4 ms·

I have been increasingly suspicious of the review quality on Amazon as well. Coupled with the poor search functionality and the increasing amount of "sponsored

by cle 6y ago

I have been increasingly suspicious of the review quality on Amazon as well. Coupled with the poor search functionality and the increasing amount of "sponsored" stuff that's inundated every page, I don't have much confidence in my ability to find products that meet my search criteria anymore. I feel increasingly like I'm at Best Buy--as soon as I enter, I'm accosted by sales pitches that are uninterested in actually helping me find what I want. For a company that prides itself as "customer obsessed", it seems like lip service these days. That said, I don't find this post very convincing at all. > I made a purchase... > So Amazon lets sellers pay for fake reviews... Sorry this is an incoherent argument (generalizing from a single data point). I've heard plenty of anecdotes of this stuff (maybe a couple dozen?) but even that's not nearly enough for me to feel confidently say "this is a widespread problem". I realize the data may be hard to obtain, but until we have it, I don't really think we can confidently make such a conclusion.

rblatz 6y ago
I’ve probably purchased 10 products this year from Amazon that have a card tucked in the packaging offering to give me something free in return for a 5 star review and sending them proof I left it.
mthoms 6y ago
More anecdata: Roughly 30% of the technical products I've ordered in the past year have arrived with one of these cards. As with Colin (the author of the tweet), I'm also in Canada. It makes me wonder if the practice is more prevalent here? Speculation: Maybe Amazon's efforts to combat this (if any) are not as strong in Canada?
- zrobotics 6y ago
  Not just a CA thing, roughly half of my Amazon purchases in the US have included these cards as well; the first time I remember seeing one of these cards begging for a review was in mid 2017. Oddly, that was also one of the first clearly counterfeit products I received from Amazon. Order was for some Nalgene lab solvent wash bottles, but the product I received had extremely poor printing for the warning diamond and were unvented. The reason I remember the card was that they offered $20 for a review, and IIRC I paid ~$15 for the product.
cookingmyserver 6y ago
> Sorry this is an incoherent argument (generalizing from a single data point). I've heard plenty of anecdotes of this stuff (maybe a couple dozen?) but even that's not nearly enough for me to feel confidently say "this is a widespread problem". I had the opposite reaction. I was a bit surprised that OP was surprised this was happening. Roughly 20% of my amazon purchases have had some kind of card in them with an offer of money for a good review. I guess I just figured it was widespread thing. I only ever get cards with cheap mass manufactured items under $30, mostly electronics like cables or adapters along with a few cat toys.
- cperciva 6y ago
  I'm not surprised that paying for fake reviews happens. I am surprised that Amazon is complicit in the practice. I expected this would be a cat-and-mouse game with Amazon blacklisting vendors upon seeing evidence of them committing fraud.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure that you or I can identify some products on Amazon that very likely have paid reviews in under 5 minutes. If we had access to sales data, we could be essentially certain of it. Type "Bluetooth" into the search bar. Find the product linked below. Does it seem likely that 45,403 people have given a review for a random Bluetooth FM transmitter? https://www.amazon.com/Nulaxy-Wireless-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Smartphones/dp/B018E0I01I https://www.amazon.com/Nulaxy-Wireless-Bluetooth-Transmitter... (not an affiliate link) Type in "phone mount". Do people really feel so strongly about their $12 phone mount that 55K+ of them would write a review of that particular phone mount? What's the matter with those apparently higher-quality phone mounts that have only 500 or so reviews? Do the cheaper rando-brand-name pad-printed ones really out-sell and get out-reviewed by a factor of over 100x? Do 14K people in just over 4 months feel strongly enough about a pack of straws to write a review? https://www.amazon.com/StrawExpert-Reusable-Silicone-Cleaning-Stainless/dp/B08C56GYS1 https://www.amazon.com/StrawExpert-Reusable-Silicone-Cleanin... (also not affiliate) "Wow, they totally made my drink colder!" "These are amazing, not boring regular straws; I'll be buying more to give as gifts!" "I will DEFINITELY be buying more of these, not only for our house but as gifts because these are great!" "with plastic straws costing so much, I thought I'd give these a try. I bought this set specifically because I needed shorter and longer straws." That's a reviewer who really knows what they need in the straw department and has made a major dent in their budget by buying these! "the pouch is a lifesaver since this purchase came with many straws" I should go look for reviews on hip waders... It strains credibility to think the company that can deliver speech-recognition can't spot incentivized reviews. If this is a cat and mouse game, the mice are dominating.

