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Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

bbc.com

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

#181

Post by centimeter »

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"…

Amazon has become exceedingly dishonest over the last few years.

They deleted my negative review of the Kindle with no explanation or recourse.

Since maybe November, a couple of things I've ordered (shipped and sold by Amazon) were listed as new but were very clearly used. One of these items was a piece of safety-critical equipment that was dangerously damaged and could very likely have caused death or dismemberment if someone with less experience had received the item and tried to use it. I assume some clueless Amazon warehouse worker eyeballs returns and tries to figure out if they can plausibly trick the customer into thinking it's a new item, and if so they put it back up for sale as "new".

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

#182

Post by kioleanu »

Amazon has a problem with fake reviews and it seems they are ok with it.

I bought a replacement screen from Amazon and it wasn’t working properly. I thought I did something wrong so I contacted the seller/manufacturer and they told: oh yeah, it‘s defective, we‘ll just give you your money back. I agreed and then the person said „cool, now in order to process your request, please click these buttons on Amazon” and they sent me a screenshot showing how to leave a 5 star review. wtf.

I refused and asked them to process the refund. First they said they can’t process the refund technically without me pressing those buttons and then that their job depends on it.

I requested a refund through Amazon and tried leaving a 1-star review saying that the product was defective and the seller tried to condition me into giving them a 5 star review. This review was not accepted by Amazon, saying that seller feedback should be given on the seller page. This does make sense if you have multiple sellers selling the same product, but it was not the case here. These guys were the only ones producing and selling it and if the score of 5-star reviews is from people being coerced to leave a review, then it should be there, not on the seller page where it’s very easily buried.

In the end I also contacted Amazon support with screenshots and I had to explain the problem 3 times as the customer representative said they didn’t understand what more can they do since I already received my refund. I’m the end, they said “they forwarded the message to the proper department, have a nice day”

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

#183

Post by milofeynman »

wvenable wrote: post #87
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"…

My mother-in-law no longer buys anything of significance from Amazon after being burned with counterfeit materials. I carefully check reviews, use fakespot, etc. There is a point where the eroding of trust will be significant enough to affect the bottom line. Eventually most people know to not trust Amazon reviews, soon it will be.

I would do anything to filter out those weird spelling Chinese brands that always clutter my searches.

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

#184

Post by ThrustVectoring »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #151
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…

Wonder whether they're scamming Amazon's visibility algorithm or if they're inflating "organic" metrics for fundraising or sale-of-business purposes.

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

#185

Post by cycomanic »

mxcrossb wrote: post #162
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…

Amazon is basically my last resort these days. Unfortunately, the ongoing pandemic means there are times where I can’t justifying going out to buy something. But I wonder if they’ll be taking a bigger than expected hit once things clear up.

Maybe there is a big difference between the US and Europe, but here the only things I can't find anywhere but amazon are typically the cheap Chinese knockoff things (e.g. new cushions for my bose headphones), for everything else there always is a cheaper solution by going with one of the smaller online retailer.

That way I don't have to go through the horrendous amazon interface, which I have the impression tries to actively prevent you from finding what you want. Similar to the strategy of large supermarkets that rearrange goods to maximize customer time at the shop.

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

#186

Post by mrighele »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #171
projectileboy wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Over the years, I’ve received two counterfeit books and three counterfeit hardgoods from Amazon. What I've been ALWAYS wondering when people say such things: Did you seriously get them when buying from Amazon itself as vendor or are you conveniently leaving out the fact that you bought from some random company which uses the Amazon marketplace? Because I really cannot believe that something as big as Amazon would b…

> Did you seriously get them when buying from Amazon itself

Does it matter ? I go to amazon.com, I give my money to Amazon, I receive a package from Amazon, so for me (and the average user) the one selling me a counterfeit is Amazon.

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

#187

Post by serial_dev »

osrec wrote: post #48
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 would presume that most people that buy reviews for their own products would ask for them to be 5 stars. I wonder if anyone is deliberately paying for bad reviews of their competitors' products?

I'm sure some do, happens in the restaurants and hotel ratings systems, too (yelp, Google, trip advisor).

It would be interesting to know how often this happens compared to buying the 5 star reviews. My guess would be that the fake negative reviews for competitors are less than 10% of the total fake reviews.

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

#188

Post by internetslave »

kioleanu wrote: post #182

Amazon has a problem with fake reviews and it seems they are ok with it. I bought a replacement screen from Amazon and it wasn’t working properly. I thought I did something wrong so I contacted the seller/manufacturer and they told: oh yeah, it‘s defective, we‘ll just give you your money back. I agreed and then the person said „cool, now in order to process your request, please click these buttons on Amazon” and they…

Amazon has a team of like 50 researchers working on solving this problem.

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

#189

Post by tempestn »

cobookman wrote: post #174
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…

This attitude comes from a place of privilege. You can afford a brand-name coffee maker, many can't. If you look at the median Westerner, most don't have that kind of disposable income to afford those kinds of goods. Amazon offers a cheaper (commodity) price, which drives overall increase in sales. Amazon is going after Walmart, the lower-end market at the cost of loosing parts of the niche higher-end market.

They're going after a lower-end market by turning a blind-eye to counterfeit brand-name goods sold on their platform?

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

#190

Post by 0xB31B1B »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #151
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…

do you remember the company name? would be interesting to try lol
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