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

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

#101

Post by mattmcknight »

orev wrote: post #92
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…

Given the counterfeit problem on Amazon, I have been using the retailer as a proxy instead. I feel much more comfortable buying things from a known retailer like Target or Walmart, since I can rely on them to at least do some kind of due diligence on the products they carry. I think this will be the way forward for these companies to stay in business as Amazon becomes overrun with junk.

Even though Walmart also has a marketplace full of mystery sellers, at least they still offer a simple filter at the outset to limit your results to only things they sell directly. At Amazon, you have to have already put another filter on your search results to see that option.

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

#103

Post by 14 »

Bedon292 wrote: post #82
14 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Well I guess I will consider myself lucky. I learned my lesson with an amazon power cord for my Lenovo laptop. It charges fine but the casing around the electronics melted due to it getting so hot. It is my kids laptop and could have literally started a fire on him. I bought a new one from Staples and now won’t buy any electronics like that from amazon.

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

#104

Post by capitainenemo »

searchableguy wrote: post #77
bombcar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly enough if you trace the history of brand names ... this is why they started! And this is the strength that the major retailers have against Amazon - if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead.

> if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead. I think they are solving this differently. Amazon introduced their own brands for almost all daily necessities. Amazon basic, amazon pharmacy, amazon fashion, amazon elements, amazon pantry, amazon echo and few more. They generally have average or above average products at an affordable…

The last time I bought a "new" phone "Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC" it arrived several weeks late, with a burned in screen, scuff marks, and randomly rebooting.

My impression is they did not have the item they were selling, and were relying on some presumably "trusted" reseller to provide it.

I ended up purchasing a used one in much better condition on eBay for several hundred dollars less where the condition at least matched the sale entry.

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

#105

Post by ilamont »

Other bait-and-switch problems on Amazon are manufacturers and "brands" launching a product with high production standards, then switching them out with cheap, low-grade junk made with inferior components or materials later on. This is often coupled with rampant paid review scams, as discussed on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25459434)

A twist on bait and switch is another manufacturer or reseller taking over the "buy box". This is how pirated items or used items sold as new get dumped on customers, with Amazon's full encouragement (lower prices for customers!) and non-enforcement/honor system for sellers. Legitimate manufacturers and brands can scream to the high heavens that they and customers are being ripped off, but Amazon does next to nothing to stop the bad guys let alone compensate customers and brands who were cheated.

Case in point: Bill Pollock's experience having his Python books repeatedly pirated (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19199135)

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

#106

Post by maya24 »

Zelphyr wrote: post #80

The only way this changes is when more people stop buying from Amazon. The incentives otherwise are too great for Amazon to do anything about it.

Yep. I found Amazon pretty useless these days and rarely use it. I buy household essentials from Target their service and delivery is good and I have an option of in-store pickup within a day or delivery within a couple of days. At least they have a stable set of brands that they sell it's not the highest quality but it's good enough for most things. The things I care about quality I will buy directly from the seller.

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

#107

Post by username90 »

rendall wrote: post #75
dopylitty wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brands aren't perfect either. For example Volvo had a reputation for making great safe cars. The brand is now owned by a company with a reputation for making cars that disintegrate and obliterate the occupants in crash tests. The same is true of Arc'teryx, Jaguar, and many other well known brands that have been sold off to companies with terrible reputations for quality. Ultimately the only way to guarantee quality w…

> Ultimately the only way to guarantee quality would be to vote for politicians who support strong regulations and a strong regulatory apparatus. Speaking as a socialist-leaning libertarian, I'mma have to take a hard disagree on this. Let the companies have a mix of terrible quality and great quality as they wish, and let the market itself decide which products and companies succeed or fail Let a private company, say…

There is a reason you aren't afraid of getting poisoned when you eat at restaurants, and it isn't because every restaurant owner cares about poisoning you but because the government have made the common practices which led to food poisoning illegal.

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

#108

Post by capitainenemo »

javert wrote: post #69
bombcar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly enough if you trace the history of brand names ... this is why they started! And this is the strength that the major retailers have against Amazon - if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead.

I go to Walmart or the grocery store if I need stuff from Amazon that may be counterfeit. Batteries, for example. Amazon is throwing away money.

Completely agree. Unless I'm familiar with the seller on Amazon (a known brand like Anker) I try to stick to Walmart, Target, Staples. Bonus, often times the identical item can be found at a lower price. Downside is the shipping may take a few days more.

For something like an SD card or a battery your chance of getting a counterfeit or unreliable product is pretty high. I prefer not to think too much about how that maps to food. There was an article (I think here on HN) a few years ago where a bookseller who was forced to buy Amazon ads for his own book just so the counterfeits wouldn't outrank him on Amazon.

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

#109

Post by arafa »

ryanianian wrote: post #90
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.

I also use ReviewMeta and it does handle review hijacking. It's not a great experience as a customer, but if I combine ReviewMeta and Amazon reviews and search I still get pretty good products. My basic guidelines are that it needs at least 4 stars (preferably closer to 4.2-4.7) and the product can't be a "fail" on ReviewMeta. I also am wary if ReviewMeta is a "warn".

I don't trust Amazon reviews without a review checker anymore, they used to be much better. The highest reviewed products are often some of the worst. Any product with a 4.8 or better is immediately suspect (though some are fine, especially if they don't have as many reviews).

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

#110

Post by _jal »

searchableguy wrote: post #77
bombcar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly enough if you trace the history of brand names ... this is why they started! And this is the strength that the major retailers have against Amazon - if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead.

> if Amazon won't police (and they have problems with commingling counterfeit brands, too) then Walmart and Target will jump ahead. I think they are solving this differently. Amazon introduced their own brands for almost all daily necessities. Amazon basic, amazon pharmacy, amazon fashion, amazon elements, amazon pantry, amazon echo and few more. They generally have average or above average products at an affordable…

Yeah, tried that. Amazon Basics are as hit-or-miss as the rest of the garbage.

I'm frankly surprised they want to put their name on what appears to be dollar store crap that might be fine, might not, who knows. You can almost see the flickering neon and smell the cleaning fluid.

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