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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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that Steam shows an average of recent reviews. I think it’s very telling that Amazon does not.

I thought the reason Steam had "recent reviews" was to account for patches/updates and so on?

Not sure why that wouldn't apply to other products. Product design/packaging/formulas change, as does a seller's customer service...

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

#372

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.

Unfortunately, this is not enough anymore. Amazon commingles their legit inventory with 3rd party inventory that drop ships from their warehouses. They don't differentiate between the two inventories, so you can still end up with a counterfeit product; even when "Sold and Shipped by Amazon".

I've actually had better luck with 3rd Party sellers that ship on their own (not from an Amazon Warehouse). If they send you a counterfeit, their store reputation is going to take a hit. Though at this point, eBay might be a better option.

Lately, I've started buying direct from the manufacturer when possible, or shipped from B&M store. Their prices are the same, or better.

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

#373
The problem is that Amazon likely has an incentive to keep fake reviews in that lots of positive fake reviews probably encourage buying. They may or may not be aware that they have this incentive, or they may believe that they don’t- but if fake positive reviews do encourage buying then they will find their way back to inferior content moderation.

Once you start looking you see this problem everywhere. Why is the Apple App Store absolutely crap? Why is the Google App Store even worse? Why is social media filled with astroturfing?

The problem isn’t just convincing fakes, the problem is also that the platforms have an alignment of incentive with the fakes. While removing fake reviews or fake outrage bait is a tractable problem, wanting to remove it is a harder problem- it just doesn’t make sense for platforms absent more competition.

Tl;dr: Fakes/spam can prosper on platforms if they only harm the user and are helpful to the platform.

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

#374

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 left a bad review for a returned Taotronics space heater and I got an email from a random gmail account with the offer of $65 ($50 and $15) worth of Amazon gift cards. I contacted Amazon and reported them. The agent claimed they would do something, but obviously I have no idea if they would.

The space heater in question had a very high rating. Now I know why.

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

#376

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 reported so many of these scams and nothing comes from it. If you really want to go deep into the dark side of amazon search for 2tb usb drives.

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

#377

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…

Ahhhhh, economics is the study of maximizing socially acceptable sociopathy.

"It is economically infeasible for people to be helpful!" - the last human on earth, probably.

You'll do well. Keep the blinders on, read your Ayn Rand, don't think about things too much. Greed is good.

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

#378
As a manufacturer/seller on amazon, I sure wish I could stop doing business on amazon. Amazon charges me for everything, despite obvious customer abuse, simply because it's their customer not mine. Couple that with high margins and bad reviews sampling for those that don't cheat the system and you get beat up constantly on amazon. The thing is, if you have a shopify stores for your d2c you have an AB test on return rates, customer quality, CSAT etc., and while Amazon dramatically impacts your top line sales, it also really effects your bottom line because customers order carelessly (in our case they buy the wrong size product) which triggers an expensive and wasteful amount of reverse logistics. My customers that buy from my site ask us questions that we help with, get better service, and are better customers because there is a seller/customer relationship. On amazon, we cant even get their email address via the seller/customer messaging so we can't help them if they have configuration questions, troubleshooting, etc.

I just wish there was some sort of antiamazon coalition that would help move more e-commerce away and some standard messaging to make this movement known enough. The problem is that the point of sale and the seller credibility are comingled hence why even our shopify customers go to Amazon first. If you aren't on amazon, they wonder if you are a 'real' company. There must be a better way.

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

#379
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But a cable is such a simple item to find out if it's broken, it takes 5 seconds This is so incredible false, cable quality varies greatly: - wires, gauge and material. Copper is expensive and some cheat using aluminum or Al plated copper. Gold plated terminals, tinned copper, etc. - wire material and single/multi strand determines resistance and current rating, along with loses in the cable. - insulation and sleeve…

"find out if it's broken" isn't the same thing as cable properties/quality. If the cable fails to carry a signal, or fails to do so without interference, it should be pretty easy to determine this. Failure to do this would make it "faulty".

Lets say the cable catches fire due to high resistance/poor isolation (used at 40-50C or close to oven exhaust, causing thermal runaway) - is it broken? In that regard you can use a lamp cable to connect an oven - it will totally work for 5seconds, it might burn down later, though.

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

#380

As a manufacturer/seller on amazon, I sure wish I could stop doing business on amazon. Amazon charges me for everything, despite obvious customer abuse, simply because it's their customer not mine. Couple that with high margins and bad reviews sampling for those that don't cheat the system and you get beat up constantly on amazon. The thing is, if you have a shopify stores for your d2c you have an AB test on return r…

Anti-Amazon coalition is called "anti-trust". That's why we can't let corporations grow this big, at least not this big in such a far reaching industry (ecommerce retail marketplace).

They've captured the market, now they can exert the lever as they please.

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