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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

#261

Post by matkoniecz »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #209
retsibsi wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply resulted in everyone adapting to 5 = slightly above average, 4.9 = average, 4.8 = run away screaming. Just out of curiosity from someone who doesn't use Uber, is this an exaggeration or meant pretty much literally? (Not with regard to running away screaming... but is 4.8 genuinely a terrible score?)

IIRC Uber will put drivers on notice if they're rating approaches 4.6

"Uber tells drivers online. “If your rating over the most recent 100 trips is below a 4.6, your profile may be at risk of deactivation.”"

from https://qz.com/1038285/uber-will-make-riders-explain-when-th...

(citation is dead - not sure where Uber keeps this info now and is it even public)

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

#262

Post by gwd »

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…

> My personal experience with Amazon is that it's the shop to go to for stuff that is ok if it is broken. If I buy a cable for £10, and there's a 10% chance it's faulty, it's not a huge problem for me.

I'm rather surprised at that, from someone who claims to be an economic grad. First of all, you must realize that that 10% isn't stable: the "Market for Lemons" effect will guarantee that if nothing is done to stop it, that 10% will become 90%.

Secondly, you're not factoring in either your time or the opportunity cost of having to buy your second cable. If you order your cable and it arrives the next day but broken, you spend at least an hour figuring out that it's broken, and then have to order another one, and then wait at least another day for it to come.

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

#263

Post by julian_t »

renw0rp wrote: post #215
retsibsi wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply resulted in everyone adapting to 5 = slightly above average, 4.9 = average, 4.8 = run away screaming. Just out of curiosity from someone who doesn't use Uber, is this an exaggeration or meant pretty much literally? (Not with regard to running away screaming... but is 4.8 genuinely a terrible score?)

I had a driver once in Poland who told me she was avoiding Asian riders because they didn't give 5* scores, while other customers did, and it was affecting her rating. For some reason in western countries it's assumed no problems == 5*. Would be good if there was a baseline to be able to separate what is "alright, nothing to complain but nothing special either" and "exceptional".

My local Toyota dealer has contacted me after I've used them for a service to ask that I give 5/5 on the feedback form that I get sent. They say that if they get lower than 5 from a few customers, they get a visit from head office. But 5 is "excellent" while 4 is "good", and being British, I tend to go with "good" when they did just what I asked.

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

#264

Post by dazc »

ahepp wrote: post #135
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG wire cutter. Affiliate advertising once removed. EDIT: NextDesk scandal aside, when was the last time you saw WireCutter recommend a product that did NOT offer affiliate commissions (let’s just call a spade a spade: these are kickbacks). I don’t use WC anymore so I can’t answer that myself. I stopped using them when I saw some companies completely ignored in 2 different industries with which I’m familiar. Those c…

Have you found a good alternative to wirecutter? I am sure there are plenty of honest reviews on the internet, tucked into enthusiast sites or on personal blogs. It's hard to find them unless you're a member of their community. Unless they review a lot of products, you have no continued relationship with them. This means you can't evaluate your opinion of their reviews (as to trustworthiness, or even just taste). Sur…

In the UK there is an organisation called Which? They publish a magazine and have a paywalled site with reviews of most household products.

Their reviews are more trustable than from a regular affiliate site but a lot of products score quite well despite being mediocre at best.

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

#265

Post by detaro »

julian_t wrote: post #263
renw0rp wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a driver once in Poland who told me she was avoiding Asian riders because they didn't give 5* scores, while other customers did, and it was affecting her rating. For some reason in western countries it's assumed no problems == 5*. Would be good if there was a baseline to be able to separate what is "alright, nothing to complain but nothing special either" and "exceptional".

My local Toyota dealer has contacted me after I've used them for a service to ask that I give 5/5 on the feedback form that I get sent. They say that if they get lower than 5 from a few customers, they get a visit from head office. But 5 is "excellent" while 4 is "good", and being British, I tend to go with "good" when they did just what I asked.

