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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

#221

Post by ljf »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #163
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazon is great for returns. Buy $50 something from aliexpress, doesn't work, you can't do anything. Seller wont refund directly, you need to send the item back... to china... and fill out export forms and pay more than $50 for registered mail. Amazon? Doesn't work? Doesn't matter why, here's the return label, we'll refund you the moment we get the return.

I've never had to return to AliExpress - if I've had an issue they (AliExpress) have just instantly refunded me without having to go through the seller(admittedly this is maybe 2 items in nearly 10 years).

Similar with Temu - my wife ordered some homeware that was awful and looked nothing like the pictures - Temu provided a pre-paid returns label for some of it, and the rest just refunded and said 'please donate locally'.

I forget the clothing company (wasn't Shein but similar) again same - she kept some, but most of it needed retuning - within minutes she had a refund and 'please keep or donate the unwanted clothing' - simpler than many UK companies returns policies.

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

#222

Post by throwaway173738 »

mrweasel wrote: post #113
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

Yeah my partner and I quit using them because we’d buy like 5-10 things and return them all because of issues like not matching the product listing or being garbage quality. The last straw was when they clawed back a return refund 4 times on the same return. Each time she would have to call them to get it reinstated.

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

#223

Post by immibis »

AlienRobot wrote: post #206
timcobb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've got 12 vacuums that can clean my conscience. Why would you want 12 vacuums? What are you going to do with them? Isn't that a senseless amount of redundant objects to horde? Don't you want room for other things in your shed?

>Don't you want room for other things in your shed? To be fair, it's vacuum so it doesn't occupy space.

But space is entirely occupied by vacuum.

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

#224

Post by immibis »

is_true wrote: post #185
gadders wrote: post #152

I saw an instagram ad the other day offering to buy established Reddit accounts, presumably so that can post fake reviews. I also got offered some money over telegram to review a hotel from a large chain and leave a positive review.

Governments should block Instagram and Facebook until they start doing something about ads about ilegal offerings. I've seen ads selling fake clothes, real clothes but with a fake store, money exchange scams, and a few others.

Governments should block Instagram and Facebook. Period. No takesie backsides. And Google, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Hacker News, ....

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

#227

Post by mcpar-land »

quantas wrote: post #128
TylerE wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla seems to be infected by upper management that feels a need to justify ever spiraling salaries.

Couldn't agree more. After the founder of the company itself Brendan Eich was fired it only went downhill

Brendan Eich was fired for opposing gay marriage, then went on to create Brave, which is yet another Chromium wrapper just with bad crypto monetization and other scummy practices.

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

#228

Post by micromacrofoot »

AI has made it completely impossible to detect fake reviews now, so it would have died naturally. Amazon (and other retailers) has the access to heuristics on their end that could help with fake review detection that fakespot doesn't, but it's likely a very low priority for them (if it is one at all)

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

#229

Post by crazygringo »

cogman10 wrote: post #218
crazygringo wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use the word "counterfeit" or suggest that. But you can absolutely give 1 star and explain you only got milliamps. I have a bunch of 1 star reviews. I've never had anything taken down except when I used the word "counterfeit". Also, I get it -- how do you know if it's actually counterfeit, or genuine but low-quality? There are a bunch of things I've bought that I suspected were counterfeit, then went to my…

Silk is particularly bad. Order anything "silk" from amazon and you are almost certainly getting satin. Put up a review "hey, this is satin, not silk" and amazon will take it down. Amazon should be busted for false advertising. Millions of products filled with lies and amazon does absolutely nothing to curate (other than removing comments warning others that a product is fake).

> Put up a review "hey, this is satin, not silk" and amazon will take it down.

Do they? I have seen tons of reviews complaining that it's the wrong material -- that a tablecloth is polyester rather than advertised cotton, that something is chrome-plated plastic rather than stainless steel. And I've left my fair share myself, and never had one taken down. I've avoided buying many products precisely based on other people's reviews pointing out the wrong material, the wrong size, etc. So what you're describing does not match my experience at all. In fact, that's one of the main reasons I use Amazon, that there are enough reviews to find out what's real and what's fake. Other sites don't have enough reviews, and of course a site run by the brand itself can delete whatever bad reviews it wants.

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

#230

Post by Moto7451 »

like_any_other wrote: post #159
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…

So Amazon is complicit in fraud.

Amazon does have the Vine program so if companies want to have a legitimate free product review program they can opt in. I’m in Vine and we’re supposed to leave a review based on using the product, take photos, etc. If anything goes wrong we are not supposed to send the product back, return it, etc. The sellers can’t contact us and if we do we’re supposed to report it. The automated “did you get the product” are fine but it’s not ok for them to bribe us.
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