More Than Half the Reviews For Certain Popular Products on Amazon Are Questionable, Outside Auditors Say. Amazon Disputes Those Estimates. (npr.org) 128
NPR has an interesting story, full of anecdotes, that looks into several growing marketplaces where reviews for Amazon products are bought and paid for. From the story: "Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic," says Sharon Chiarella, vice president of community shopping at Amazon. She adds that "sometimes individual products have more suspicious activity." [...] Chiarella says the lawsuits give the company the opportunity to subpoena bad actors to get data from them. "That allows us to identify more bad actors and spider out from there and train our algorithms," she says. But this has led to a sort of digital cat-and-mouse game. As Amazon and its algorithms get better at hunting them down, paid reviewers employ their own evasive maneuvers. Travis, the teenage paid reviewer, explained his process.
He's a member of several online channels where Amazon sellers congregate, hawking Ethernet cables, flashlights, protein powder, fanny packs -- any number of small items for which they want favorable reviews. If something catches Travis' attention, he approaches the seller and they negotiate terms. Once he buys the product and leaves a five-star review, the seller will refund his purchase, often adding a few dollars "commission" for his trouble. He says he earns around $200 a month this way. The sellers provide detailed instructions, to avoid being detected by Amazon's algorithms, Travis says. For example, he says, "Order here at the Amazon link. Don't clip any coupons or promo codes. [Wait 4 to 5 days] after receiving [the item]." This last instruction is especially important, Travis adds. "If you review too soon after receiving it'll look pretty suspicious."
He's a member of several online channels where Amazon sellers congregate, hawking Ethernet cables, flashlights, protein powder, fanny packs -- any number of small items for which they want favorable reviews. If something catches Travis' attention, he approaches the seller and they negotiate terms. Once he buys the product and leaves a five-star review, the seller will refund his purchase, often adding a few dollars "commission" for his trouble. He says he earns around $200 a month this way. The sellers provide detailed instructions, to avoid being detected by Amazon's algorithms, Travis says. For example, he says, "Order here at the Amazon link. Don't clip any coupons or promo codes. [Wait 4 to 5 days] after receiving [the item]." This last instruction is especially important, Travis adds. "If you review too soon after receiving it'll look pretty suspicious."
Fanny packs? (Score:1)
Please tell me those aren't coming back in style.
Re:Fanny packs? (Score:4, Funny)
Please tell me those aren't coming back in style.
Just like pocket protectors, they've never gone out of style.
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Please tell me those aren't coming back in style.
They aren't - but that gum you like is going to.
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You mean Red Rocky's Juice Strips? Wow!
Only 1/2 is questionable? (Score:4)
Amazon has some serious cross-linking and fake review issues. I was searching for some batteries recently at least half of the bad reviews were for another battery from a different manufacturer but it's marked "verified purchase".
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It's easy to be a verified purchase if you're already set up as a seller. Just quickly list something under that competing ASIN as a seller, have a shill account buy it from yourself, and now you're a "verified" reviewer. And since you are buying from yourself, you don't even have to ship the real thing.
Correct..what to do (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:2)
"Product exactly as listed in perfect condition, actually exceeded expectations."
What should that be? 5 stars does not mean this is the best product known to mankind. It means it is a good product that meets the description and specs of that product.
I do agree a 3 star or less review is a lot more informative because you can find out more about what /why/how things go wrong, but a lot of 5 star reviews are very helpful in showing what is good/great about the product.
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I get what you are saying but you are saying it the wrong way. "No product is five star perfect" was your contention and I think that's silly considering it is extremely subjective and not really what people have in mind for the rating system. That's why the actual reviews of the product have a lot more meaning because any rating system like that is based on the subjective nature of peoples view of what a product the "love" is and what a product the "hate" is. These rating systems are met to be taken in
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The middle of any rating system is supposed to be a 'normal' rating, unfortunately the way it is most rating systems would do better with just thumbs up or down, since that is what it inevitably devolves into.
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I find that often the best product is the one with the largest number of 3 and 4 star reviews.
Personally, I care a lot more what the person who gave a 3 star review said than a person who gave it 1 or 5.
