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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

#191

Post by tempestn »

wyre wrote: post #141
csa wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is half of an idea... people still want/need guidance on purchases. High quality, curated, independent reviews is probably something that most people would enjoy and appreciate. That said, the current system is fairly worthless, and what little worth it has is based on hacking it by looking at a specific subset of reviews.

> people still want/need guidance on purchases It’s funny because Amazon normalized folks needing reviews on things before buying it.

In a way, before Amazon you effectively did have 'quality, curated reviews' - in the form of what products brick and mortar stores chose to stock. Most decent stores aren't going to stock complete garbage, so if you found an item with the attributes you're looking for, it would probably work.

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

#192

Post by enumjorge »

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.

I don't understand how having a problem with counterfeit goods and fake reviews comes from a place of privilege.

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

#193

Post by yalogin »

Amazon actually has no incentive to solve the fake review problem is that it achieved bulk volume. If it were the n the formation stage they would have solved it but now when everyone is conditioned to go to Amazon it’s easier to just refund the money and push the expense onto the seller. That way they get the reviews, have people reasonable happy as they get their money back, and not incur any revenue loss in the process. Sure they cause annoyance to a few but they can live with it as long as their moat is big enough.

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

#194

Post by melomal »

It almost feels that sometimes I should/could write a book about all of the shady growth hack's in action (inclusive of what I have and am currently doing) because some of these stories seem old in the grand scheme of things.

Amazon reviews/Trustpilot/Google Reviews/Facebook Reviews etc are cheap as chips and ultimately they work.

I now remind myself that in order to take on board someone's review, I need to know the person otherwise we could be chalk and cheese in likes and dislikes and they are influencing my decision.

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

#195

Post by andrei_says_ »

internetslave wrote: post #188
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.

But whose salaries depend on Amazon selling more stuff.

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

#196

Post by subhro »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #122
spullara wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are so many people buying counterfeit stuff on Amazon? What are they buying? Why would someone copy it? Are they just looking at price?

Certain things it's impossible to avoid - I'm trying to buy 18650 batteries for a flashlight and it's overwhelming trying to find legit sellers. There are some classes of products where it's really hard to tell what's real (reviews not matching product description, obviously fake 5-star and 1-star reviews etc.)

Have you tried 18650batterystore.com? I had very nice experience with them.

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

#197

Post by rytis »

mrighele wrote: post #186
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I see it and treat more like a platform now, a marketplace. Like ebay. It just so happens that one of the biggest sellers there is Amazon itself. My usual process of buying - search for the product I need (generic term for simple items, or exact model), click on "prime only", this filters out a lot of shipments from China. Then either filter out, or carefully look at the seller of each product. Takes some time and getting used to, especially that UI isn't favouring this workflow.

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

#198

Post by spoonjim »

internetslave wrote: post #188
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.

But if their solution results in Amazon making less money, it will never ship.

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

#199

Post by m463 »

internetslave wrote: post #188
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.

Why don't they just put a "this review looks fake" button next to the helpful button?

Wire it into a neural net, don't make it a way to snipe competitors products.

ok, ok... probably not a realistic solution.

I've left a few reviews recently and one good thing I have noticed is they seem to be adding some checks (I think they're intentional).

Like you review a product and it says "overall rating 1-5" but below it will have subcategories like maybe "true to size 1-5" "value 1-5" or similar (can't recall the real ones).

Every once in a while they throw in a curveball like "warmth 1-5" which would make sense for a sweater but is nonsense for something like a plate or ssd. I just press [X] and figure it's a check for a fake reviewer. (either that or a fake reviewer added a nonsense category)

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

#200

Post by xxs »

Meekro wrote: post #104

I'm just spitballing, but what do you guys think about this as a fake-resistant review system? To list your product on Amazon as a seller, you pay $500 per year as a "review incentivization fee." The algorithm randomly selects buyers and emails them 1 month after their purchase. They are offered $10 to write a review. The chance of being randomly selected as a reviewer auto-adjusts to target a goal of 50 reviews per…

>1 month after their purchase.

Way too short time for almost anything that's not a direct consumable.

>They are offered $10 to write a review.

That's too low (or too low depending on the product), negative experience is a lot more likely to be vented.

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