It's quite amazing what Amazon can get away with. They really own the marketplace. We need new laws, fast.
Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
291–300 of 429 posts
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC Uber will put drivers on notice if they're rating approaches 4.6
Jesus Christ. What's even the point of a 5-star system then? It should be a very simple two option system. Was the ride safe? Did you get where you were going? Then hit the thumbs up button. Otherwise hit the thumbs down button. Or even better, no rating system at all and just provide the option to file reports in bad cases, with that report information being made public in some sense. This idea that rideshare driver…
> This idea that rideshare drivers need to be offering entertainment while they drive in order to ensure 5 stars is offensive.
I find that especially annoying because I don't want to be entertained. I want to get from point A to point B while minding my own business (looking through the window if I'm in a new city or reading something on my phone if not). I don't want to hear about the driver's cryptocurrency adventures, and I don't want them to apologise to me if some other driver cuts them off or something.
Of course I'm gonna give them five stars regardless because I know how ride shares work.
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#293Amazon 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…
> I tend to think if I buy an iPhone on Amazon, it will be the genuine thing from Apple
Maybe, but in the UK I'd choose ten other suppliers before giving a penny of profit to a company like Amazon.
Tesco, Argos, the Apple store, Currys, any phone network, Carphone Warehouse, John Lewis...
Several of these have next-day delivery, same-day collection, or even the old fashioned walk-into-shop-and-pay thing.
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.)
This is where independent resellers via Shopify, their own cart system, etc. have a chance. There's no way to be sure you're getting a real battery from Amazon so I always buy this type of thing from a community-trusted independent vendor that has a real account with authorized suppliers. It might cost more in shipping and delivery time, but it's strongly preferable to having my desk catch fire due to missing or defe…
Shopify is a clusterfu*k of scripted random generated pop-up stores that have no intention of delivering what they promise, most shopify stores are worse than wish.com in my experience
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#295Amazon 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…
I've stopped purchasing items sold by 3rd party sellers on Amazon and it becomes a much better site.
Unfortunately it seems you can no longer filter search results by "Sold and Shipped by Amazon", you have to filter by "Available from Amazon Prime/free shipping" and then filter manually which is a pain.
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#296Amazon 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…
I've stopped purchasing items sold by 3rd party sellers on Amazon and it becomes a much better site. Unfortunately it seems you can no longer filter search results by "Sold and Shipped by Amazon", you have to filter by "Available from Amazon Prime/free shipping" and then filter manually which is a pain.
Yeah I wish they'd just let me perma-select prime. Not even risking getting burned.
I didn't know they used to have that filter though. That would be super useful to make a comeback
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
But a cable is such a simple item to find out if it's broken, it takes 5 seconds, plus I can just buy two and be 99% sure I have one that works. Akerlöf doesn't seem to apply here, there's no hidden information that comes out later. With a car there's all sorts of dimensions to it that might annoy you. Perhaps the idea is that all cables will go to crap eventually, but my detection cost is also fairly low on that. Ad…
> Akerlöf doesn't seem to apply here, there's no hidden information that comes out later. The hidden information is how much quality control has gone into the manufacturing process. Seller A and seller B are both selling a cable for $10. Seller A bought thier cables for $8 because they spent a lot of time honing their manufacturing process and weeding out bad cables; the chance of getting a bad cable from them is 0.1…
Seller B got their hands on the rejected cables from seller A. They were in fact paid to scrap them and instead are selling them after putting a sticker over a label.
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wil…
Or how about this: 1. Add a way to report solicitations for fake reviews. Ban companies that pay for fake reviews for a year and all their reviews above 3 stars are removed. Customers who report requests for fake reviews are given a small bonus; maybe a $5 credit or something. 2. Amazon themselves pretend to be sellers and solicit fake reviews from customers. If a customer reports the request for a fake review, they'…
The one with the customers won't work because creating a new account is trivial.
Actually, I think so is creating a new company to sell stuff on Amazon. Mind you, if your company is kicked off Marketplace, it has to rebuild its reputation and inventory and stuff.
But yeah, they should definitely mark companies that pay for reviews as dodgy. I don't think they would ban them - because ANYONE selling stuff on Amazon is earning them money - but they could do more.
I don't think the problem hurts Amazon enough though. It's not like people stop using Amazon because of bad reviews. And I'm sure Amazon is undercutting the market so that any competitor with good reviews is unable to compete.
Price beats everything, when it comes down to it.
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#299Amazon 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…
There are other motivations than self-interest. People may altruistically care about other consumers' welfare. They may be reciprocal, taking revenge for a bad product by writing a bad review, and rewarding a good one. Or they may just like to express their opinions!
Re: Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if their solution results in Amazon making less money, it will never ship.
That's not how Amazon works, they take a lot of 'short term losses in exchange for trust' decisions, like warning you if a product has increased in price since you added it to the wish list, possibly triggering additional research of competitors that might have it cheaper.
> they take a lot of 'short term losses in exchange for trust' decisions
I'm sorry, but I don't believe your statement. They're not doing enough about fake reviews, and definitely aren't doing enough about poor quality products, fake products, and poor products squatting over good / brand products. Their marketplace is not curated enough, and buying a product is a gamble.
There are a few posts about that; one I remember is that someone bought a book off Amazon, but got a fake / copy / low quality reproduction instead.