The totals don't have meaning or value. Reviews from people with relevant use cases, who compare the product to alternatives, are what are useful. Often what sells me on a product is the 3 star review from a person who actually wants to be at a different price point than the product, or needs some specific f
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It's almost like someone using only 1's and 0's.
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AFFILIATE LINK SPAM!
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A lot of 5 star reviews are pure fluff. They say nothing of value. I've also seen 5 star reviews where they go into detail about the good stuff and the bad stuff, enough bad stuff that it shouldn't have earned 5 stars. People are not logical animals, trying to make sense of reviews from mere people isn't very helpful so you may as well have llamas review things.
Of more value to me are the questions and answers, such as how hard this is to install, does it work with my house, how expensive are the refills
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No product is five star perfect.
Agreed, but plenty of people who are not fake reviewers think stuff is perfect. Have you never heard anyone saying how perfect their car, camera or the latest version of Windows is? Either they really believe it (because they know no better) or they just don't like to admit they bought a lemon
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Re: Correct..what to do (Score:1)
5 stars doesn't necessarily mean perfect. Price plays a large role. A $100 phone that performs like a $200 one could easily be 5 stars. But a $1000 phone had better be absolutely flawless to get 5 stars.
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This is accurate. There are way too many five star reviews. If you want to look at real reviews, look at the 3 star ones that have comments. They are usually balanced reviews. No product is five star perfect. Even a 4 star review is suspect. What amazon should have is a scale from 1 to 10. The spammers will always choose 9 or 10.
The thing is, even 3 star aren't secure.
I remember one time where I've read a very popular 3 star review where all the complains were about very specific and uncommon needs. I think it was about a baby rocker where prerecorded music player didn't help the baby fall asleep so they used their cellphone with youtube instead. Well duh! It was a "nice to have" bonus that no other rocker of that range of price had!
Furthermore, if it become common knowledge that people look at 3 star, 'professional' reviewer will
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It isn't enough to know that 3 star reviews are popular.
3 star reviews are popular with people who value information about the product more highly. What you'll actually find is that tricking these customers into buying your product will spike your 1 star reviews.
You'll also find that the sales to average people, who prefer higher ratings, will drop.
Also if you look into it closely enough, you'll find out that it is often the 3-star reviews on competing products that will drive the sales of the other product
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This is accurate. There are way too many five star reviews. If you want to look at real reviews, look at the 3 star ones that have comments. They are usually balanced reviews. No product is five star perfect. Even a 4 star review is suspect. What amazon should have is a scale from 1 to 10. The spammers will always choose 9 or 10.
The distribution of scores should be roughly normal, but the mean and variance depend on the reviewer. Some reviewers tend to score high and some low, but within a short time window, each reviewer tends to exhibit the same mean and variance. The range of different means is due to the difference in semantic meanings of scores for each reviewer because Amazon didn't explicitly guide reviewers on the semantic meaning of each score value.
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Sure there are. If a product does what you expected it to and is built to last (assuming it's not a disposable product), then of course it gets a 5 star review. If only one of those statements is true, then we are at the 3 or lower range depending on quality
That kind of thinking is the same as never giving an employee a 5 star rating. I remember several annual reviews for my team going like this : Me "They did their job consistently and well. " My old manager "that is what is expected and should be cons
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If a 5-star product is one that does what's expected, how do you rate a product that exceeds expectations? How about a product that's so well engineered you're surprised anew every time you use it?
If you clamp ratings such that no product is better than "nominal", ratings lose some of their utility.
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If that's what you believe, all you're doing, practically speaking, is limiting yourself to a 3-star scale. If 4 and 5 are noise and 3 is the best you can be...well, NO product can be so perfect as to get 3 stars! There should be only 1 star reviews, since 2 or 3 would be much too high.
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People who include the price in their review often don't realize that they were gamed into giving a free fake review, and that the price their review is displayed under is much, much higher.
Don't review the price, other customers can already sort the listings by price.
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Uhhh care to explain how I got anything FREE or are you just fucking high?
If those are the choices, why would I think you have any words of interest to others? You already know what you said, so why say it?
You don't seem to comprehend opinions, so why would I expect to find value in knowing yours?
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If you give a better review because of sales or discounts, please write the price in the review so future shoppers have proper context. If the price doubles at some later point, they'll know your review isn't entirely applicable anymore.
