Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#81

Post by 0xffff2 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

xxs wrote: post #63

sdflhasjd wrote: post #48

Bait-and-switch doesn't matter if Amazon doesn't care about fake and paid-for reviews. I was looking for dashcams and came across this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/iiwey-Channels-included-Dashboard-D... 91% 5-star reviews, a lot of the reviews are from "Top XXX reviewer", and almost every one seems to be reading off a script. If you check out all the profiles of these "Top XX" reviewers, they all seem to be non-stop pur…

A simple test for quality - if the clam shell/body is made of ABS (instead of polycarbonate or nylon), it's very likely bad. The dashcam appears ABS, judging from the pics. You can return stuff back when bought online in 14days, I think this part remains after the 1st of Jan.

How can you tell the difference? It seems like you're making a judgement based on just the product pictures, what specific things make it looks like ABS to you? What would a polycarbonate or nylon plastic look like?

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#82

Post by Bedon292 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #68

Pxtl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Amazon's UI is actually pretty hostile to this, too. I was trying to buy simple USB cables... After a pair of tablets were destroyed by a bad USB cable, I'm picky about usb micro cables. So I tried to search on Amazon for usb a to micro cables... And the brand filter didn't list many of the brands I was seeing in the resultset. Like, I know you have Monoprice and Belkin cables, I'm looking right at them…

This comment caught my attention are bad cables really destroying your tablets? I ask because I literally power all my phones and tablets with cords I bought at the dollar store. Never had any problems. Have I just been lucky?

Not sure about Micro, but a few years back a Google employee posted a bunch of info about bad USB C cables. Sadly I think it was on Google+ and gone now, but his reviews are still on Amazon [1]. There were certainly some really bad ones, missing resistors and things, so its quite possible on C at least.

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AFLICGQRF6...

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#83

Post by epistasis » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

> As a result of Amazon's action, the top-ranking drone, which previously had more than 6,000 reviews, now has only about 50 reviews and its star rating has dropped to three and a half stars. But the other two listings I mentioned above—both of which I also mentioned in a Monday email to Amazon—still have thousands of positive reviews, including a bunch of obviously bogus ones.

The result of blatant fraud and manipulation is simply removing the fraud? Why is Amazon continuing business with this shady company as if nothing happened?

I consider their "corrective" action far worse and damming than their inaction on other pages. Inaction could be from an inability to police everything. But merely covering up fraud when it happens is nearly as bad as taking no action.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#84

Post by PaulKeeble » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #12

Perhaps I'm in the minority of frequent amazon users, but I don't buy anything from 3rd party sellers anymore. There is simply too much fraud. In practice, this means that I often need to skip past amazon entirely and go straight to the product manufacturer, sometimes paying more, just to be sure I'm not being screwed.

I have been the victim of multiple instances of fraudulent product, sold directly by Amazon. One was a salt grinder that had a plastic replacement where it should have been metal and was lacking the lettering but was sold on Amazon from the official page. Somewhere in their system Amazon is accepting product that isn't official and happily selling it under than companies brand. If it was a one off I might agree it was a mistake but that has happened three times this year and while Amazon replaces them it is clearly happening commonly now.

Amazon has lost my trust this year, when my prime runs out I wont be renewing.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#85

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

What I like, are the companies that create a separate listing for every variant of a product, within a price range, so searches get overwhelmed.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a Mag-Safe stand for my new iPhone 12 Mini. When I searched for it on Amazon, look at what the search returned[0]. Now, scroll down, until you get to the "Cheetah" pop stand.

Keep scrolling.

But don't touch that dial! It goes on for 400 pages![1]

Note they raise the price slightly, so they "sort."

I ended up giving up, and getting one straight from the manufacturer.

Oh...BTW. Those stands have this little gem in their description:

> (Not compatible with Apple MagSafe wireless charger or MagSafe wallet.)

Great that they overwhelm a search that is, explicitly:

magsafe iPhone stand

[0] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=magsafe+iPhone+stand&i=mobile&s=p...

[1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=magsafe+iPhone+stand&i=mobile&s=p...

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#86

Post by Bedon292 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #17

djohnston wrote: post #12

Perhaps I'm in the minority of frequent amazon users, but I don't buy anything from 3rd party sellers anymore. There is simply too much fraud. In practice, this means that I often need to skip past amazon entirely and go straight to the product manufacturer, sometimes paying more, just to be sure I'm not being screwed.

Even stuff sold directly by Amazon could be co-mingled with counterfeit inventory from 3rd party sellers.

Has this changed? My understanding is that Amazon only comingles 3rd parties and keeps their stuff completely separate. Of course my only source for that appears to be here / reddit so not sure how true it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FulfillmentByAmazon/comments/dmrri4...

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#87

Post by Grimm1 » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #23

TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

If anything, the last few years of politics have convinced me that objective information is more likely to die out, replaced by advertising, brand recognition, and coercive tools.

An older friend of mine made the observation that really before the few large news networks and papers in the last 40-50 years objective information that everyone roughly agreed upon was not the norm. Yellow journalism, hearsay and rumors dominated common conversation.

He observed that with the internet we're returning to what was this "normal" state with anybody being able to post something and gain widespread recognition, the difference of course being the rate at which this non-objective information travels and the better ability to weaponize it.

I think, after looking into it a bit more, I agree with him and that our period of fairly objective news and political information and the general consensus that brought was the anomaly. This raises the question then how do we as society re-learn to cope with that and filter out non objective information because clearly we're not doing so well with it now.

So, I don't think so much as it will die out as much as I think we need to develop abilities to separate wheat from chaff, stronger societal bullshit filters because truth will have a weaker signal.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#88

Post by nikanj » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

TravisLS wrote: post #18

There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

Too bad buying the name brand on Amazon still gets you counterfeits and headaches

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#89

Post by Pxtl » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #68

Pxtl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Amazon's UI is actually pretty hostile to this, too. I was trying to buy simple USB cables... After a pair of tablets were destroyed by a bad USB cable, I'm picky about usb micro cables. So I tried to search on Amazon for usb a to micro cables... And the brand filter didn't list many of the brands I was seeing in the resultset. Like, I know you have Monoprice and Belkin cables, I'm looking right at them…

This comment caught my attention are bad cables really destroying your tablets? I ask because I literally power all my phones and tablets with cords I bought at the dollar store. Never had any problems. Have I just been lucky?

They physically mangled the connector itself, so the tablets could no longer charge. They were 4-year-old Galaxy Tab 7" so not worth repairing.

Basically I had a usb cable where the metal of the connector bent in just the right way that it scraped off the contacts inside the tablets' female port.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#90

Post by ryanianian » Wed, Dec 30, 2020, 4:06 PM UTC

sdflhasjd wrote: post #48

Bait-and-switch doesn't matter if Amazon doesn't care about fake and paid-for reviews. I was looking for dashcams and came across this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/iiwey-Channels-included-Dashboard-D... 91% 5-star reviews, a lot of the reviews are from "Top XXX reviewer", and almost every one seems to be reading off a script. If you check out all the profiles of these "Top XX" reviewers, they all seem to be non-stop pur…

I've been using ReviewMeta to assist identifying the "real" reviews and learning the unadulterated score. I don't know if it handles "bait-and-switch" as mentioned in TFA, but it's steered me away from a lot of products that seemed reasonable based solely on reviews. I especially like that it can recognize false bad reviews which are often left by competitors.