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Anecdata, sample size 1. I bought some toy for a toddler. Upon receiving it, I realized that the description was misleading; many of the "pieces" they had list

Anecdata, sample size 1. I bought some toy for a toddler. Upon receiving it, I realized that the description was misleading; many of the "pieces" they had listed boldly were just cheap plastic pieces of crap that had no useful functionality. So I returned it, and wrote a 1-star review. A few weeks later, I got an email from them: they were offering $30 if I took down the review. I ignored the email. Several weeks later, another email: this time offering $40. And so on. Their latest email is offering me $70 to take down the review. I still haven't. I'd forward the email to Amazon if (a) I knew they'd do something, and, more importantly, (b) I knew WHERE to send it! Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not being gamed. Since the email goes through Amazon servers, they should be able to at least make an attempt at catching such people!

lucb1e 8y ago
Holy crap, $70 to remove a review. I'm pretty sure one could find a law under which it's illegal to offer relatively large incentives to silence negative publications. By the way, care to link the product so I can write a couple 1-star reviews as well? /s
timcederman 8y ago
Have you ever tried reviewing a seller instead of the product? Amazon reviews almost every single negative review.
Fnoord 8y ago
> Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not being gamed. Since the email goes through Amazon servers, they should be able to at least make an attempt at catching such people! Short-term, no. Long-term, it harms their credibility until they're past being the status quo because people go to alternatives which aren't as popular or infested with this crap. In short, this is good for competition. But the real problem, as I already wrote in another post, is the fact that Amazon isn't held accountable for this. And if that's currently not possible, it should become by law. After all, they're hosting deceiving misinformation and facilitating a platform for sales. Its easy to get away being the middle man but that doesn't mean its fair.
misja111 8y ago
>> Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not being gamed I don't agree. First of all, these fake reviews are bad for Amazon's reputation and thus for their business. Second, these frauds lead to people returning their items to Amazon. I do not know how Amazon settles this with the original seller but I'd imagine that in the end Amazon will not make any profit on the whole transaction, or even a loss.
- carlmr 8y ago
  I still haven't found a feedback mechanism where you can say "I suspect it is fake". I'm not buying on marketplace anymore, except if I can't find the product anywhere else.
- 1024core 8y ago
  > I don't agree. First of all, these fake reviews are bad for Amazon's reputation and thus for their business. If that were the case, then Amazon would provide a way to flag fake reviews. But they don't.
zamalek 8y ago
Hmmmph. The best I've been offered is a full refund to take down a review. I obviously didn't: a refund does not change the quality of a product. That being said, I had a few reach out and ask me for a review. In one instance I merely indicated that I had to use the product for longer to offer a genuine review, they gave me a line to the founder for concerns. For a cellphone screen protector, that has actually worked beautifully. I honestly don't know where to draw the line between buying reviews and customer service. If I put myself in the shoes of an honest businessperson (as I'd hope to be), I hope I'd deal with customers personally at early stages of the startup. It's hard to be objective with so many miscreants in play.
- jsight 8y ago
  You are exactly right, and for a business owner there are some other pretty awful forces at work as well. People will tend to avoid products that have zero reviews and people are more motivated to review short-term product failures than long-term successes. So, it is in their best interest to create review incentives. Of course, some review incentives are better than others (personal notes telling you how valued a review is and how much they will help with any problems vs. "here's $5, give me some stars").
KozmoNau7 8y ago
I've had vendors on Ebay selling obviously fake products[1] refuse to refund my payments until I removed negative reviews and/or made positive full 5-star reviews. I've also received products where there was a note included, offering either free stuff or 10/20/30% off my next purchase, if I made a full 5-star review and sent them a screenshot. When you're just one of thousands and thousands of vendors on a platform, I guess any trick is considered fair game. [1]Such as flashlights that looked only vaguely similar to the pictures in the listings, and were blatantly just cheaply-made knockoffs.
- 83 8y ago
  It sounds like you didn't even try. A few days after you've contacted the seller you can escalate to Ebay customer support and they side with the buyer and issue a refund so fast I'd be terrified to sell anything on that site. You can find it written in the Ebay terms that for misrepresented items seller has to pay for a return shipping label. I only ever had one seller refuse to and Ebay c/s said keep the item and we'll issue a refund.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Oh I did get my money back and left negative reviews. Not sure how you got the idea that I didn't. Ebay almost always rules in the buyer's favor.
ejo4041 8y ago
You can report a seller and it was pretty easy to find via google, "amazon report seller": https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=200444420&language=en-US&ref=mpbc_200414340_cont_200444420 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=20...

