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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

#411

Post by samlevine »

lordnacho wrote: post #251
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…

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

We shouldn't. And indeed, if you look at a random legitimate review of something it's unlikely to be particularly helpful. More users does not make the data better beyond maybe "was it dead on arrival?".

Platforms should empower users to build rings of trust with users they do trust, while keeping it as private as they're comfortable being. People will build social capital because it's useful, it's fun and for the top 0.01% of users is something that can be a job.

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

#412

Post by CRConrad »

behringer wrote: post #319
Meekro wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I got that offer I would post the 5-star review, claim the $100, and then edit my review to say "They tried to bribe me. 1 star. Photos attached as proof." But you're right, I think that's a legitimate issue. I'm not saying my plan is perfect, but I'm pretty sure it improves on the status quo.

Review deleted. Seller feedback should be posted to the seller page.

The GP proposed revamping the review system entirely. What makes you think their revamped system would include a possibility for the seller to delete reviews?

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

#413

Post by spzb »

meowster wrote: post #397
vidarh wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many of the reviews on Amazon are real because a lot of them are negative reviews warning people not to buy the product, and those are generally the ones I look at. That's harder to game, because while a seller certainly could post a negative review citing some irrelevant flaw (and I have seen that), and hope that triggers buyers who don't care, they won't stop other people (like me) from posting negative rev…

Sellers also leave negative reviews for products from competing sellers.

I've seen 1 star "reviews" on products that directly reference a specific competing product or seller that the "reviewer" recommends instead. You'd think with all of Amazon's computing power they could detect obvious scams like that.

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

#414

Post by notacoward »

milofeynman wrote: post #183
wvenable wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother-in-law no longer buys anything of significance from Amazon after being burned with counterfeit materials. I carefully check reviews, use fakespot, etc. There is a point where the eroding of trust will be significant enough to affect the bottom line. Eventually most people know to not trust Amazon reviews, soon it will be.

I would do anything to filter out those weird spelling Chinese brands that always clutter my searches.

Likewise. If I see that there are ten sellers for what is (often very obviously) the exact same thing, I know it's crap and the reviews are fake. This would be so easy for Amazon to detect and filter themselves, but they don't. As it is, I end up having to click through to the second or third page of results before I even find anything unique enough to be worth running through fakespot/reviewmeta.

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

#417

Post by fredophile »

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.

I've seen other people say the same thing about fraudulent products but amazon hasn't taken the most obvious step, stopping commingling products, there. This makes me believe that they aren't serious about that issue and I don't see why I should believe they're serious about this one either.

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

#418

Post by luckman212 »

Symbiote wrote: post #293
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 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.

Does doing that "walk into shop and pay" thing mean you also have to do that old "talk face to face with another human being" thing? Good lord, what would you have us do next? Go to market to buy some fresh meat & veg and prepare an actual home cooked meal?? /s

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

#419

Post by fredophile »

simoneau wrote: post #389
masto wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s an example from real life just last week. Clorox ToiletWand Refill. Go look on Amazon, I’ll wait here. You’ll find many different sellers, some obviously “third party”, and some that look original but when you delve into the reviews you find stuff like this: https://imgur.com/9vyE8kq I didn’t want to buy a toilet cleaner that would fall apart and make me fish it out of the toilet, so we went and got them from…

I don't understand why counterfeiting isn't just an immediate ban for the vendor. Isn't this a huge liability risk? Or do the get some protection because they're just the "marketplace", like a common carrier?

Amazon comingles inventory. I doubt Amazon knows which vendor supplied the product that was reported as a counterfeit. Even if they did what would stop someone from opening BarCo after Amazon closes FooCo's account?

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

#420

Post by Symbiote »

luckman212 wrote: post #418
Symbiote wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Does doing that "walk into shop and pay" thing mean you also have to do that old "talk face to face with another human being" thing? Good lord, what would you have us do next? Go to market to buy some fresh meat & veg and prepare an actual home cooked meal?? /s

Not at Argos, the original catalogue shop.

They used to have large paper catalogues to browse (or take home), but now I think it's computers.

You can order and pay using a terminal in the shop, from a phone app, or by asking the assistant. You get a paper receipt with a big number (presumably something similar on the app, which I haven't used) and wait at the back.

After 2-3 minutes, your order number appears on a screen at the back of the shop. You show the receipt to collect it.

The image in the article shows most of it. Behind the photographer is usually a display of a few things: toys, bicycles, watches etc.

https://internetretailing.net/mobile-theme/mobile-theme/argo...

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