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Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1098/ [xkcd.com]
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Re: Correct..what to do (Score:1)
Simple products can be perfect. Ethernet cables for instance. I have some I bought years ago. They're sturdy, always just work and give full gigabit speeds, and are attractively colored. I haven't tried using them as truck ties, but I haven't babied them either.
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Simple products can be perfect. Ethernet cables for instance. I have some I bought years ago. They're sturdy, always just work and give full gigabit speeds, and are attractively colored. I haven't tried using them as truck ties, but I haven't babied them either.
Given the fundamental design flaw involving the snaggable, breakable tabs (or unwieldy add-ons to address the issue), no RJ** cable made in the last five decades deserves a perfect 5-star rating.
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Nobody waits 5 years to review product and by then the review would be worthless anyway. How would you know it's due to prematurely fail in 3 more years?
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abuse of a product is expected. An item that doesn't break after dropping it is better than one that does break. A product that breaks at the slightest abuse is a bad product.
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Five stars says this product is so awesome that it changed your life.
5 stars is stupid, and 1 star is stupid. Yet if you go to Yelp thse are the common reviews, because the wannabe food/movie critics think it is all about being witty and proflic. Nobody wastes the time and effort to review something that they're ambivalent about, instead you get the lovers and haters showing up. Nobody hated the decor so much that a 1 is deserved, they're just being snarky and they want their social media friends to see
weird instructions (Score:2)
For example, he says, "Order here at the Amazon link. Don't clip any coupons or promo codes.
Not sure how that evades detection. Wouldn't normal shoppers clip coupons?
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Count all those 5 star reviews that say "Adorable!", quite a lot of those showed up when I just browsed randomly. And seriously pointless reviews like "It's solid wood which is nice" even though the product description tells you the same thing (while yet another review for the same product says "cheap plastic").
Those all seem like impulse buys to me. Maybe I'm too discerning by reading descriptions and online owner manuals, etc. Or maybe these people just randomly buy crap and then return 9 out of 10 of
Totally legitimate (Score:3)
Yup, totally legitimate.
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You don't think Amazon may include those in their "less than 1 percent"?
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I dunno,there are a lot of really helpful reviews out there. For example: This one [amazon.com], or this one [amazon.com], or even this one about gummy bears [amazon.com]. These are the types of reviews people NEED to know.
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https://www.amazon.com/Images-SI-Uranium-Ore/dp/B000796XXM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1532972723&sr=8-2&keywords=uranium#customerReviews [amazon.com]
Yup, totally legitimate.
But it didn't get five stars.
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It's a gag gift. Are you capable of having fun?
What you get... (Score:2, Informative)
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Just make this practice illegal and the problem fixes itself.
Sure glad rape and murder only happened before they were made illegal.
So much false logic here it's making my brain sad.
Reading the wrong reviews... (Score:1)
This is why you read the negative reviews first. See what the complaints are, then look for counter arguments specifically in the positive reviews.
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This is why you read the negative reviews first. See what the complaints are, then look for counter arguments specifically in the positive reviews.
I admire those who think they can find out what is real by carefully balancing competing narratives they have no way of judging on the merits.
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Even that doesn't always work. The last expensive item I bought from Amazon was a Panasonic microwave. It's terrible, but there were no bad reviews on amazon.com. After getting frustrated with it, I did a google search for the model and found a ton of negative reviews. I obviously wouldn't have bought it if amazon.com hadn't censored the negative reviews.
I got frustrated and bought a $300 commercial Sharp R-21LCFS from a local restaurant supply store. I wanted a high quality microwave and was willing t
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Maybe it's a slightly different model number (like the TVs sold during Black Friday)?
Did you leave a bad review for the microwave? And did it get removed?
Do this! (Score:1)
I go straight for the lowest negative comments. They will almost always completely disagree with the glowing 4 and 5 comments. It is a quick way to exclude bad merchants.
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I go straight for the lowest negative comments. ..... It is a quick way to exclude bad merchants.
So do I, but I also look at some the most positive and some in between. Trouble is that there will always be some low negative and some high positive comments, so if either of those is a deal breaker you will never buy anything. Some people give a low negative because the delivery guy didn't whistle Yankee-Doodle as he came to the door. Instead, you just need to weigh up the comments intelligently.
