Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

thewirecutter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 429 posts

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#181

Post by tinyhouse »

I have a simple solution that seems to work very well for me. If there are negative reviews I usually try to read a few to see if there is a red flag. For the positive reviews I check the dates distribution. Many products have only 5 star reviews but when you check you see they are all from the last two months. If I don't see old positive reviews then I skip the item unless it's a brand I'm familiar with. Finally, if everything looks good I check the seller(s) rating. Then buy from the best one. (For 3rd party sellers)

The idea is that it's hard to keep a fake high rated reviews for a long time.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#183

Post by jschwartzi »

agrippanux wrote: post #18
miked85 wrote: post #6

I have started buying most products directly from manufacturer's websites or in physical stores now. The amount of fake products on Amazon is appalling, I wonder why they don't put effort into stopping this.

I started buying electronics at my local physical Best Buy. I thought 4 years ago I would never step inside a Best Buy again but a string of obvious fakes from Amazon changed my mind.

Their in-store pickup is very convenient. And their prices are pretty good. I'm avoiding buying anything from Amazon since August because of the numerous problems I was having with them. I did have to buy one technical book about database design from them because I couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere else. Otherwise it's been really painless not using Amazon for any purchases.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#184

Post by gowld »

heavyset_go wrote: post #56
squarefoot wrote: post #45

Fake reviews also contribute to more fake and low quality products being sold. It looks like Amazon simply doesn't care. https://thehustle.co/amazon-fake-reviews FTA: "One stay-at-home mom from Kentucky told me she makes $200-300 per month leaving positive reviews for things like sleep masks, light bulbs, and AV cables." “Do you actually like the products?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she wrote. “I never use them.”

I posted about this on HN recently[1]. Within the last month, I've been getting an increasing amount of native ads on different platforms for "Free [Product]!". If you engage the ad, you find out that the ad-purchaser wants you to buy the advertised product and leave a positive review for it on Amazon, after which they'll refund you for the cost of the product. Some of these items have thousands of positive reviews[1…

Are these legit sites / apps you are reading? How are you finding them? Another approach might be to reach out to the ad network to complain about these illegal ads. (Fake paid reviews are illegal ads, and soliciting illegal activity is illegal.)

The solution here is probably to convince authorities to prosecute the individuals are accepting bribes for fake reviews. Amazon should be happy to cooperate.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#185

Post by citiguy »

snazz wrote: post #176
reaperducer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy I do the same. I wish I didn't, but I don't know what the practical alternative is. I guess it's the whole reason that brands were created in the first place. I do source some of my stuff from smaller brands and shops, whenever I can. But that's not always an option. When it comes to software, I'm not entirely satisfied with Apple's "walled g…

It’s confidence-inspiring that Apple hasn’t stopped software updates for AirPort routers (I have a 5th gen). There’s even an unofficial Python script that enables SSH, giving you root access to the NetBSD system underneath. So even when Apple finally does abandon it, it might still be possible to customize the Unix underpinnings.

Oh, that’s neat. What is this script called? How do you run it?

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#186

Post by gowld »

jka wrote: post #26
the_snooze wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. In both cases you have a company that wants to both have it's platform cake and eat it's publisher cake at the same time. (Sorry for the bad spin on that phrase there.) These companies innovate by showing off a layer of whiz-bang techy goodness so people don't notice that they've simply externalized all the responsibility and…

It also wouldn't be surprising to learn that they identify customers (buyers) who have louder voices and more social influence, and shield those people from fakes -- or provide rewards to mollify them when they do report problems.

That’s intractable. They can’t selectively shield everyone the influencer retweets from fakes.

They didn’t even shield a wirecutter , one of their largest affiliate referrers.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#187

Post by jschwartzi »

joeblau wrote: post #153

A few weeks ago, I bought some shampoo and conditioner from Amazon. I wanted a bulk size and the bottle looked like it was form the official manufacturer. When I got the bottles, opened and used them, I could tell they were fake. The consistency of the product was terrible and the smell was overly harsh. I returned both of them and just ordered the products from the company website. Funnily enough, the company websit…

You're lucky you didn't accidentally put that stuff on your hair or face. Back before cosmetics and beauty supplies were regulated in the US, there would be occasional news stories of shampoos removing hair or causing rashes. A high school teacher showed us as an example a newspaper article from that period about mascara making several women permanently blind.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#188

Post by randallsquared »

fma wrote: post #95
joshgachnang wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has been about the same for me. I went from total Google fanboy to migrating a lot of my life away from them and advising others to do the same.

Thinking about doing the same to diversify where my private info gets sucked up. Who do you use for email?

I'm not the person you replied to, but I use AWS Workmail.

Ironically. :)

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#189

Post by harimau777 »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #88

It's funny: I always thought the Internet and platforms like Amazon with the collaborative reviewing system would make brands more and more obsolete, because you could just pick high-quality products from smaller manufacturers by looking at user reviews. Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy, because I simply cannot trust user reviews in most of the cases. Recently there are more…

I wish Amazon would just let you select which countries you wanted to include/exclude (both for made in and sold by). It wouldn't be perfect, but it would at least allow me to filter out fly by night Chinese manufacturers.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#190

Post by 101404 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #163
ThePhysicist wrote: post #88

It's funny: I always thought the Internet and platforms like Amazon with the collaborative reviewing system would make brands more and more obsolete, because you could just pick high-quality products from smaller manufacturers by looking at user reviews. Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy, because I simply cannot trust user reviews in most of the cases. Recently there are more…

I think Amazon should employ a hundreds of everyday people to review products full time. When you list a product on Amazon, you have to pay 10-20 of those Amazon Employees to review the product at arms length. Say each reviewer is given 2 hours for each product, before you can list a product on Amazon you have to pay $2 x 20 x hourly rate. These should be the only reviews. Or you can sell your product with no reviews…

Too expensive for most products.

Simply limit "review rights" to users who have made a certain amount of purchases, are already subscribed for a certain amount of time, etc.

Post reply on HN