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> and the reviews aren't trustworthy the way they used to be You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews,

• nothrabannosir 9y ago
  Why didn't you leave the review?
  • barking 9y ago
    Probably the best thing would be to edit or replace it and then in addition to the criticisms, mention how they were very proactive about replacing/refunding for the item
• ikurei 9y ago
  So you just helped continue the fraud? Things aren't gonna improve by complaining on HN.
  • neverminder 9y ago
    There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but. It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. In this particular situation the interaction was between me and the seller. Reviews are written, edited, removed by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers.
    • provost 9y ago
      > by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers Yet you feel jaded by the other reviewers. You don't owe me anything, but I would encourage you to go back and leave a negative review if the product isn't worth the price. I'm in the market for a cooking knife and would appreciate good reviews. Thanks.
      • Super_Jambo 9y ago
        Just buy a thin bladed one from ikea along with a ceramic roller sharpener. Don't use it on frozen stuff. If money is no object get a global along with the global specific ceramic roller sharpener. Yes there are better things out there but for the cost Ikea is very good.
        • brreakdown 9y ago
          Again.. Amazon is like eBay on crack .. you can and will come across quality - you will - and when you do - you'll be that much more apt to go back for more - no??
      • dkrich 9y ago
        If you just need a small set, I highly recommend the Wusthof Studio set. I got mine for under $100 and they work really well.
    • ajnin 9y ago
      Seems contradictory to buy a low quality item based on unfair reviews, complain about that fact, then go on saying that reviewers owe nothing to anyone. They obviously owe a modicum of honesty and objectivity to other potential buyers. Why would you leave a review if not to inform other buyers ?
      • neverminder 9y ago
        Well in this case I left a review because the seller was hassling me for one. Personally I have little trust in reviews. By the way, I wasn't complaining in my original post, just stating facts.
  • afterburner 9y ago
    His other option was letting them keep the money. Surely that's worse? The point of the fraud is to make money. He denied them that money.
    • i_cant_speel 9y ago
      And allowed them to continue to make future money.
  • 4ad 9y ago
    A dull knife is fraud? Seriously? Knives are meant to me sharpened. The cheapest knife can be sharpened to razor blade sharpness. Sometimes new knives come sharpened somewhat, but in my experience all mass-produced knives need sharpening when new, even $250 knives. I genuinely can't comprehend the complaint. What next, buy a new car and complain it didn't come with the tank full?
    • ithkuil 9y ago
      If it was a ceramic knife, would it still make sense for a customer to figure out how to sharpen one of those?
      • 4ad 9y ago
        No, I would expect a ceramic knife to be sharp and I would expect it to remain sharp throughout its life.
        • blacksmith_tb 9y ago
          Unfortunately that's not possible, ceramic knives dull differently (the accumulate lots of tiny nicks or chips along the edge), but you can certainly sharpen them on a diamond stone, or with a dedicated sharpener, or in some cases send them back to the manufacturer[1]. 1: http://www.kyoceraknife.com/how-to-sharpen-ceramic-knives.html http://www.kyoceraknife.com/how-to-sharpen-ceramic-knives.ht...
    • freehunter 9y ago
      >What next, buy a new car and complain it didn't come with the tank full? Yes. You should complain if you buy a new car and it doesn't come with a full tank of gas, or needs new tires, or needs an oil change right from the dealership. Those are things you expect from a new car, and they're the reasons you buy a new car. If I bought a used knife, I'd expect to sharpen it. If I buy a brand new knife, I expect it to be sharp right from the factory. If it's not, I could have saved money and just bought a steel rod and made my own knife out of it. A knife has one purpose: to be sharp. If it's not, it's not a knife. It's a cheap hunk of thin steel that they told you was a knife. There is zero reason a brand new product needs immediate maintenance before it can be used.
  • Spooky23 9y ago
    No, things will improve when Amazon gives >0 fucks and cracks down on the practice.
  • AlexandrB 9y ago
    It's not his job to fix Amazon's fraud issues. Amazon has billions of dollars at its disposal, it should invest some in quality control.