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Instead, you just need to weigh up the comments intelligently.
On a large purchase, I might read 200 reviews, and make my decision based on 1 or 2 that provided the best information for my use case.
how about other dirty tricks at amazon.com (Score:1)
or you buy something, but what they DONT tell you is the product you purchased is located half way around the world in china, but you dont know that until they send you the product shipped notification and you see it just left the facility in china somewhere, and you dont get the product for 3 months,
i quit buying from amazon because of their dirty shenanigans, to hell with bezos the bozo i dont need his clown tactics when i want to buy something
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If you're paying attention, you can catch those right away. I prefer eBay when I'm intentionally buying from China. It's a great source of random cables, usually for $0.77 each ($0.99 Canadian).
Of course, eBay has its own scam where the search shows a great price, but then the product page has you select from a number of options, and the only one that is at the low price is something completely different.
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Amazon's been pulling that one lately, too.
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Perhaps it pays to see who you're actual
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No, 5-7 days, same as regular packages from other sources.
They had been doing a thing where if you chose "free shipping" they would delay handing it over to the local post office for 5 days, but I think eventually they hired a logistics person to explain to the marketing droids that warehousing is expensive. Now they just hand it over when it arrives locally, and it gets delivered promptly.
If they wait to ship, they also have to wait to charge your CC, and they have to let you cancel the order during that t
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I did that on PrimeDay, still took a week for a book I bought. It was BS.
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About half of the reviews are for different products or different models all lumped together.
I don't think it's half but for some products this is definitely a problem. Photography lighting stands come to mind; they range from 'barely able to hold themselves up' to 'hard core hurricane proof' and all the reviews are under the same base model. People buying the ultra cheap model are pissed that the reviews for the great models tricked them into getting junk.
Camera lenses lumped together also really screw up some people since you have to pick 'for Canon' or 'for Nikon' and some people don't seem to
Travis needs to be spanked (Score:2)
Travis the teen paid reviewer has grown up with a serious lack of parental moral guidance. He got ripped off on a product based on fake good reviews so now he does the same to others?
only half? (Score:2)
Amazon Marketplace (Score:1)
If Amazon is going to dispute the results... (Score:4, Insightful)
...According to outside auditors like Fakespot and ReviewMeta, more than half the reviews for certain popular products are questionable....
And Amazon supposedly disputes that by saying,
...Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic...
Notice that Amazon is not disputing the original statement, but they are disputing a statement that was not made.
Why would Amazon do that? Maybe they cannot dispute the original statement?
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Because the comment is meaningless. "Certain popular products"? Which ones? How many reviews where there?
A better warning is to be weary of items with less than x amount of reviews.
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... "Certain popular products"? Which ones? How many reviews where there? ...
If you care that much, maybe you should read the reports of the outside auditors that published those results.
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Notice that Amazon is not disputing the original statement, but they are disputing a statement that was not made.
In another words, the said Amazon VP is making what many would describe as "weaseling" out of the allegation. And I'd feel he's not doing a very good job at that (unless he stated this "less than 1 percent" number due to legal team interference) since most users will not believe this number base on their user experience. Had he allege it being 18% or even 7% (implying more for some categories) it'd have sounded somewhat believable.
I don't purchase much physical items online, but for categories like book
In other news... (Score:2)
iPhone cables, too! (Score:1)
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And are most likely to not work. I bought eight different USB to lightning cables from amazon.com to test for work, and none of them worked. Even the Amazon Basics I bought later didn't work well. The connector isn't thick enough so you have to put something under it when plugged into an iPhone to get it to make a connection. Even then, if you disturb it even a little, it will usually disconnect.
We ended-up buying a bunch of cables from Apple even though they cost a lot more. Of course they're all fray
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Have you tried Monoprice? If anyone has a heavier duty cable for less money that still meets spec, it's them.
Thank you, Captains Obvious. (Score:2)
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Amazon doesn't have the guts to go all AC/DC (Score:2)
WSJ Related Story about How Sellers Game Algorithm (Score:5, Informative)
The WSJ has a related story about how sellers attempt to game the system to get their products a higher ranking in searchers.