by cle 6y ago

rblatz 6y ago

I’ve probably purchased 10 products this year from Amazon that have a card tucked in the packaging offering to give me something free in return for a 5 star review and sending them proof I left it.

mthoms 6y ago

More anecdata: Roughly 30% of the technical products I've ordered in the past year have arrived with one of these cards. As with Colin (the author of the tweet), I'm also in Canada. It makes me wonder if the practice is more prevalent here? Speculation: Maybe Amazon's efforts to combat this (if any) are not as strong in Canada?

zrobotics 6y ago
Not just a CA thing, roughly half of my Amazon purchases in the US have included these cards as well; the first time I remember seeing one of these cards begging for a review was in mid 2017. Oddly, that was also one of the first clearly counterfeit products I received from Amazon. Order was for some Nalgene lab solvent wash bottles, but the product I received had extremely poor printing for the warning diamond and were unvented. The reason I remember the card was that they offered $20 for a review, and IIRC I paid ~$15 for the product.

cookingmyserver 6y ago

> Sorry this is an incoherent argument (generalizing from a single data point). I've heard plenty of anecdotes of this stuff (maybe a couple dozen?) but even that's not nearly enough for me to feel confidently say "this is a widespread problem". I had the opposite reaction. I was a bit surprised that OP was surprised this was happening. Roughly 20% of my amazon purchases have had some kind of card in them with an offer of money for a good review. I guess I just figured it was widespread thing. I only ever get cards with cheap mass manufactured items under $30, mostly electronics like cables or adapters along with a few cat toys.

cperciva 6y ago
I'm not surprised that paying for fake reviews happens. I am surprised that Amazon is complicit in the practice. I expected this would be a cat-and-mouse game with Amazon blacklisting vendors upon seeing evidence of them committing fraud.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure that you or I can identify some products on Amazon that very likely have paid reviews in under 5 minutes. If we had access to sales data, we could be essentially certain of it. Type "Bluetooth" into the search bar. Find the product linked below. Does it seem likely that 45,403 people have given a review for a random Bluetooth FM transmitter? https://www.amazon.com/Nulaxy-Wireless-Bluetooth-Transmitter-Smartphones/dp/B018E0I01I https://www.amazon.com/Nulaxy-Wireless-Bluetooth-Transmitter... (not an affiliate link) Type in "phone mount". Do people really feel so strongly about their $12 phone mount that 55K+ of them would write a review of that particular phone mount? What's the matter with those apparently higher-quality phone mounts that have only 500 or so reviews? Do the cheaper rando-brand-name pad-printed ones really out-sell and get out-reviewed by a factor of over 100x? Do 14K people in just over 4 months feel strongly enough about a pack of straws to write a review? https://www.amazon.com/StrawExpert-Reusable-Silicone-Cleaning-Stainless/dp/B08C56GYS1 https://www.amazon.com/StrawExpert-Reusable-Silicone-Cleanin... (also not affiliate) "Wow, they totally made my drink colder!" "These are amazing, not boring regular straws; I'll be buying more to give as gifts!" "I will DEFINITELY be buying more of these, not only for our house but as gifts because these are great!" "with plastic straws costing so much, I thought I'd give these a try. I bought this set specifically because I needed shorter and longer straws." That's a reviewer who really knows what they need in the straw department and has made a major dent in their budget by buying these! "the pouch is a lifesaver since this purchase came with many straws" I should go look for reviews on hip waders... It strains credibility to think the company that can deliver speech-recognition can't spot incentivized reviews. If this is a cat and mouse game, the mice are dominating.