    • reaperducer 9y ago
      Your statement assumes that Amazon isn't investing anything in quality control. If you have evidence of this, please post it. Otherwise, you're just a troll.
      • neverminder 9y ago
        I could probably write a script in 5 minutes that would scan the database and pull the products with 5 star only reviews like this one. No matter how good a product is somebody will always be unhappy with it because people are people and that's normal. We can't afford to be that naive to believe in a 5 star only product because that is the actual trolling.
        • mikestew 9y ago
          No matter how good a product is somebody will always be unhappy with it If nothing else, someone almost without fail will leave a one-star review that has nothing to do with the item itself. "Package was damaged, one star." "UPS left it in the rain..." If Jesus asked for reviews at Mount Olive (the loaves and fishes thing), there'd be a one-star review somewhere, "fish was a little dry, and I don't like sourdough bread. Better miracles at Joe's House of Wonder, one star." (Though I guess even in reality he got one star from the Pharisees: "shouldn't be doing miracles on Sabbath; one star.") Nothing and nobody, even Jesus, gets nothing but five star reviews. IOW, your suggestion would be as good as anything Amazon has right now.
      • Sleeep 9y ago
        My own two eyes? At least ~30%+ of Amazon's products are cheap Chinese garbage resold from Albiaba under 10+ different "brands." (private label) There's are also tons of very obvious fake and counterfeit products that could be spotted with a simple human review of new listings.
• petra 9y ago
  It shouldn't be hard for Amazon to detect such behavior and improve it's reviews or scores. Why don't they do that?
  • krapp 9y ago
    > It shouldn't be hard for Amazon to detect such behavior and improve it's reviews or scores. Why don't they do that? Amazon doesn't benefit financially from negative or average reviews, but they do benefit from the positive reviews, regardless of their legitimacy, as the parent poster demonstrated.
    • hanbura 9y ago
      Of course Amazon benefits from negative reviews. In a brick-and-mortar shop I can physically inspect the product before buying to judge its quality. Online shops don't have that, so you either have to trust the shop, brand or review system. Since Amazon allows everyone on their platform, the review system is the only reason you can still buy noname products there. A good review system translates to trust, which enables sales.
      • Sleeep 9y ago
        You can't really "inspect" most items in a B+M store. For example, if I buy a slow cooker I can see it in its package and see the display model. So? I don't know how well it cooks my fav dish.
  • ethbro 9y ago
    They haven't realized it's an existential threat yet. And to be fair, at scale, given that most people are idiots and don't know astroturf reviews exist, it might never be for them. But they are definitely in danger of losing the people who told everyone else about "that Amazon thing."
• throw2016 9y ago
  This is weird. It's like complaining about corruption and accepting a bribe at the same time.
• dalore 9y ago
  Why not get your refund, and then reinstate your review along with your experience of them getting your review removed.
• rifung 9y ago
  > It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap Not that I doubt your assessment of the knife but.. As far as kitchen knives go this is cheap, although you can still get very good and sharp knives for this price like the Tojiro DP Gyuto or Victorinox Fibrox. Usually people don't judge a knife by it's out of box sharpness but the sharpness after sharpening, ease of sharpening, edge retention, balance, and overall craftsmanship.
  • freehunter 9y ago
    >Usually people don't judge a knife by it's out of box sharpness Maybe knife connoisseurs don't, but normal people certainly do. I don't know the names of any knives, those names you mentioned might as well be brands of washing machines. But if I buy a knife and it's not sharp, what's the point? Why can the factory not sharpen it before selling it to me?
    • traviscj 9y ago
      Disclaimer: I would rather have a sharp knife out of the box. But: Using knives makes them not sharp, so the ability to sharpen is the definition of the knife not being junk. A dull knife is not a garbage knife that needs replacement, it is just a knife that needs sharpening. I use a Lansky sharpener [1] and it is the cat's meow. Just takes a couple of minutes to put a great edge on. [1]: http://lansky.com/index.php/products/dlx-5-stone-system/ http://lansky.com/index.php/products/dlx-5-stone-system/