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Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

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Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#181

Post by ortusdux »

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…

I wonder if there is a way to fund and scale a service that uses a browser addon and separate database for reviews. People already use Honey for discounts, Keepa for historic pricing, and fakespot for fake reviews.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#182

Post by aembleton »

lhorie wrote: post #112
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…

Sometimes, I semi-seriously wonder if it isn't better to just buy things from aliexpress.com. The products themselves mostly come from China anyways and many classes of items consistently seem to be marked up on amazon. And now we are left to wonder if the price deltas are helping middlemen retailers fund these review manipulation shenanigans, so why not just cut out the amazon exploit portion out of the equation?

The delivery takes longer but if I don't mind that then I just buy straight from Ali express.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#183

Post by oxfordmale »

It is likely the seller flagged your review as off topic as it doesn't actually cover the product. Any minor reference to the delivery (package arrived damaged) is reason for rejection. I had to rewrite a few negative reviews as they got initially rejected based on such technicalities. For one of the negative reviews I rewrote, the vendor contacted me and offered a refund for removing the negative review. Another vendor, who never delivered the package to my parents, tried to emotionally blackmail me suggesting their business would go bust and they would lose their house if I didn't remove my negative review. I forwarded this to Amazon, but apparently this was all within the guidelines as no action was taken.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#184

Post by scarmig »

whimsicalism wrote: post #87
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…

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.

> I'm honestly shocked by this comment - warning sides aside, paying for reviews should cause a ban.

The likely result of that policy would be that scammers would order the product of their competitors, take a picture of it with fake gift cards, report it to Amazon, and drive out the non-scummy vendors.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#185

Post by jasonhansel »

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…

The same thing happened to me a few years back. I got a product that came with an invitation to a secret Facebook group, with promises of further discounts. I joined the group, and it turned out to be a system where they would send you Amazon gift cards to buy specific products in exchange for five-star reviews. Apparently a large number of ordinary customers were involved, given the size of the group in question (all people using what appeared to be their real Facebook accounts).

I reported it to Amazon customer service, and they gave me a $5 account credit for making the report. Not sure if any action was taken against the seller.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#186

Post by topkai22 »

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.)

The point of a game isn't to win, its to have fun. A certain character may disrupt the mechanics of the game that are the most fun to a subgroup of players. To take it to an extreme, let's say a character is introduced to a fighting game and this character will win as soon as the "A" button is pressed. Now whatever fun people were doing to win in the game before is gone. In order to win, you just have to pick this super-character and hit the A button. Doesn't sound very fun to me.

At a deeper level, that people won't "exploit the brokenness for their own gain" is key to a functioning society. Just as the promise of laying out rules in detail (expert systems) failed to capture the complexity required to get high-functioning AI, societies can not function by formal rules (laws and regulations) alone. There are sorts of complexities about norms, mores, and moral codes that are important to keep societies and organizations running. What is expected behavior when everyone is queued up to buy tickets at an event, but there is no formal sign saying "please queue here"? I mean you could audiciously walk up, stand next to the person in front of the line, and then walk up to the windows when they say "next please" and not be breaking any written rule, but everyone sure would be angry, and if everyone did it you'd have near total anarachy where the pushiest or strongest always got to the front of the line first.

One of the biggest problems with internet scale is that its pretty easy to start running into individuals who ARE ok with exploiting the rules, or just ignoring them. This can be because they are from societies with different norms than the one they are encountering online, or just because they are in the small minority of people who just don't care. This effect is aided and abetted by the relative anonymity online. If you cut in line, people who you can see and here are going to yell at you right now. Break the social norm (or actual policy) of not paying for reviews and you'll most likely just get a strongly worded letter and possible ban on selling (which is easy enough to get around).

In short though, not exploiting a broken rule or system just because its broken isn't silly. Its the a huge part of having a functioning society.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#187

Post by 0x262d »

Amazon exists to increase shareholder profits. The reviews are not exempt from that. They exist to encourage customers to buy things and to increase sales volume. When Amazon was up and coming against a lot of other competitors it was relatively more important that reviews provide a good signal for customers. Now that they are more hegemonic, that is less important relative to facilitating increased sale volume, and there is also more incentive for sellers to fake them.

Everyone's incentives are cleanly aligned for the short-medium term, except for those of consumers and workers.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#188

Post by GordonS »

thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #132
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 a projector recently. The projector was so bad and had such good reviews I questioned this directly in my review. I later got a direct email (not an amazon message) from the seller asking if I would take down the review if they refunded me and let me keep the projector.

Here in the UK I had this happen once, but with much cheaper items: light bulbs. I ordered bright LED bulbs (I forget the purported lumens figure), but they where clearly nowhere near as bright as advertised. I gave a balanced 3-star review and was contacted the seller saying they'd refund me and let me keep the bulbs if I removed my review. I obviously declined, as I had no use for the bulbs in any case!

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#190

Post by [deleted] »

joombaga wrote: post #143
pmiller2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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