lucb1e 8y ago

Holy crap, $70 to remove a review. I'm pretty sure one could find a law under which it's illegal to offer relatively large incentives to silence negative publications. By the way, care to link the product so I can write a couple 1-star reviews as well? /s

timcederman 8y ago

Have you ever tried reviewing a seller instead of the product? Amazon reviews almost every single negative review.

Fnoord 8y ago

> Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not being gamed. Since the email goes through Amazon servers, they should be able to at least make an attempt at catching such people! Short-term, no. Long-term, it harms their credibility until they're past being the status quo because people go to alternatives which aren't as popular or infested with this crap. In short, this is good for competition. But the real problem, as I already wrote in another post, is the fact that Amazon isn't held accountable for this. And if that's currently not possible, it should become by law. After all, they're hosting deceiving misinformation and facilitating a platform for sales. Its easy to get away being the middle man but that doesn't mean its fair.

misja111 8y ago

>> Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not being gamed I don't agree. First of all, these fake reviews are bad for Amazon's reputation and thus for their business. Second, these frauds lead to people returning their items to Amazon. I do not know how Amazon settles this with the original seller but I'd imagine that in the end Amazon will not make any profit on the whole transaction, or even a loss.

carlmr 8y ago
I still haven't found a feedback mechanism where you can say "I suspect it is fake". I'm not buying on marketplace anymore, except if I can't find the product anywhere else.
1024core 8y ago
> I don't agree. First of all, these fake reviews are bad for Amazon's reputation and thus for their business. If that were the case, then Amazon would provide a way to flag fake reviews. But they don't.

zamalek 8y ago

Hmmmph. The best I've been offered is a full refund to take down a review. I obviously didn't: a refund does not change the quality of a product. That being said, I had a few reach out and ask me for a review. In one instance I merely indicated that I had to use the product for longer to offer a genuine review, they gave me a line to the founder for concerns. For a cellphone screen protector, that has actually worked beautifully. I honestly don't know where to draw the line between buying reviews and customer service. If I put myself in the shoes of an honest businessperson (as I'd hope to be), I hope I'd deal with customers personally at early stages of the startup. It's hard to be objective with so many miscreants in play.

jsight 8y ago
You are exactly right, and for a business owner there are some other pretty awful forces at work as well. People will tend to avoid products that have zero reviews and people are more motivated to review short-term product failures than long-term successes. So, it is in their best interest to create review incentives. Of course, some review incentives are better than others (personal notes telling you how valued a review is and how much they will help with any problems vs. "here's $5, give me some stars").

KozmoNau7 8y ago

I've had vendors on Ebay selling obviously fake products[1] refuse to refund my payments until I removed negative reviews and/or made positive full 5-star reviews. I've also received products where there was a note included, offering either free stuff or 10/20/30% off my next purchase, if I made a full 5-star review and sent them a screenshot. When you're just one of thousands and thousands of vendors on a platform, I guess any trick is considered fair game. [1]Such as flashlights that looked only vaguely similar to the pictures in the listings, and were blatantly just cheaply-made knockoffs.

83 8y ago
It sounds like you didn't even try. A few days after you've contacted the seller you can escalate to Ebay customer support and they side with the buyer and issue a refund so fast I'd be terrified to sell anything on that site. You can find it written in the Ebay terms that for misrepresented items seller has to pay for a return shipping label. I only ever had one seller refuse to and Ebay c/s said keep the item and we'll issue a refund.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Oh I did get my money back and left negative reviews. Not sure how you got the idea that I didn't. Ebay almost always rules in the buyer's favor.

ejo4041 8y ago

You can report a seller and it was pretty easy to find via google, "amazon report seller": https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=200444420&language=en-US&ref=mpbc_200414340_cont_200444420 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=20...