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Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

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Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#151

Post by Rebelgecko »

PaulHoule wrote: post #10

There is a basic problem that if you see an obvious problem with a product listing on AMZN but you didn't buy the product they could care less. Sometimes the listing is obviously a scam, sometimes it is is just something that could be better: somebody is selling a box of assorted TTL ICs for $30 which were ill chosen for any use than testing your logic tester. (e.g. with $30 of quad-NANDs you can build a lot) In the…

I once reported multiple listings of problematic N-95 masks (some weren't N95, and one listing was using a certification that had been revoked). Last time I checked the listings were all still up with the fraudulent descriptions

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#152

Post by notahacker »

Guest19023892 wrote: post #123
ilamont wrote: post #16

I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different. I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller. I documented everything incl…

I've seen this take place with all sorts of things. Restaurants where you get free dessert by leaving an online review. Hotels where you get some type of upgrade. Stores where you leave a review and get a chance to win a gift card.

I even had a guided tour in Vietnam including a cybercafé stop to leave a review! (I didn't mind, the tour was very good)

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#153

Post by _rtsr »

Karunamon wrote: post #2

This is an entirely reasonable stance. A given product could have n(bignum) sellers. A review telling me that a seller is doing shady things tells me nothing about the product. Amazon told him to go review the seller in the appropriate section. What's the problem?

Exactly. It would have only been justified if the manufacturer and seller were the same entity. He should have given a honest review based on the product itself and then it would have been appropriate to point out that some of the reviews might be paid. Or better yet: report the seller to Amazon. But the way he wrote the review makes it sound like he rated the item with 1 star solely based on the malpractice of a seller. Companies like Logitech are usually not involved in shady business like that (they hire professional reviewers through third parties, not entice regular customers with 10 bucks, jk :D).

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#154

Post by notahacker »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #33
ilamont wrote: post #16

I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different. I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller. I documented everything incl…

I also have gotten fake "Amazon Gift Card (if you submit a good review)" promos with items and gagged. I wonder though if you "innocently" took a photo of the contents of the package, showing the phony giftcard, if then the review would remain up, unless Amazon has non-automated systems (aka humans) who would notice it.

Better still, innocently take a photo of the package, leave a five star review with the photo including the gift card pledge saying you really enjoyed the product's innovative approach to marketing and claim your $20 gift card

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#155

Post by smokey_the_bear »

dheera wrote: post #67
Buttons840 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it. EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companie…

Someone I know made easier money by listing Amazon-available products on eBay and selling them there for higher prices. They didn't even need inventory, they just got them with Prime shipping after a purchase on eBay. People are stupid. On eBay before buying stuff I always ask the seller if they can beat the Amazon price - 5% cashback that I get on Amazon, or deduct CA sales tax in their price if the product is avail…

I bought a book on ebay because it was backordered on Amazon. I was pissed when it arrived two months later in an Amazon box.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#156

Post by hbosch »

Hokusai wrote: post #121
hbosch wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They won't pop back up with 12k 5 star reviews immediately? No, they will pay for those and have them soon enough. Even the OP says the product was sitting at >4,000 reviews at time of purchase and now is over 12,000. The reviews are easy to come by, of course. I am not pointing out that the seller here is right by any means. I fully agree that paying for 5-star reviews is reprehensible and unethical, and it's simi…

Amazon shows the reviews, it should be accountable for them. These are not comments from users, this is used to promote sales. > Every "literate consumer" should already know this! So, it is my fault that Amazon promotes false advertising? Should I be punished for not seeing thru the lies that Amazon shows in their website? I don't think so. Don't blame the victim, blame the scammer.

> So, it is my fault that Amazon promotes false advertising? Should I be punished for not seeing thru the lies that Amazon shows in their website? I don't think so. Don't blame the victim, blame the scammer.

Who was the victim here? The OP was a repeat buyer, implying he already had the item and was satisfied enough to buy it again. Hardly sounds like a victim.

Look, I'll rewrite what I wrote earlier but more simply: Paying for good reviews = bad. Posting a good review to get paid for it = bad. There are approximately 12,000 bad people in the scenario this thread is about.

But there are platitudes and there is real advice. The platitude is "scammers are bad". Very good, I agree with that. The advice is to be cautious where you spend your money, and be aware of who you're giving it to. That is the consumer's choice. You can choose to give it to the no-name company you've never heard of who just-so-happens to have more reviews than any other item for the search term "webcam", or, you can choose to buy the Logitech for a little more.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#157

Post by minikites »

devcpp wrote: post #145
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't give a shit. Amazon only wants to sell more stuff, so of course it's going to take down objective negative reviews and whistle-blowing accounts of review payola. This is a regulatory problem. If Amazon was a corner hardware store it would have been fined multiple times and the owner might well have been jailed by now. But thanks to the magic power of Internet leverage and the fact that only giant tradi…

You're thinking like a politician, whose law is a hammer and who sees every issue as a nail. Before regulating, let's see if the free market can't work it out way better by itself. And indeed it can, it's called competition. Amazon itself claims to be "customer centric" because customer trust ensures sales go up in the long term much better than short gain of abusing the customer relationship. Look at this very threa…

>Before regulating, let's see if the free market can't work it out way better by itself.

Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people on the planet and Amazon is gigantic. When exactly is this "free market" solution supposed to start working?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#158

Post by twblalock »

Paid reviews have been a weapon on Amazon for a long time. False accusations of paying for reviews would also be weaponized.

What would stop a dishonest seller from smearing a competitor, by paying people to write reviews on the competitor's product page which falsely accuse the competitor of paying for reviews?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#159

Post by Rebelgecko »

heavyset_go wrote: post #35
gnopgnip wrote: post #19

Product reviews are only for reviewing the product, not the shipping, or the seller's practices. There are other ways to report this to Amazon, and you can report it to the FTC

Each state's Attorney General's office usually has a department of consumer protection that will hear these complaints. I've reported Amazon to my AG more than once.

What sorts of outcomes have you seen from your reports?

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#160

Post by pavon »

skept wrote: post #114

I had a very similar experience last month. I ordered this toaster[1]. When I received it I noticed that in their user manual they were offering a "gift" in return for an Amazon review. Although to be fair they didn't explicitly demand that the review had to be positive. I submitted this 4-star review [2] to Amazon: I received the toaster not too long ago. It looks just like in the advertised pictures and works fine.…

The thing you have to know about Amazon is that they combine all the reviews for all sellers of the same product (to the extent that Amazon thinks it is the same product). As such, reviews aren't an appropriate place to leave feedback about a seller, and leaving your review up would have been misleading. The reviews are only supposed to be about the product.

You can leave feedback for sellers by clicking on their name in the listing.

This has pros and cons. It does allow you to see more reviews about the product you are purchasing, making it easier to find the gem reviews that are most helpful. On the other hand I think Amazon is too aggressive about combining reviews for similar but different products - different translations of the same book, different DVD sets of the same movie, etc. And seller ratings are deliberately not shown on the listing page, so few people click through to check the seller rating before buying on Amazon, let alone provide seller feedback.

I think the bigger problem is that the employees that rightfully deleted these reviews aren't required to instead migrate them to seller feedback, and forward them to folks that enforce seller policies.

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