5 ms·

Amazon has a counterfeiting problem alright, but I'm not sure why you think that other places can deal any better with this type of review fraud. It's a legiti

Amazon has a counterfeiting problem alright, but I'm not sure why you think that other places can deal any better with this type of review fraud. It's a legitimate purchase followed by a review. Seems undetectable to me. Biggest Amazon draw for me is price. I make a concerted effort to avoid them these days.

MichaelApproved 7y ago
> I'm not sure why you think that other places can deal any better with this type of review fraud. I'm not sure why you think that I think that.
- nebulous1 7y ago
  > Between these “authentic” fake reviews, the usual fake reviews and counterfeit products, Amazon seems open to serious competition. To me, this implied you thought that competition could do better
  - MichaelApproved 7y ago
    Ah, good point! What I mean is that these problems make people more open to giving another company a try. It lowers the loyalty someone has to Amazon. One of the hardest parts of starting a new company is having customers even consider buying something from you. With all the problems Amazon is having, convincing someone to try an alternative company isn't as difficult. In fact, some are actively looking for alternatives. That goes for buys and sellers.
- zrobotics 7y ago
  This is a hard problem (in the CS sense). How do you filter a customer that reviews a product paid for w/ their own money, who then later gets reimbursed via PayPal? For the reviewer in the article, how can Amazon know these reviews are purchased? Yes, she buys a lot of stuff, but from Amazon's point of view she may just be a loyal customer- especially given the fact that she mixes personal purchases in. Amazon does a bad job curating reviews, but this is a difficult problem. I'm not sure how anyone could police the type of review fraud discussed in the article effectively.
bootlooped 7y ago
The only additional thing I can think they they could do is start infiltrating these review faking networks, figuring out which products are having reviews bought for them, and penalize them. That kind of goes down a rabbit hole where what if a competitor buys fake reviews for your legitimate product in order to get it banned. There is no perfect solution. It seems like Amazon has tried to alleviate the lowered integrity of reviews by showing professional reviews when you search certain things (such as Wirecutter). It's a real problem, and not an easy one to solve.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  I'd love to see a large e-commerce site that runs like Costco. Want a printer? Here's one, and it's probably top ranked by Consumer Reports. Want snow pants? Here are the available sizes and colors for the single set on offer. Pay professionals to pick and vet reputable, high-quality vendors.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    But this is Amazon - pay people? Pay real live people? What are you trying to do, bankrupt them? /s
    - mrep 7y ago
      What? They are the one of the largest employers on the planet with over 600,000 employees.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > a large e-commerce site that runs like Costco. Want a printer? Here's one, and it's probably top ranked by Consumer Reports. Costco is actually a very bad actor in this particular area; they generally order their stuff with a unique SKU (often the same product, but just a different SKU) specifically so that reviews of outside products don't apply to the (again, identical) Costco product.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Really? Price? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a competitive price, but Amazon's real value is being able to get things that are freaking hard to find unless you go to 2 dozen different specialty online stores, which means having to trust 2 dozen different sites with your credit card information.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > unless you go to 2 dozen different specialty online stores, which means having to trust 2 dozen different sites with your credit card information. I'd kind of expect those two dozen sites to accept PayPal...
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Some do, some don't, it's hit and miss and that's part of the problem.
    - bel_marinaio 7y ago
      privacy.com lets you create a unique credit card # for every retailer for free. You can put transaction limits on them too.
      - crusty 7y ago
        Back of America just killed of it's viral credit card feature, according to them because it's getting replaced across the board with intermediary services like PayPal, Google pay, Apple pay, and the like and will eventually disappear from Chase and the other virtual credit card providers. BoA said they liked it off now because it relied on flash and they were pushing to remove that risk (and likely were getting complaints by customers who couldn't get it to work because their default browser didn't support flash natively). So this virtual credit card route is probably short for this works. PS, BoA did an awful join and totally bungled the sunset of their virtual card program.
TwoHeadedBeast 7y ago
If someone consistently leaves five-star reviews, then they should be removed. Even if genuine, as in not paid for, they are still noise as this person is indiscriminate in their praise.
JoshTko 7y ago
Should be relatively easy to spot this pattern and flag for secondary analysis. Things like, frequency of purchase, rate of returns, five star rating pattern, consistency in rating reviews (always with a picture, always a certain length), amount of research done before purchase.

