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Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

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Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#111

Post by whoopdedo »

dawnerd wrote: post #48
dankwizard wrote: post #46

It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened…

Some company paid be 100 bucks to change my review to be positive so they sent the money via PayPal no problem then I changed the review to say they paid me to write a glowing review and of course Amazon ended up removing the review for being harmful to their customers

The obvious implication being who Amazon considers to be their "customer". Hint, it's not you.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#113

Post by mrweasel »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69
colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

I kinda dropped using Amazon, both on principle, but also because they can't compete anymore.

Amazon isn't exactly cheaper anymore, certainly not when you factor in shipping, their shipping times are awful, typically a week or more and you can't trust the reviews. They do have the larger selection of stuff, so if you can bundle a whole bunch of things it might still make sense. The problem is that you can't really find anything anymore and a large percentage of the stuff that you can only get on Amazon does not ship to your country.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#114

Post by olyjohn »

shawnz wrote: post #82
Mtinie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the rational option if someone is giving you something for less than it costs you and the moral implications of the action is minimal (at best).

Sure, but consider the costs of consuming your space with junk. Now you have less room for things you care about, there's a maintenance burden, and there's a mental burden as well

Yes, but were the vacuums actually good? He left 10 reviews for this company, which may have led other people to buy them, and made this company look better than it is... just so he could stuff his shed full of them? That's kinda fucked up. He even said he felt kinda shady about it, so my guess is that the reviews weren't honest.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#118

Post by aucisson_masque »

UberFly wrote: post #115

My own form of Amazon punishment for allowing fake reviews is to send back their falsely reviewed crap on their own dime. If they want to save $$ they should clean up the review process.

What about things that break after a while, when you can’t anymore send it back ?

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#119

Post by hopelite »

dawnerd wrote: post #48
dankwizard wrote: post #46

It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened…

Some company paid be 100 bucks to change my review to be positive so they sent the money via PayPal no problem then I changed the review to say they paid me to write a glowing review and of course Amazon ended up removing the review for being harmful to their customers

That must explain why I’ve seen bad reviews that have 5 stars. I guess the review itself really does not matter as much as long as the stupid starts are there.

It also reminds me of one of the biggest apartment complex management companies, Graystar using a similar method by bribing applicants with $500 off the security deposit for a 5 star review on Google maps.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#120

Post by veunes »

dankwizard wrote: post #46

It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened…

It's one thing to detect fake language patterns; it's another when the review is technically real but incentivized into dishonesty
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