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Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

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Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#151

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ibraheemdev wrote: post #15

I recently got an email offering 50% off a seller's products if I left a good review. This is happening on all marketplaces, not just Amazon. The only way I see to truly solve the problem is only allowing verified buyers to leave a review.

I received an Instagram ad offering reimbursement to buy a company's product on Amazon.

I signed up with a throwaway e-mail account. They sent a step-by-step guide to go to Amazon, enter a specific search term, scroll until I found their product, purchase it, and then send them the receipt for reimbursement.

They didn't ask me to write a review. They only wanted to generate the appearance of organic search traffic to their product.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#152

Post by d3nj4l »

mrfusion wrote: post #102
HenryKissinger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disruptive solution proposal: Get rid of the review system entirely. Stars, comments, user pictures; eliminate all of it. For everyone. There. Problem solved.

Good idea. Just list percent returns instead.

I don't know about elsewhere, but Amazon India has been slowly phasing out returns for replacements. It used to be fairly easy to get a return on Amazon, but now almost every product I've bought in the past year or so (and that's a lot of stuff in a variety of categories, thanks to the pandemic) has been replacement-only. If someone gets a fake product, I doubt they'll look for a "replacement", so I'm not sure switching to a return% will be good enough either.

This is, of course, in addition to other issues with removing reviews, such as lacking nuance on why something was returned, etc. I've seen some stellar reviews on Amazon that went out of their way to list the minutiae of a product and the experience of using it, and that's helped me out a lot in the past.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#153

Post by PragmaticPulp »

keeran wrote: post #62
ibraheemdev wrote: post #15

I recently got an email offering 50% off a seller's products if I left a good review. This is happening on all marketplaces, not just Amazon. The only way I see to truly solve the problem is only allowing verified buyers to leave a review.

Sellers generate fake orders for their products using real identities, actually send the product to those people, but leave a fake review in their name. I've tried raising the issue repeatedly with Amazon, but I've now given up and look forward to the random crap I get sent almost on a monthly basis.

I don't get it. Why do they have to send real product to the person if they're not relying on the receiver to write the review?

They could ship an empty box if they just needed a tracking number. If the customer isn't coming into the feedback loop, they don't need the product.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#154

Post by rblatz »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #117
harry8 wrote: post #30

Amazon loves fake reviews as long as they are 5 star. The more it looks like people buying stuff using amazon are happy, the better that marketing is for Amazon. Look at all these people who are so happy to be buying stuff on Amazon, so much better than the alternatives. Amazon could clean this up and then watch the average drop. From the removal of the fake fives but also it makes it look more "socially accpetable"…

I'm sure Amazon has some smart people looking at the numbers on this, but as just one anecdata, my family has been buying a ton of stuff from Amazon since they were just books. Now we buy things that are repeat purchases or a couple of trusted brands (e.g. Amazon Basics or Anker). For bigger purchases (like a medium-basic coffee machine) we're either looking at Costco and Target, or researching a lot on Consumer Repo…

I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, some of it I know is a cheap knockoff, but at least I’m paying cheap knockoff prices.

But things I won’t buy on Amazon are SD cards or water filters for my fridge. You end up paying full price for a cheap knockoff. I’m sure there are others, but these two stand out in my mind.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#155

Post by ehnto »

rexf wrote: post #146
wp381640 wrote: post #24

Reviews are broken. There needs to be a web of trust for reviews. I would weight a review from somebody I know or trust 1000x more than every Amazon or online review ever left. It's not just store reviews that are broken - web search is also completely broken because of affiliate spam I spent far too much time at the moment with each purchase researching and tracking down trusted reviews.

