I think they should be forced to list the number of items returned right next to the number of reviews.
FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
41–50 of 199 posts
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#42Last year I bought a set of cheap Bluetooth headphones on Amazon which I use on a daily basis. It's obvious they have an affiliate program because I often seem on those daily deal roundup posts that a lot of tech blogs now have. Recently, I've been getting emails from the vendors asking me to leave a review in return for a free product. Here is a copy and paste of one: Dear Customer, Thank you for purchasing our (HEA…
I just recently bought a pair of ANC Bluetooth headphones and received the same email. One interesting thing to note is that I received the email from an outlook address instead of an address affiliated with the company. It was already flagged as spam, though - I only found it by chance. They did offer a free pair of upgraded headphones instead of the same pair, which is a nice touch I suppose.
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 B…
What percentage of customers go through the refund process? I think I refund maybe one purchase every 4-5 years, for all of my retail activity combined. I don't believe I've ever bothered with Amazon.
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Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
What percentage of customers go through the refund process? I think I refund maybe one purchase every 4-5 years, for all of my retail activity combined. I don't believe I've ever bothered with Amazon.
I wish I was as discerning a buyer. I send back half of what I get off of Amazon, something like once every other month. By volume it's a lot more than I return anywhere else except for games impulse purchased and "returned" to Valve on Steam.
> I send back half of what I get off of Amazon
If you return too much stuff amazon will cut you off: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/05/23/a...
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#45There 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…
Shopping on Amazon is like shopping in Chinatown now. The funny thing is, you know Amazon has the data and must be optimizing in the short term. This shit must be working, for some definition of working. Personally, anything that touches my child, or goes in my body, is not allowed to be bought on Amazon.
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#46FINALLY.
"In addition, the order requires the defendants to notify Amazon, Inc. that they purchased Amazon reviews of their Quality Encapsulations Garcinia Cambogia capsules and to identify to Amazon the purchased reviews."
Online reviews don't work without trust. Maintaining trust is done by Amazon in this case, but sometimes the job is too big, especially at this scale. Amazon needs better tools perhaps, but the judgement of a court, backed up by a state? Damn, that is a powerful way to ensure there is some minimum level of trust in the marketplace.
I'm against too much government interference in the marketplace, but it's in everyone's interest to increase trust in the marketplace rather than let it become a market for lemons.
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 B…
Their refund system is great. Any time I've gotten something subpar I've messaged the seller and had my money back in days with zero hassle.
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Along those lines: why do they still value reviews that aren't associated with a purchase? This is the logical first step. Sometimes I review products on Amazon that I purchased elsewhere to help others who might be considering the product. If we didn't have fraud, those would be really useful.
But your non-purchase review doesn't prove that the actual item sold on Amazon isn't a fake. That's the whole point of knock-offs. They want you to purchase on the expectation that reviews/experience of the real item will be all the "advertising" needed to sell their knock-off. If you haven't purchased the item, the review should not be allowed to be made.
Yes like I said in a world where we don’t have fake products and fake reviews, there is value in a review from someone who didn’t purchase.
Amazon still pretends we are in a world without fake reviews and fake products which is why they allow it.
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#49There 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?
it's not a bug, it's a exploit that fraudulent sellers are abusing.
Since any seller can list on any listing. Some sellers will list their products on listings that are out of stock, and gain editing priviledges.
Then they will edit the page to whatever other products they want, and merge it with a new listing they create.
The end result is that they get a listing with hundreds or thousands of reviews. So unsuspecting customer will purchase based on social proof.
Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website
#50The wrong actor is being targeted here: Amazon is just as culpable for encouraging bad behavior.