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Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

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Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#121

Post by Hokusai »

hbosch wrote: post #109
whimsicalism wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't pop back up with 12k 5 star reviews immediately? I'm honestly shocked by this comment - warning sides aside, paying for reviews should cause a ban. I am as unconvinced by this argument about "popping back" as I am by people who say that raising taxes is useless because people will just hide their money.

> They won't pop back up with 12k 5 star reviews immediately? No, they will pay for those and have them soon enough. Even the OP says the product was sitting at >4,000 reviews at time of purchase and now is over 12,000. The reviews are easy to come by, of course. I am not pointing out that the seller here is right by any means. I fully agree that paying for 5-star reviews is reprehensible and unethical, and it's simi…

Amazon shows the reviews, it should be accountable for them. These are not comments from users, this is used to promote sales.

> Every "literate consumer" should already know this!

So, it is my fault that Amazon promotes false advertising? Should I be punished for not seeing thru the lies that Amazon shows in their website? I don't think so. Don't blame the victim, blame the scammer.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#122

Post by o_____________o »

mancerayder wrote: post #108
ilamont wrote: post #16

I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different. I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller. I documented everything incl…

I wrote a negative review for glass that broke by itself in the fridge 5 times (out of 6 pieces). Amazon removed it. I asked why and was sent a link by a bot-like sender. Some months back I gave a so so review on AirBNB and had it removed. I asked why, I was sent a link and cut and pasted guidelines. Responding using Reason led to being completely ignored. Then I discovered a reddit subgroup where hosts tell each oth…

> Then I discovered a reddit subgroup where hosts tell each other tips to easily get reviews removed.

What subreddit is that?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#123

Post by Guest19023892 »

ilamont wrote: post #16

I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different. I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller. I documented everything incl…

I've seen this take place with all sorts of things. Restaurants where you get free dessert by leaving an online review. Hotels where you get some type of upgrade. Stores where you leave a review and get a chance to win a gift card.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#124

Post by nickpeterson »

inetknght wrote: post #90
croes wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't really care about customers like the rest of FAANG. It's all about money, data and power. Everything else is just PR and advertising.

> care about customers like the rest of FAANG I think of the five FAANG companies only Apple and Netflix have even a remote semblance of caring about the customer. Google and Facebook certainly don't and that was known since before the announced antitrust lawsuits.

I think those companies care about their customers it’s just that regular users are not their customers. Facebook cares if people stop putting ads on Facebook, not if some random person has a problem with their service.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#125

Post by hbosch »

Angostura wrote: post #99
hbosch wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to assume you meant the Amazon product with the url suffix "dp/B087NN41JH/". This seems to be the highest reviewed result for search term "webcam", at least on my page. Here on HN, we have a savvy audience that understands the problem on Amazon with counterfeits, fakes, and low-quality items. I don't usually have this problem myself, because I go out of my way to buy things from sellers that I recognize, such…

> But if so, they will just pop back up over night with a new name. And that's fine. But if so they'll pop up again with zero reviews and have to work at rebuilding the scam. This is a pretty shocking comment. Amazon suggests that Amazon reviews are worth at least something. If they are not then they should all be removed and we can go back following your strategy of "buying from companies that I know the name of, be…

> Amazon suggests that Amazon reviews are worth at least something.

More and more it is proven that reviews themselves don't mean much. You should consider your own personal relationship with the brand, or from people you trust. Of course we don't all have the luxury of those things and sometimes you need to read a few reviews. After all, without GOOD and HONEST reviews we probably would not have a company like Anker, which I love dearly and who did it all right... but like with all things, you have to be critical of what you see and read and hear. Reviewers are not always honest, people are not always honest. Particularly when there is money at stake, particularly when you're online.

I'll have you know that the movie "Wolfman's Got Nards" is currently sitting at 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Does that mean you should go watch "Wolfman's Got Nards"?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#126

Post by tandr »

zug_zug wrote: post #104

Amazon should pay you if you report offers of false reviews (at least 2x what you were being offered). This money should come out the seller's pocket. After a certain thresh-hold the seller should lose increasing amounts of money until it's no longer profitable.

Seller will just rise prices accordingly to offset 1000 items sold with 1 bad feedback. So, like 10 cents per item?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#127

Post by joombaga »

pmiller2 wrote: post #83
joombaga wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll remove product ratings for a particular seller if enough people complain.

So? That doesn't address the issue I pointed out.

So seller reviews are useful even if buyers can't read them at all.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#128

Post by dvtrn »

jrockway wrote: post #120
toxik wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!

There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this. It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won't actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain. Seems silly to me. (Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that's a strong argument to not do it.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#129

Post by judge2020 »

donmcronald wrote: post #70
rsync wrote: post #48

Now I remember ... The previous review practice that outraged me was when someone here at HN was producing very detailed analysis of LED bulbs (spectral analysis, etc.) and proving that lots of bulbs on Amazon had CRI and color temperature ratings that were way off . He then described how he posted that in some reviews and they were all taken down. Which is to say, crummy LED bulb on Amazon with an inflated CRI canno…

China Export [1] are the only two words anyone should ever need to know about Amazon when it comes to safety and quality. 1. https://support.ce-check.eu/hc/en-us/articles/360008642600-H...

This has nothing to do with reviews.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#130

Post by csnover »

notafraudster wrote: post #105
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse, there's no such thing as 'free' money. If they can pay us $20 per item to write reviews, they are over-charging us $20 per item. So whoever doesn't do this is over-paying $20. If you buy 100 items like this a year, you're burning $2,000. That's non-trivial money for most people.

It doesn't follow that if they can pay you $20, they can pay everyone $20. They have an expected uptake, and they have a model for how the reviews translate to more sales. I agree that it's likely that at least some of this marketing is priced into the price and there's some inflation, but I suspect the overall uptake of stuff like this is <20% and it generates non-zero additional sales, so I would guess the margin i…

Once you start looking at the actual numbers it becomes pretty clear that most of these arbitrage sellers could give every customer $20 and still make money.

For example, the top search result for “webcam” on Amazon.com right now usually sells for $35[0]. Its wholesale price on Alibaba for 5k units is $3.84[1] + $2.04 shipping per unit. Plug those numbers into Amazon’s FBA profitability calculator[2] and you’ll find that the seller only needs to sell 67 units per month to break even, after giving every buyer $20, because the seller’s net margin at this volume is nearly 60%.

[0] https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B087NN41JH

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-Factory-Wholesa...

[2] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/hz/fba/profitabilitycalcula...

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