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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

#211

Post by vievie »

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…

Once you write enough popular reviews you will receive email offering a variety of remuneration tactics to whore your dignity - confirming the prior reply. All such email is forwarded through Amazon. They do nothing to stop these solicitations clearly violating seller rules or Amazon Vine.

Amazon takes no actions when this behavior is reported. They really don't care.

"We want your honest reviews"

lies

they want lies

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

#212

Post by scrps »

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.)

Not sure how much this will help for batteries but I've found it helpful for other products, go to the manufacturer's site and try to find a list of authorized distributors. Most of the time you'll find that an authorized distributor also has an amazon store front. Not sure if it still avoids the stock co-mingling problem though if it is stocked through an amazon warehouse.

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

#213

Post by zo1 »

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.

Yeah, this whole "marketplace" thing needs to die. I'm watching the exact same thing taking place in real time with a local shopping website that has started including external sellers and "facilitating" or "fulfilling" the order for them through their marketplace. One of the main things I'm noticing is that this "marketplace", as with Amazon, is being flooded with Chinese, unbranded knockoffs with fake pictures. Each actual product * every conceivable variation/renaming of product * every seller willing to sell it = huge explosion in products. (Okay, exaggerating a bit for effect there, but true to some extent).

The marketplace thing only kinda works if you have "dedicated" or "focused" or "themed" sellers that functioning within clearly defined niches/segments. Instead, you get a seller that randomly sells 15 kitchen towels, 3 garden ceramics, 50 woodwork jigs (really only 5, 50 variations), and 1 food product. Next thing you know, I'm searching through 50 pages of "school supplies".

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

#214

Post by tt433 »

SilkRoadie wrote: post #210
impalallama wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to Amazon reviews you never go by the average you go to scroll down to the actual reviews and read what the one and two star reviews are complaining about and decide if that is acceptable assuming it will happen with your purchase, IMHO.

Sort reviews by new. It’s amazing how many “5 star” items have an average of 2-3 stars when you look at the latest reviews. I was looking for some L plates for my car. A lot of reviews called them “beautiful”... it is a white square with a letter L that sticks to your car... trying to find one which didn’t fall off or damage the car was far from trivial. Fortunately newer reviews mentioned damage or falling off or do…

Sorting by new also usually exposes things like hijacked item or seller pages more easily

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

#215

Post by renw0rp »

retsibsi wrote: post #167
shalmanese wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon loves fake reviews as long as they are 5 star. Do they? It's not immediately clear that an Amazon where the average item has 4.7 stars would sell more stuff than an Amazon where the average is 4.2 stars. Consumers mostly compare items against others on the same site and it's possible that all grade inflation does is make the top performing items harder to separate out and makes buying harder. As a counterpoi…

> It's simply resulted in everyone adapting to 5 = slightly above average, 4.9 = average, 4.8 = run away screaming. Just out of curiosity from someone who doesn't use Uber, is this an exaggeration or meant pretty much literally? (Not with regard to running away screaming... but is 4.8 genuinely a terrible score?)

I had a driver once in Poland who told me she was avoiding Asian riders because they didn't give 5* scores, while other customers did, and it was affecting her rating. For some reason in western countries it's assumed no problems == 5*. Would be good if there was a baseline to be able to separate what is "alright, nothing to complain but nothing special either" and "exceptional".

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

#216

Post by vievie »

robomartin wrote: post #147

RANT_MODE: ON Nothing new. This has been the case for years. The worst of it was that they used to (I think this might no longer be the case) accept reviews from anyone with an account, whether they bought the product or not. We have direct experience on this. My wife used to sell products on Amazon. People were leaving reviews that tagged as "Verified Review" BEFORE the product was delivered. Often times they would…

Yes, they accept reviews from non "Verified Purchasers". This is typically a platform for tiresome SJW soapbox palavering.

> before..delivered

Community Team at one time sanctioned this behavior. Now they don't bother.

> warfare

Were you perhaps paying into the minimum number of seller features? Not FBA?

> ad poison

As an ardent adblocker that's a bridge too far. That's more the province of disincentivizing 419 email scammer fake banks.

> nightmare

The consumer side nightmare is Community Team. Spend some time crafting a high value review then yoink "this review violates our terms" but never mentions which rule or with which language. I empathize with your suffering

"Your review has been removed for violating our rules"

'Which rule?' or 'Which part of my review?'

silence ensues or another link to the rules with no qualification.

Differently abusive are single character "reviews". I _HATE_ Communities Team. Everyone should complain about that first; they have a hand in seller misery. There is no department above them. There are no appeals. There is no recourse.

> that anyone bet their livelihood on Amazon

The safe bet as a side hustle seems to be drop-ship accounts paying neither warehousing nor ad spend.

Amazon Retail Customer Service quality has steadily decreased these prior three years about the same rate as FBA packaging atrocities. Ship a teddybear wrapped in bubbles in a giant box. Ship a laptop in a skin tight box. Send an SSD loose in a soft mailer.

Don't allow Amazon to be your sole selling platform.

On the buyer side ask for retail escalation to "put a note for the Auditors"

wink

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

#218

Post by vievie »

maxpert wrote: post #136

I use fakespot but I’ve noticed merchants now dogging fakespot as well. I am not sure about other folks here, but merchants selling these gift cards to people should be illegal and I am so sure if Amazon announces a reward for such actions people will themselves report it.

> merchants [dodging] fakespot

how?

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

#220

Post by dehrmann »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #61

I'm surprised you can still write reviews for products and services on Amazon you haven't bought from Amazon. How much of this racket on places like Amazon and Yelp would be killed if you had a unique generated ID assigned to you once you purchased a good or service and it was verified as delivered?

It also makes for a good honeypot.
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