Some of the tricks include:
1. Taking old listings with high ratings and change the product
2. Posting SPAM-my comments on opponent products to get their rivals listings flagged as abusive
3. Filing bogus safety claims against rivals to get their products delisted pending a safety investigation
4. Paying people to receive empty shipments so that they can post verified buyer reviews
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-sellers-trick-amazon-to-boost-sales-1532750493?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=4 [wsj.com]
I thought that the article was interesting. I hope others do too!
Will
Ha, they tried even more on me! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a top-500 reviewer on Amazon.co.uk, so my reviews generally show up high quickly (ok, maybe not because of ranking just by upvotes - haven't looked into how it works). I try to review things I know a lot about, so I wrote some (very accurate, technical and detailed, but bad) reviews on some binoculars (also put them in a blog post here [ecuadors.net], helpful for people buying binoculars on Amazon) that were highly rated and/or top sellers, but were of unknown branding or had ridiculous specs (30x60 pocket binoculars). :)
So, on some listings my bad reviews which came on top, started getting bursts of downvotes. Like 10 a day. A person actually contacted me to tell me he belonged to a FB group of the seller where they would get free stuff to review. The seller told the group I am a lying competitor and gave them links to my reviews for downvoting (hence the bursts). The person who contacted me looked into my reviews instead and figured out I was just a knowledgeable reviewer and even sent me screenshots of the FB threads. I forwarded the info to Amazon and they didn't do anything. Well, in fact, I can no longer find the review that had offended that seller the most, so maybe they did something in the end
Additionally, a seller (the same if I remember correctly) wrote me and told me they had reported me to Amazon for malicious reviews. They left comments under my reviews saying that I am a competitor who owns Agena Astro (hilarious, that's a huge US astro retailer!). I also brought that crap to Amazon's attention, they didn't seem to mind.
In all, I love Amazon, I've been a Prime subscriber for over a decade mainly because their customer service is second to none...
But that customer service is only stellar when it comes to you buying/returning etc stuff, they don't really seem to care about marketplace sellers going rogue. Which is a shame, back a decade ago most of the stuff was sold by Amazon and the reviews were a surefire way to find what is good and what is not. Nowadays, you can't trust them. And it's not just the shady reviewers, even some that Amazon itself picks (Vine) are obviously clueless about most of the stuff they review and how legit are your reviews anyway when you do several per day?
So, you still get easy returns/refunds etc, but you can no longer rely on the reviews - probably with the exception of something sold only by Amazon.
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I have more than 100 products listed on Amazon Germany, with now over 400 reviews. Most reviews are good. Of course I never paid anyone for reviewing.
There are some reviews not related to the products. For example some people thank for fast delivery or they don't like the weight, which is totally unrelated to the product quality. Amazon should really remove those or at least hide them.
It is really difficult to spot fake reviews from competitors, because there are really no clues from Amazon.
Just once I got
Quick Reviews (Score:2)
FTFA :-
Travis adds. "If you review too soon after receiving it'll look pretty suspicious."
As slow as that? Some idiots write reviews before they've even received or opened the stuff, and admit it. They repeat what they saw in the advert and they say something like "It came today and I can't wait to try it out!" or "It's a present for my grandson and he is going to be delighted!". They sound genuine though.
Fake reviews and counterfeit products (Score:2)
For expensive equipment I'm just as likely to order elsewhere (e.g. B&H or industry-specific sites), for cheap or commodity stuff it may already be cheaper locally or elsewhere online - and if it's not, there's a fair chance someplace local will price match to either Amazon or their own website if it has different pricing (e.g. Target, office supply places).
Basically if I need a thousand-dollar scanner or laptop I ca
Fakespot! (Score:2)
This has been apparent for awhile (Score:2)
Especially for cheaper electronic accessories, (batteries, chargers, cables) I've found that you can safely ignore all the raving five star reviews. I start with the four and three star reviews, and look for ones with meat in them -- specific details about the products, plusses and minuses, and whether they're better or worse than competing products. But now that I've said that, the fake reviewers will probably take that into account.