Yeah. "All went well" should be a totally acceptable base line, with room above and below. (especially since the "above range" can be quite subjective and/or down to luck)

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

#266

Post by dazc »

rexf wrote: post #146
wp381640 wrote: post #24

Reviews are broken. There needs to be a web of trust for reviews. I would weight a review from somebody I know or trust 1000x more than every Amazon or online review ever left. It's not just store reviews that are broken - web search is also completely broken because of affiliate spam I spent far too much time at the moment with each purchase researching and tracking down trusted reviews.

One solution as a consumer is to buy from a place you trust. It would be nice if there was a version of Amazon that didn't have 3rd party sellers and only consisted of reputable (verified supply chain) products. Since Amazon is not providing this, one example of a place to shop is Costco in person. Things sold by Costco are generally reliable enough. On top of that, Costco has a generous return policy so I can buy wh…

In the UK we have John Lewis which is a department store with a decent reputation. OK, they are far from perfect, but their product range is curated to the point that when you search for, say, a toaster, you're not overloaded with 1000's of options and their own customer reviews seem to be quite genuine.

Anything over £100, I tend to default to John Lewis rather than amazon.

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

#267

Post by bsd44 »

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…

I just thought of something. One way customers can battle fake reviews is by always attaching a picture of the product with the review. So when you see 5* reviews for a shower enclosure and you scroll down through the comment section and see pictures of tennis balls you know something isn't right and you likely won't buy the product since the comments appear to be for something else.

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

#268

Post by lordnacho »

gwd wrote: post #262
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…

> My personal experience with Amazon is that it's the shop to go to for stuff that is ok if it is broken. If I buy a cable for £10, and there's a 10% chance it's faulty, it's not a huge problem for me. I'm rather surprised at that, from someone who claims to be an economic grad. First of all, you must realize that that 10% isn't stable: the "Market for Lemons" effect will guarantee that if nothing is done to stop it,…

But a cable is such a simple item to find out if it's broken, it takes 5 seconds, plus I can just buy two and be 99% sure I have one that works.

Akerlöf doesn't seem to apply here, there's no hidden information that comes out later. With a car there's all sorts of dimensions to it that might annoy you.

Perhaps the idea is that all cables will go to crap eventually, but my detection cost is also fairly low on that. Additionally, and this is probably not a great dynamic, I can go to the website of a box-store, which will carry some of the same brands, presumeably vetted more than the junk shop.

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

#269

Post by dazc »

vecinu wrote: post #120
spullara wrote: post #107

Based on how many people are talking about this stuff, I can't imagine how I have survived since 1997 without buying anything counterfeit off Amazon. What are people buying? How are you searching? Do you have any criteria when you buy something?

> I can't imagine how I have survived since 1997 without buying anything counterfeit off Amazon Did you authenticate everything you ever bought from Amazon? I noticed my SanDisk SD Card was fake when I studied the printed logo closely with a real one I had bought before.

Since SanDisk is such a notorious candidate for fakes om amazon, why do they even tolerate it?

Surely, for the sake of brand protection, they should make it clear that you can't buy their products on amazon?

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

#270

Post by gwd »

m463 wrote: post #199
internetslave wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has a team of like 50 researchers working on solving this problem.

Why don't they just put a "this review looks fake" button next to the helpful button? Wire it into a neural net, don't make it a way to snipe competitors products. ok, ok... probably not a realistic solution. I've left a few reviews recently and one good thing I have noticed is they seem to be adding some checks (I think they're intentional). Like you review a product and it says "overall rating 1-5" but below it wil…

Or how about this:

1. Add a way to report solicitations for fake reviews. Ban companies that pay for fake reviews for a year and all their reviews above 3 stars are removed. Customers who report requests for fake reviews are given a small bonus; maybe a $5 credit or something.

2. Amazon themselves pretend to be sellers and solicit fake reviews from customers. If a customer reports the request for a fake review, they're given the same bonus but told that they were part of a sting operation. If the customer gives the fake review, they're banned from Amazon for a year, and all their reviews are removed.

Obviously some details need to be worked out: need to make sure the system can't be abused, need to make sure the fake review solicitation doesn't make real sellers look bad. But if done properly, ti should make the whole fake-review solicitation completely impractical.

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