One solution as a consumer is to buy from a place you trust. It would be nice if there was a version of Amazon that didn't have 3rd party sellers and only consisted of reputable (verified supply chain) products. Since Amazon is not providing this, one example of a place to shop is Costco in person. Things sold by Costco are generally reliable enough. On top of that, Costco has a generous return policy so I can buy wh…

Part of the reason I continue to shop on boutique eCommerce sites, for lack of a better term, is that a store with a good reputation can essentially verify it's own catalogue. I know if I buy for X or Y store they will have chosen the best product for the job, because their store's reputation is built on their ability to curate good products.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#156

Post by Semaphor »

ibraheemdev wrote: post #96
keeran wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sellers generate fake orders for their products using real identities, actually send the product to those people, but leave a fake review in their name. I've tried raising the issue repeatedly with Amazon, but I've now given up and look forward to the random crap I get sent almost on a monthly basis.

Better idea: Only verified buyers who have been on Amazon for X amount of time (or some other process to gain trust) should be allowed to leave reviews.

I never experienced it myself, but I’ve seen reviews claiming they had a letter in their package that they’d get X currency if they leave a 5-star-review.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#157

Post by kgc »

rexf wrote: post #145
ianmcgowan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Amazon has some smart people looking at the numbers on this, but as just one anecdata, my family has been buying a ton of stuff from Amazon since they were just books. Now we buy things that are repeat purchases or a couple of trusted brands (e.g. Amazon Basics or Anker). For bigger purchases (like a medium-basic coffee machine) we're either looking at Costco and Target, or researching a lot on Consumer Repo…

Definitely, if it's food or health/medical, I'll skip Amazon & buy it from Target or Walmart directly (not a 3rd party seller on their platforms). Other categories like memory cards, kids products, I'll also avoid Amazon (especially since Amazon reviews of those products often claim they received a fake).

The online version of Walmart now sources from a range of suppliers like Amazon does. I was tracking down the supplier of a used laptop and discovered an eBay posting with exactly the same text and photos.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#158

Post by projectileboy »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #117
harry8 wrote: post #30

Amazon loves fake reviews as long as they are 5 star. The more it looks like people buying stuff using amazon are happy, the better that marketing is for Amazon. Look at all these people who are so happy to be buying stuff on Amazon, so much better than the alternatives. Amazon could clean this up and then watch the average drop. From the removal of the fake fives but also it makes it look more "socially accpetable"…

I'm sure Amazon has some smart people looking at the numbers on this, but as just one anecdata, my family has been buying a ton of stuff from Amazon since they were just books. Now we buy things that are repeat purchases or a couple of trusted brands (e.g. Amazon Basics or Anker). For bigger purchases (like a medium-basic coffee machine) we're either looking at Costco and Target, or researching a lot on Consumer Repo…

Also just anecdata, but I’m the same way. I don’t mind buying commodity goods off of Amazon, but if I need to know that I’m truly getting product X of brand Y, I now typically go elsewhere, because I just cannot trust that I’m not going to get a counterfeit product. Over the years, I’ve received two counterfeit books and three counterfeit hardgoods from Amazon. That may not seem overwhelming, but it’s enough to break my confidence.

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#159

Post by daveleebbc »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #153
keeran wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sellers generate fake orders for their products using real identities, actually send the product to those people, but leave a fake review in their name. I've tried raising the issue repeatedly with Amazon, but I've now given up and look forward to the random crap I get sent almost on a monthly basis.

I don't get it. Why do they have to send real product to the person if they're not relying on the receiver to write the review? They could ship an empty box if they just needed a tracking number. If the customer isn't coming into the feedback loop, they don't need the product.

Because Amazon itself is usually handling the storage and shipping -- you can't pay Amazon to store empty boxes in its warehouses. (With perhaps one exception: https://www.amazon.com/Cheap-Moving-Boxes-10-Pack-10MPK/dp/B... )

Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

#160

Post by arkitaip »

3131s wrote: post #144

The US needs public identity services which large platforms like Amazon can be made to integrate with. In this case the idea would be to link accounts on Amazon with these services, so that users can filter only by reviews written by individuals that have gone through the necessary steps to verify their identity more concretely. Government should step in here, not necessarily as the only provider of these services, b…

Sellers can still game this system by bribing buyers with money, gift cards and products. Most fake reviews these days are written by real people with similar demographic profiles like your average buyer.
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