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Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

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Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#191

Post by pmiller2 »

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.

That's not relevant. You were talking about seller reviews, not product reviews before. Why are you trying to avoid the question? Do you think choosing a reputable seller is a "secondary" concern after choosing a product? If so, why?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#192

Post by cafard »

jdmichal wrote: post #150
jrockway wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 some…

If you are applying this to computer games, I see your point. If you are applying it to 5-star reviews for $20, then I disagree.

(Luigi Barzini mentions an Italian book on card-playing--written, I think, by a clergyman--that begins "Always try to see your opponents' cards." He was trying to point out the light value to that Italians assign to official rules.)

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#193

Post by voltagex_ »

hbosch wrote: post #81
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 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…

Sidenote: I couldn't find this by reverse image searching, but if you search the same description you can find it on AliExpress for ~30% less. If I had access to Taobao, it's probably less again there.

I buy a lot of stuff from AliExpress - I'd love to be able to go one up the chain and find the factories that are building this stuff.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#194

Post by ineedasername »

Buttons840 wrote: post #39
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…

Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it. EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companie…

guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme

Maybe not in the short term, but in the long term it could. There are already things I haven't purchased because the review contents just didn't seem right, lots of 5 star and 1 star, practically no 3 or 4 star.

I can't be the only one, and the situation is only getting worse.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#195

Post by sf_rob »

pavon wrote: post #160
skept wrote: post #114

I had a very similar experience last month. I ordered this toaster[1]. When I received it I noticed that in their user manual they were offering a "gift" in return for an Amazon review. Although to be fair they didn't explicitly demand that the review had to be positive. I submitted this 4-star review [2] to Amazon: I received the toaster not too long ago. It looks just like in the advertised pictures and works fine.…

The thing you have to know about Amazon is that they combine all the reviews for all sellers of the same product (to the extent that Amazon thinks it is the same product). As such, reviews aren't an appropriate place to leave feedback about a seller, and leaving your review up would have been misleading. The reviews are only supposed to be about the product. You can leave feedback for sellers by clicking on their nam…

Honestly, the product page is the appropriate place for a review of this nature. You are informing other consumers to discount the weight of the reviews to a greater extent than they might otherwise.

I've been burned by this previously and had the review removed. My review was even about how the product was subpar and I suspect it was the highest rated in category because of the offer.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#196

Post by MiddleEndian »

pavon wrote: post #160
skept wrote: post #114

I had a very similar experience last month. I ordered this toaster[1]. When I received it I noticed that in their user manual they were offering a "gift" in return for an Amazon review. Although to be fair they didn't explicitly demand that the review had to be positive. I submitted this 4-star review [2] to Amazon: I received the toaster not too long ago. It looks just like in the advertised pictures and works fine.…

The thing you have to know about Amazon is that they combine all the reviews for all sellers of the same product (to the extent that Amazon thinks it is the same product). As such, reviews aren't an appropriate place to leave feedback about a seller, and leaving your review up would have been misleading. The reviews are only supposed to be about the product. You can leave feedback for sellers by clicking on their nam…

>The thing you have to know about Amazon is that they combine all the reviews for all sellers of the same product (to the extent that Amazon thinks it is the same product).

Yeah and that's fucking terrible. They've gone from a store to a knockoff of eBay.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#197

Post by mikehollinger »

There's a second chapter to this story that the OP didn't get to see! If you leave a bad review on a genuinely-bad experience (for example the 3rd-party Apple stylus that I tried) - you'll find that after a few days you get a drip-drab of offers of giftcards to take the review down, promising that the item's been fixed.

The offers escalated each time, and went up to US$50.00. I still occasionally get an email about it. Each time it's from a different email address, and each time it's a different sad story.

I told Amazon, a helpful CSR offered me an email, I fwd'd it, and they took the item down. Of course it was re-posted a bit later from a "different seller."

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#198

Post by pestaa »

namdnay wrote: post #119
inetknght wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 don’t know about Facebook, but Google is reasonably customer friendly, at least with big accounts. I worked at a large firm, Google assigned a very competent and dedicated account executive to look after us. Unless you’re talking about end-users? In which case that’s like asking if McDonalds look after their cows well :)

On this fine day I did not expect an internet stranger to call me a cow.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#199

Post by ineedasername »

jdmichal wrote: post #150
jrockway wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 some…

In different terms, that is a passage that could be taken directly out of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#200

Post by ardy42 »

Guest19023892 wrote: post #137
ardy42 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not saying Amazon needs to spend $20. You're saying Amazon needs to buy one of every product on Amazon that gets a complaint. Amazon, being one of the largest and most successful companies in the world, can afford to do that and then some. Yeah, it won't be exactly $20, but it will still be a tiny amount for a company that size. I mean, "inspecting the products you sell for compliance" shouldn't be an option…

Even if Amazon orders one of every product, it's easy to beat that system. I make two fake companies selling the same product. Each of them asks buyers to write a fake review 50% of the time. One of the companies should pass the Amazon inspection. Well, then you say Amazon can place more than one order for each product. I just keep tweaking the numbers. I'll have 2% of customers for each of my fake companies get aske…

> Even if Amazon orders one of every product, it's easy to beat that system.

I wasn't talking about proactively ordering one of everything, but ordering something in response to a specific complaint about a specific practice. So, while we're making up numbers, they might actually end up ordering 10 copies of 0.01% of their items. Make the penalties for getting caught onerous enough, and they might deter the practice completely.

Sure, some vendor might then only put a solicitation in 1 in 20 items, but they'll still have a significant chance of getting caught, and it's not like Amazon should be so transparent about the process so a vendor can game it.

But to my original point: it's totally practical for Amazon to take visible action in response to a single complaint, without opening the door up to griefing.

The reason for this is that they don't need to rely 100% on crowdsourced feedback for compliance enforcement (and to think they would shows a really blinkered webtech-centric viewpoint). The complaint -> investigation -> substantiation -> enforcement process is tried and true technology that's even older than UNIX.

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