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Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

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Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#141

Post by mancerayder »

o_____________o wrote: post #122
mancerayder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

AirBNB! Do a search for Review and along those lines.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#142

Post by ballenf »

Buttons840 wrote: post #84
dheera wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone I know made easier money by listing Amazon-available products on eBay and selling them there for higher prices. They didn't even need inventory, they just got them with Prime shipping after a purchase on eBay. People are stupid. On eBay before buying stuff I always ask the seller if they can beat the Amazon price - 5% cashback that I get on Amazon, or deduct CA sales tax in their price if the product is avail…

Eww. Meanwhile someone is out there saying "I refuse to support Amazon, I buy stuff on ebay even if it costs a little more."

Or could just be impulse buyers on eBay.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#143

Post by joombaga »

pmiller2 wrote: post #135
joombaga wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What kind of twisted logic leads you to believe this? The whole point of reviews is that you can read them and use them to influence your purchasing decision.

Because they'll remove product ratings for a particular seller if enough people complain. That's a secondary use.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#144

Post by ClumsyPilot »

hbosch wrote: post #125
Angostura wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

'personal relationship with the brand'

Personal relationships with a social construct indicate the need for proffesional help. Amd imaginary friends.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#145

Post by devcpp »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #93
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…

Amazon doesn't give a shit. Amazon only wants to sell more stuff, so of course it's going to take down objective negative reviews and whistle-blowing accounts of review payola. This is a regulatory problem. If Amazon was a corner hardware store it would have been fined multiple times and the owner might well have been jailed by now. But thanks to the magic power of Internet leverage and the fact that only giant tradi…

You're thinking like a politician, whose law is a hammer and who sees every issue as a nail. Before regulating, let's see if the free market can't work it out way better by itself. And indeed it can, it's called competition.

Amazon itself claims to be "customer centric" because customer trust ensures sales go up in the long term much better than short gain of abusing the customer relationship. Look at this very thread for more evidence.

Maybe if you didn't need an army of lawyers fighting bureaucracy to found the tiniest company a competitor would already have beaten them. Maybe that's why Amazon feels it can afford this kind of business practices. Your intentions are good but your solutions are not.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#146

Post by rexf »

donmcronald wrote: post #63
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

There is a basic problem that if you see an obvious problem with a product listing on AMZN but you didn't buy the product they could care less. Sometimes the listing is obviously a scam, sometimes it is is just something that could be better: somebody is selling a box of assorted TTL ICs for $30 which were ill chosen for any use than testing your logic tester. (e.g. with $30 of quad-NANDs you can build a lot) In the…

The thing that absolutely blows my mind is the way other retailers want to be like Amazon, so they've all added 3rd party sellers to their websites. It's impossible to find anything because search results are dominated by absolute garbage on every retailer's site. They've taken the worst part of Amazon and latched onto it like it's the magic sauce that's going to make them relevant again. The other thing that I find…

I agree, I try to use Target or Walmart's websites to buy direct from them (and their supply chain) when I don't trust Amazon's risk of getting a counterfeit. I'm not looking for 3rd party sellers.

Amazon seems to have the best shipping/logistics (with Prime membership) and it's not even close for any other retailer. Walmart is OK, but Target has some really confusing triple selection that is really off putting (choosing between In Store, Same Day, and Shipping).

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#148

Post by ce4 »

rytis wrote: post #57
ljf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've totally given up on amazon, it is now impossible to know if what you are getting is of any quality - I wanted a good kitchen knife - but wading through the reviews and search was so painful. In the end I went to John Lewis and bought by price - hoping that gave me a good idea of quality and so far I am damn happy, which is far more than I can say for my last 20 or so amazon purchases.

Amazon is still ok, but you have to know exactly what you're after. For example, if you want "kitchen knife" that's a no go. if you want "robert welch kitchen knife" there's a chance that it's cheaper on Amazon, but not by much, if at all. In other words, as a search platform to find items it doesn't work anymore, as a place to buy, sometimes. That's just my experience lately.

Even the last prime day was full of crap listings. I stopped spending much and moved to greener pastures (eg brick+mortar shopping, or used professional stuff on classified ads and even fixing stuff instead of rebuying...). Started to learn brazing and so on during lockdown for example.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#150

Post by jdmichal »

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.)

If you've never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin's Playing to Win.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/

Specifically the chapter "Introducing... the Scrub" discusses exactly this sentiment.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

> In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.

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