quality products that cost more (more earnings for Amazon).

It's amazing the extent that Chinese crap covers in meeting product market demands. I could see why some people will just chance it on cheap electronics like a Chinese GoPro when the real thing is already expensive and may be 4-5x the price. But what's infuriating is when obscure things like fake ear plugs and knock-off lighters get delivered to you because it's so unexpected it becomes nonsensical. Lower value discretionary things are now prevalently faked to the point that it makes you wonder why the hell would someone go through the effort of manufacturing and shipping a product that brings in such a small profit after fees and expenses unless millions of items were being sold. In the end, sellers supplying cheap crap through Amazon now have a huge market in reach, Amazon makes more money from more transactions, and customers are stuck hoping Amazon will still provide proper support and refunds for legitimate purchase issues.

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

#327

Post by graphenus »

There's another side of the medal. Merchants that are trying to sell anything on Amazon have to have some positive reviews, otherwise their product will not be sold at all, even when the product is great. I guess that here two factors contribute, the product is being outranked by others, which have good reviews, and users not trusting such products.

I totally see how in this chicken and egg problem merchants would choose to buy some fake reviews.

Now, add the problem of lack of transparency in reviews, i.e. there's no record of rejected legitimate reviews, no record of removed reviews; and now you have a dysfunctional system. No one is happy about it, but it degrades both quality of Amazon and trust in it.

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

#328

Post by [deleted] »

ceejayoz wrote: post #306
drb91 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. But why would they have an overstock? Either it is unpopular and not worth counterfeiting or it’s counterfeited immediately because it’s popular to undercut. The scenarios seem difficult to distinguish.

The consumer looking it up on Amazon isn't going to know which of those two scenarios it is. Thus, my point - blaming the consumer for purchasing it is unfair. There are legitimate reasons for a consumer to think the product is a) real and b) cheaper than usual.

[deleted]

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

#329

Post by drb91 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #306
drb91 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. But why would they have an overstock? Either it is unpopular and not worth counterfeiting or it’s counterfeited immediately because it’s popular to undercut. The scenarios seem difficult to distinguish.

The consumer looking it up on Amazon isn't going to know which of those two scenarios it is. Thus, my point - blaming the consumer for purchasing it is unfair. There are legitimate reasons for a consumer to think the product is a) real and b) cheaper than usual.

It seems like the legitimacy of something should be demonstrated, not assumed.

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

#330

Post by spacehome »

sten wrote: post #294
spacehome wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent troll-fighting heroes have moved on from Newegg. It’s owned by different people now.

What's the alternative to newegg if I may ask?

Does it need a replacement? Newegg still sells a wide selection of genuine parts at reasonable prices.
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