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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

#251

Post by lordnacho »

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…

As an economics grad, I always wondered why online reviews existed at all. There's no skin in the game for anyone.

If your neighbor recommends you a crap lawnmower, he'll have to explain to you why he thought it was good. You can ask him questions and compare his motivations to yours. He'll also end up living next to a badly mowed lawn if he doesn't put some work into it.

The seller has every reason to pay people to write good reviews. He doesn't even need real people, it's the internet and you can invent people, complete with their own unique photos and profiles.

Basically, honesty is expensive and cheating is cheap. Why would we trust it?

My personal experience with Amazon is that it's the shop to go to for stuff that is ok if it is broken. If I buy a cable for £10, and there's a 10% chance it's faulty, it's not a huge problem for me. The other use case is where the guarantee comes from the brand. I'm not sure why but I tend to think if I buy an iPhone on Amazon, it will be the genuine thing from Apple, and I have history with Apple apart from Amazon reviews.

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

#252

Post by ChrisRR »

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…

Amazon stock is commingled with marketplace sellers, so even buying directly from Amazon isn't a guarantee that you're not getting fakes nowadays https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/external/G2001414...

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

#253

Post by r1ch »

I recently received a mass CCed email from an Amazon seller to 70 other customers (hello GDPR?) offering free products in exchange for 5 star reviews. There's no proper channel to report this. Tried to leave a review with proof of it and it was denied. I really get the feeling Amazon are ok with it.

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

#254

Post by matkoniecz »

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.

It is clearly insufficient and I do not care why Amazon failed.

Amazon had 21$ billion income ( per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) ).

50 people is nothing for them, and it is basically ignoring problem.

Also, can you provide evidence that they have any people working on the problem?

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

#255

Post by tolien »

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…

Maybe if Amazon made it easier for buyers to filter out marketplace vendors, or didn't automatically co-mingle inventory between themselves and Fulled by Amazon vendors, it would be a lot easier to cut them some slack?

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

#257

Post by matkoniecz »

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?)

"Uber tells drivers online. “If your rating over the most recent 100 trips is below a 4.6, your profile may be at risk of deactivation.”"

from https://qz.com/1038285/uber-will-make-riders-explain-when-th...

(citation is dead - not sure where Uber keeps this info now and is it even public)

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

#258

Post by usrusr »

Seems like looking at Amazon reviews (and not just Amazon!) has become an art form on its own. I actually feel quite confident (likely far more than I should) in my ability to differentiate between product listings that are likely fake review battlegrounds and those that seem mostly legit. Cheaper bulk availability of fakes only makes that easier.

The next meta level would be competitors trying to make each other look bad by sending hordes of fake five stars at each other. Who knows, perhaps this is already happening in some markets?

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

#259

Post by matkoniecz »

baxtr wrote: post #234
internetslave wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I can actually confirm, that amazon invest heavily in this. However, they struggle with growing their team and their resources as fast as their (seller) business grows.

"However, they struggle with growing their team"

it means

"Amazon considers that unimportant and refuses to pay competitive wages"

Amazon had 21$ billion income in 2020, it is not a tiny company struggling for resources. ( per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) )

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

#260

Post by dazc »

DNied wrote: post #58
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.

My solution: only read negative reviews. They're much more telling. As a bonus, they'll often kill impulse purchases, saving me money.

I agree, sometimes the complaint is a niche problem resulting from the buyer's false expectation but, generally speaking, I've avoided buying a lot of products.

Recent example, shredders all have great 5 star reviews but only the odd negative will point out the obvious problem that cheap shredders are made cheaply and will break in a short space of time.

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