MichaelApproved 7y ago

> I'm not sure why you think that other places can deal any better with this type of review fraud. I'm not sure why you think that I think that.

nebulous1 7y ago
> Between these “authentic” fake reviews, the usual fake reviews and counterfeit products, Amazon seems open to serious competition. To me, this implied you thought that competition could do better
- MichaelApproved 7y ago
  Ah, good point! What I mean is that these problems make people more open to giving another company a try. It lowers the loyalty someone has to Amazon. One of the hardest parts of starting a new company is having customers even consider buying something from you. With all the problems Amazon is having, convincing someone to try an alternative company isn't as difficult. In fact, some are actively looking for alternatives. That goes for buys and sellers.
zrobotics 7y ago
This is a hard problem (in the CS sense). How do you filter a customer that reviews a product paid for w/ their own money, who then later gets reimbursed via PayPal? For the reviewer in the article, how can Amazon know these reviews are purchased? Yes, she buys a lot of stuff, but from Amazon's point of view she may just be a loyal customer- especially given the fact that she mixes personal purchases in. Amazon does a bad job curating reviews, but this is a difficult problem. I'm not sure how anyone could police the type of review fraud discussed in the article effectively.

bootlooped 7y ago

The only additional thing I can think they they could do is start infiltrating these review faking networks, figuring out which products are having reviews bought for them, and penalize them. That kind of goes down a rabbit hole where what if a competitor buys fake reviews for your legitimate product in order to get it banned. There is no perfect solution. It seems like Amazon has tried to alleviate the lowered integrity of reviews by showing professional reviews when you search certain things (such as Wirecutter). It's a real problem, and not an easy one to solve.

ceejayoz 7y ago
I'd love to see a large e-commerce site that runs like Costco. Want a printer? Here's one, and it's probably top ranked by Consumer Reports. Want snow pants? Here are the available sizes and colors for the single set on offer. Pay professionals to pick and vet reputable, high-quality vendors.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zentiggr 7y ago
  But this is Amazon - pay people? Pay real live people? What are you trying to do, bankrupt them? /s
  - mrep 7y ago
    What? They are the one of the largest employers on the planet with over 600,000 employees.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > a large e-commerce site that runs like Costco. Want a printer? Here's one, and it's probably top ranked by Consumer Reports. Costco is actually a very bad actor in this particular area; they generally order their stuff with a unique SKU (often the same product, but just a different SKU) specifically so that reviews of outside products don't apply to the (again, identical) Costco product.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

Really? Price? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a competitive price, but Amazon's real value is being able to get things that are freaking hard to find unless you go to 2 dozen different specialty online stores, which means having to trust 2 dozen different sites with your credit card information.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> unless you go to 2 dozen different specialty online stores, which means having to trust 2 dozen different sites with your credit card information. I'd kind of expect those two dozen sites to accept PayPal...
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Some do, some don't, it's hit and miss and that's part of the problem.
  - bel_marinaio 7y ago
    privacy.com lets you create a unique credit card # for every retailer for free. You can put transaction limits on them too.
    - crusty 7y ago
      Back of America just killed of it's viral credit card feature, according to them because it's getting replaced across the board with intermediary services like PayPal, Google pay, Apple pay, and the like and will eventually disappear from Chase and the other virtual credit card providers. BoA said they liked it off now because it relied on flash and they were pushing to remove that risk (and likely were getting complaints by customers who couldn't get it to work because their default browser didn't support flash natively). So this virtual credit card route is probably short for this works. PS, BoA did an awful join and totally bungled the sunset of their virtual card program.

TwoHeadedBeast 7y ago

If someone consistently leaves five-star reviews, then they should be removed. Even if genuine, as in not paid for, they are still noise as this person is indiscriminate in their praise.

JoshTko 7y ago

Should be relatively easy to spot this pattern and flag for secondary analysis. Things like, frequency of purchase, rate of returns, five star rating pattern, consistency in rating reviews (always with a picture, always a certain length), amount of research done before purchase.