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FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

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Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#11

Post by president »

potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

Even the 1 star negative reviews are faked. Sellers pay users to leave negative reviews to competitors.

EDIT: Funny how completely broken and anti-customer the Amazon review system is given that the #1 leadership principle at Amazon [1] is the following:

"Customer Obsession - Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers."

Just goes to show how these things are always BS.

[1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/our-leadership...

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#12

Post by mipmap04 »

gav wrote: post #4

I still don't understand why Amazon has done so little to combat the plague of fake reviews. It seems like it's something that's going to blow up eventually and bite them. Along those lines: why do they still value reviews that aren't associated with a purchase? This is the logical first step.

Here's a hypothesis: people are more likely to buy a product when they see it has a large number of reviews and ultimately Amazon cares about moving product.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#13

Post by duskwuff »

potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

Or reviews that were transferred over from other products. Here's a case in point:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MH9HPTR

Over 3000 reviews... most of them for products completely unrelated to the one on sale. I see reviews for a bicycle lamp, a phone screen protector, and a voltage converter.

This seems like a bug. Surely Amazon shouldn't allow sellers to transfer product reviews over from other products?

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#14

Post by organsnyder »

duskwuff wrote: post #13
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

Or reviews that were transferred over from other products. Here's a case in point: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MH9HPTR Over 3000 reviews... most of them for products completely unrelated to the one on sale. I see reviews for a bicycle lamp, a phone screen protector, and a voltage converter. This seems like a bug. Surely Amazon shouldn't allow sellers to transfer product reviews over from other products?

They're abusing the "color" parameter to be multiple products instead. It's astounding that Amazon has yet to actively prohibit this.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#15

Post by advisedwang »

yazr wrote: post #5

Not clear if this is mostly a "wonder food false advertisement" enforcement, or a "false review" enforcement. Maybe this was an easy "starter case" to advertise (ha ha) the new FTC position.

The FDA usually peruses issues of false health claims, so I'm guessing the latter.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#16

Post by [deleted] »

jawns wrote: post #9
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it be enforceable? It's a court order. It's also quite standard: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2016/03/...

My apologies. I should have said "recoverable" rather than "enforceable." I would assume that if a company is in trouble with the FTC, it's probably not in the best financial shape after paying even the costs associated with the suspended judgment. So if the FTC finds that the company made an omission and the full judgment comes due, will it actually recover that money? Or is the point to just fine them out of existe…

[deleted]

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#17

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

organsnyder wrote: post #14
duskwuff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or reviews that were transferred over from other products. Here's a case in point: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MH9HPTR Over 3000 reviews... most of them for products completely unrelated to the one on sale. I see reviews for a bicycle lamp, a phone screen protector, and a voltage converter. This seems like a bug. Surely Amazon shouldn't allow sellers to transfer product reviews over from other products?

They're abusing the "color" parameter to be multiple products instead. It's astounding that Amazon has yet to actively prohibit this.

Nothing about Amazon’s abuse of their customers surprises me anymore. Their “Amazon’s Recommemdation” is a joke too, and they’re associating their brand with garbage.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gflpf0DrCgw

Par for the Amazon course, cheap Chinese knockoffs. If they had anything other than a highly permissive refund system, they’d already be drowning in lawsuits. They must bleed refund money though, and I thought Bezos was all about right margins?

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#18

Post by mc32 »

Crowdsourced reviews are problematic (often but not always lacking context). Paid reviews make them worthless.

Perhaps this is one use of a blockchain which could add credibility to reviews.

Still by and large I prefer independent professional reviews (combined with authentic crowdsourced reviews), the problem with these, like CR, is that they’re not scalable to thousands of new products periodically, so we have to rely on crowdsourced reviews that don’t include a “trustworthiness” quotient.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#19

Post by gonehome »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #7
gav wrote: post #4

I still don't understand why Amazon has done so little to combat the plague of fake reviews. It seems like it's something that's going to blow up eventually and bite them. Along those lines: why do they still value reviews that aren't associated with a purchase? This is the logical first step.

I think you can assume that Amazon operates in its own best interest. If fake reviews were hurting sales, it'd stop them within weeks. I'm guessing, for the time being, they're helping sales. Although, I haven't bought anything on Amazon in 3 years now, and I never will again. I think this problem is creating HUGE long-term downsides. Those are a lot tougher to calculate/quantify than the short-term benefits, though.

I wonder what the actual outcome is for sales - fake reviews and counterfeit products have driven me to purchase a certain class of items directly from the manufacturer and not on Amazon.

Maybe most people don't bother with this though?

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#20

Post by smt88 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #10
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

I always search for negative information first. When using a search engine for a product I always append "sucks", "broken", etc. Generally speaking three star reviews are the most informative to me.

Sellers know people do this and plant fake, negative reviews on competitors at the same time they give themselves good reviews.

I noticed this once when repurchasing a space heater I'd bought multiple times in the past. Several reviews mentioned the temperature sensor failing, but this particular heater had no temperature sensor.

That isn't the only product I've seen with suspicious bad reviews, and I've read pieces of investigative journalism that confirm it's fairly widespread.

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