Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 429 posts

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

#301

Post by Mauricebranagh »

saargrin wrote: post #294
cookiecaper wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You still have the brand problem with shopify - anyone can spin up a shopify store selling low quality products.

If you can run a shopify site as part of a known brand that helps of course.

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

#302

Post by eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 »

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.

> Does it matter ?

If you can't do the due diligence of even reading the one word that declares from whom you're buying then yes, it matters, it is your fault to be that careless.

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

#303

Post by newswasboring »

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…

> 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.

People who are familiar with phone scam baiting will recognize this as a standard scam tactics. First go for the technical play and then emotional one. They can't scream on text so they don't jump to the angry one.

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

#304

Post by smichel17 »

Catsandkites wrote: post #277
tim333 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>... honesty is expensive and cheating is cheap. Why would we trust it? Most people are well meaning and as long as the site isn't flooded with fakes it can work ok.

Are they really though? I know a lot of some people, who would consider themselves "well meaning" (fair, honest, just, whatever) and they totally do this all the time. When you combine the actually bad people with those people, isn't 30-40% of the population constantly fucking with the system? See also: Democracy. App store reviews. The soundscape. Climate change. Etc.

I think it only becomes a problem when the system gets big enough. If there's 20 different online storefronts, it's a lot more time and effort to game the reviews on all of them, than if there's only Amazon.

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

#305

Post by Mauricebranagh »

julian_t wrote: post #263
renw0rp wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

My local Toyota dealer has contacted me after I've used them for a service to ask that I give 5/5 on the feedback form that I get sent. They say that if they get lower than 5 from a few customers, they get a visit from head office. But 5 is "excellent" while 4 is "good", and being British, I tend to go with "good" when they did just what I asked.

Its very cultural thing and I suspect it depends if the country uses grading to the curve in schools /uni's.

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

#306

Post by throwanem »

ChrisRR wrote: post #249
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…

Same. I thought if you bought directly from Amazon instead of a third party seller, then you'd be safe from counterfeits. But it turns out they just mix all the third party stock in with the first party https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/external/G2001414... So now it's not safe to buy SD cards and USB sticks directly from Amazon either now

Get SD cards from B&H or Adorama. They serve the pro photographer community, who are ferocious about storage quality largely thanks to war stories from 20 years ago when flash memory really was a crapshoot - also why any new camera body released with only one card slot provokes a million old dudes to fuss about that one wedding shoot they lost in 2003 or whatever. But in this case it's to your benefit, since the media you get from those sellers will be what they say it is.

(I get mine from Micro Center. Kinda feel bad about not going to my local camera store, but the guy who owns the place doesn't really seem at home with technology. I don't even know if they carry UHS-II cards, but I get all my used gear there, and with the margin on that stuff it's not like I'm hurting them by getting a $80 SD card elsewhere...)

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

#308

Post by throwanem »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #302
mrighele wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Does it matter ? If you can't do the due diligence of even reading the one word that declares from whom you're buying then yes, it matters, it is your fault to be that careless.

What I hear you saying is that Amazon can't be trusted to police their own marketplace, their brand is worse than worthless in that it is an active signal of distrust, and I might as well go to eBay - actually I might better go to eBay, who have much more experience with this same problem and are much more likely to address it effectively. Duly noted.

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

#309

Post by nomeddie »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #295
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…

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.

The 3rd party market place on Amazon has become Aliexpress with higher markups. Unless I have an immediate need and I can not find the item locally, I just order it from Ali.

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

#310

Post by christophilus »

throwanem wrote: post #271
lordnacho wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'll buy an iPhone off Ebay before I'll go to Amazon for one, at this point - in fact I've done both. The ones I've gotten from Ebay were represented as new in box, and were in fact new in box. The one I got from Amazon was represented as refurbished, and wasn't - it showed up with a badly degraded battery and a chipped display, both of which I had to replace on my own dime. From the way it looked and was packaged wh…

Off topic, but I’ve found Swappa to be the best place to buy used phones. They’ve got great customer service and guarantees.
Post reply on HN