I wonder exactly how many small purchases from Amazon arrive and look li
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Slashdot the best (Score:3, Funny)
The 5 star reviews don't really matter (Score:2)
5 stars is what I expect products to get when I order them. 5 stars means that it does exactly what it says it's going to do, or maybe better. If I order a bathroom scale and it takes my weight correctly and doesn't break right away, it gets 5 stars. The score goes down depending on how much it deviates from it's advertised purpose.
The real reviews to look at are the 1-star reviews, to give you an idea of how often a product catastrophically fails or is DOA. Maybe the 2-star reviews if you want to know what
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The one star reviews are often clearly bogus too, someone is having a bad day, they are trolling, they bought the wrong product and haven't figured it out yet, they're bitching about how the delivery guy dumped the box in the bushes, etc. People do not take the effort to use their brains when reviewing stuff.
People also trying too hard to be witty in the reviews as well. 'If I was headed to a desert island and could only take one 3.5x5" picture frame this would definitely be the one.'
LIAR! (Score:2)
Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic
I'd wager less than 1% are authentic.
an epiphany - the return of physical stores? (Score:2)
In a different thread, someone commented that he doesn't buy online anymore because most of it is fake or otherwise worthless crap.
That might be overstating the case, but at its root is pretty insightful.
We've been sold on the idea that brick-'n'-mortar are going the way of the dinosaur, and that eventually everything will be online only, with physical product only existing in huge distribution centers.
What wasn't foreseen, maybe, is a time when a high percentage of what's available online is garbage, made
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We've been sold on the idea that brick-'n'-mortar are going the way of the dinosaur, and that eventually everything will be online only, with physical product only existing in huge distribution centers.
What wasn't foreseen, maybe, is a time when a high percentage of what's available online is garbage, made to sell rather than use, supported by fake reviews, and that the percentage is increasing. Maybe there will come a time when brick-'n'-mortar comes back in style, for the simple reason that you can verify for yourself that it's an actual, useful product and not a cracker-jacks prize.
Maybe or maybe not. Remember all those stories about people picking something out at Best Buy or Circuit City only to get home and find the "sealed" package didn't have the item inside?
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We've been sold on the idea that brick-'n'-mortar are going the way of the dinosaur, and that eventually everything will be online only, with physical product only existing in huge distribution centers.
What wasn't foreseen, maybe, is a time when a high percentage of what's available online is garbage, made to sell rather than use, supported by fake reviews, and that the percentage is increasing. Maybe there will come a time when brick-'n'-mortar comes back in style, for the simple reason that you can verify for yourself that it's an actual, useful product and not a cracker-jacks prize.
Maybe or maybe not. Remember all those stories about people picking something out at Best Buy or Circuit City only to get home and find the "sealed" package didn't have the item inside?
Ok that's a good point. Best Buy and their ilk have to realize that I can buy an empty box cheaper and faster from Amazon than I can from them.
Geeze, how did we as consumers get to this point?
Review switching (Score:2)
I frequently see reviews for completely different products, so they'll stuffing a (possibly) good product with great reviews and then they switch it to a completely different product, like from a pair of binoculars to a powerbank. I see this alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the fucking time.
And then you'll see something loads of 5-star reviews that consist of nothing more than "Great product!", "I love it!!!!!", "Works great!", "Wife loves it!!"...and so on. It's obvious they don't even know what the fuck th
Chuck Wendig .... (Score:1)
Amazon confirms, not denies fake reviews (Score:2)
From TFA: (italics mine) ...
"
According to outside auditors like Fakespot and ReviewMeta, more than half the reviews for certain popular products are questionable. [i]Amazon disputes those estimates.[/i]
"Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic," says Sharon Chiarella, vice president of community shopping at Amazon. She adds that "sometimes individual products have more suspicious activity." ..."
"individual products" is equivalent to "certain popular products".
Amazon does not
Fair and Honest (Score:1)
MUCH more than half are phony! (Score:1)
I am always finding reviews for products other than the one I am viewing, and they are even marked as "verified purchase"!
WTF?!?!?! These "reviews" should be classified as false and misleading advertising tricks, and ANY seller
engaging in these practices, especially Amazon and Newegg, should be summarily fined AND punished appropriately.
This is an abuse of Capitalism that gives Capitalism a very bad reputation.