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FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

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Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#61

Post by Guest10928391 »

potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

Even off Amazon I feel it's becoming more and more difficult to find honest product reviews. For example, if I search on Google for "best umbrellas", every result on my front page is a website that is filled with Amazon affiliate links.

I feel like none of them can be trusted because most have never touched any of the umbrellas, but they are just doing a top 10 list and rewriting opinions they read on Amazon. Of course, they don't even consider products outside of Amazon because they wouldn't receive commission on sales. So, no one is talking about the small companies producing high quality, handmade umbrellas throughout the country, but instead every source funnels traffic to the same made in China Amazon clones.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#62

Post by thatoneuser »

vonmoltke wrote: post #60
duado wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopping on Amazon is like shopping in Chinatown now. The funny thing is, you know Amazon has the data and must be optimizing in the short term. This shit must be working, for some definition of working. Personally, anything that touches my child, or goes in my body, is not allowed to be bought on Amazon.

> The funny thing is, you know Amazon has the data and must be optimizing in the short term. Why? How do we "know" they have the data? How do we "know" that can act on whatever data they have? People here seem to ascribe a level of omniscience to tech giants that I'm not certain they deserve.

Are you seriously proposing Amazon doesn't realize what's going on with their review systems?

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#63

Post by Judgmentality »

spookthesunset wrote: post #58
gumby wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I send back half of what I get off of Amazon If you return too much stuff amazon will cut you off: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/05/23/a...

I'm sure the people who get cut off are serious outliers though. Like so far out there it is obvious that they should be cut off.

The article mentioned one example of someone returning around 1/10 items. Considering how bad their counterfeit problem is now, I'd say that's pretty low when an uninformed customer could probably expect more than that many items to be disingenuous.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#64

Post by thatoneuser »

Worst part is this creates a rift in the market where vendors are not incentivized to produce quality products, but rather to manipulate and game. Who could have possibly thought that A single entity handling so much of the nation's purchasing would end up with terrible oversight in quality?

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#67

Post by ChuckMcM »

Guest10928391 wrote: post #61
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

Even off Amazon I feel it's becoming more and more difficult to find honest product reviews. For example, if I search on Google for "best umbrellas", every result on my front page is a website that is filled with Amazon affiliate links. I feel like none of them can be trusted because most have never touched any of the umbrellas, but they are just doing a top 10 list and rewriting opinions they read on Amazon. Of cour…

Yup, and since you can generate those pages algorithmically it's easy money for a clever coder.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#68

Post by zanmat0 »

potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

A healthy combination of Fakespot and Wirecutter goes a long way to fighting this.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#69

Post by president »

thatoneuser wrote: post #64

Worst part is this creates a rift in the market where vendors are not incentivized to produce quality products, but rather to manipulate and game. Who could have possibly thought that A single entity handling so much of the nation's purchasing would end up with terrible oversight in quality?

That's what "business" is now. People already have everything they could possibly need - food, shelter, and basic necessities. "Business" is now a game of tricking people into wanting things they don't need and trampling over each other for profits.

Re: FTC Brings First Case Challenging Fake Paid Reviews on an Indie Retail Website

#70

Post by new_here »

potatofarmer45 wrote: post #6

There are so many fake reviews on Amazon that the "average" stars for a product are no longer reliable indicators of quality. Especially for cheap electronics (read: headphones), products that have only been listed for a month somehow have hundreds of 5 star glowing reviews. When I do research nowadays I have to deliberately select the 1 star reviews to see if there is a real issue that's glossed over by the paid rev…

Honestly, I don’t know why fake Amazon reviews are not more of an issue. This really is a huge problem that should be getting covered in mainstream media the way Facebook is scrutinised about privacy. Millions of people are being swindled out of real money. Amazon needs to be held accountable to fix this.
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