8 ms·

Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for o

Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it. EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companies trying to buy 5-star reviews are themselves exploited to the extent that people do this. The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a legitimate looking 5-star review (from someone who is not a bot). That may well be worth it for the company, so I'm not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse.

pc86 6y ago
Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.
- toxik 6y ago
  ... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!
  - jrockway 6y ago
    There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this. It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won't actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain. Seems silly to me. (Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that's a strong argument to not do it.)
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
    - jdmichal 6y ago
      If you've never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin's Playing to Win. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ Specifically the chapter "Introducing... the Scrub" discusses exactly this sentiment. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub > In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.
      - cafard 6y ago
        If you are applying this to computer games, I see your point. If you are applying it to 5-star reviews for $20, then I disagree. (Luigi Barzini mentions an Italian book on card-playing--written, I think, by a clergyman--that begins "Always try to see your opponents' cards." He was trying to point out the light value to that Italians assign to official rules.)
        jdmichal 6y ago
        But this is life, and there's not really a difference between "arbitrary rule system designed for a game" and "arbitrary rule system designed for 5-star reviews". They're both just "arbitrary rules", and some people are going to Play to Win. So what are you going to do about them?
        brendoelfrendo 6y ago
        This is what the guillotine was invented to solve.
        6y ago
    - martamorena918 6y ago
      This has nothing to do with unwillingness to exploit. If you would get a 1 million dollar coupon by leaving a 5 star review, almost everyone would do it (except perhaps billionaires). The thing is: Everybody has a price, but what that price is, is always different. The less money I have, the more incentive I have to take advantage of these schemes. For me, the effort of earning 20$ this way would make this a few hundred dollars net loss (compared to working my job instead). So yeah, give me a 1000$ coupon and I am game! For the same reason, I rarely return items I buy if they are in the under 50$ category, or write negative reviews for products that suck. It's just a waste of time, considering time is the most precious resource, and it is also money. I often write positive reviews for products that amaze me (doesn't happen too often), but here the product gave me so much value that I am willing to spend my time for this.
      - gowld 6y ago
        You post on HN, so obviously you have plenty of free time that could be given to help your fellow shoppers and quality merchants.
    - topkai22 6y ago
      The point of a game isn't to win, its to have fun. A certain character may disrupt the mechanics of the game that are the most fun to a subgroup of players. To take it to an extreme, let's say a character is introduced to a fighting game and this character will win as soon as the "A" button is pressed. Now whatever fun people were doing to win in the game before is gone. In order to win, you just have to pick this super-character and hit the A button. Doesn't sound very fun to me. At a deeper level, that people won't "exploit the brokenness for their own gain" is key to a functioning society. Just as the promise of laying out rules in detail (expert systems) failed to capture the complexity required to get high-functioning AI, societies can not function by formal rules (laws and regulations) alone. There are sorts of complexities about norms, mores, and moral codes that are important to keep societies and organizations running. What is expected behavior when everyone is queued up to buy tickets at an event, but there is no formal sign saying "please queue here"? I mean you could audiciously walk up, stand next to the person in front of the line, and then walk up to the windows when they say "next please" and not be breaking any written rule, but everyone sure would be angry, and if everyone did it you'd have near total anarachy where the pushiest or strongest always got to the front of the line first. One of the biggest problems with internet scale is that its pretty easy to start running into individuals who ARE ok with exploiting the rules, or just ignoring them. This can be because they are from societies with different norms than the one they are encountering online, or just because they are in the small minority of people who just don't care. This effect is aided and abetted by the relative anonymity online. If you cut in line, people who you can see and here are going to yell at you right now. Break the social norm (or actual policy) of not paying for reviews and you'll most likely just get a strongly worded letter and possible ban on selling (which is easy enough to get around). In short though, not exploiting a broken rule or system just because its broken isn't silly. Its the a huge part of having a functioning society.
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        Well, with game you have to be careful to distinguish between behavior unintended by developers and intentional design. The Street Fighter series has had any number of opportunities to "fix" behavior that some players consider "cheap" or an exploit. Developers have kept them in. If using those moves deprives another player of fun, that doesn't mean it shod be removed. There is always a winner and a loser, and someone who loses repeatedly to the same technique isn't any more entitled to the fun of winning. Winning is not meant to be a resource evenly divided among all players. Winning is predicated on skill, which is also not evenly divided among all players. Given effective counters, which always exist, calling other players cheap for having developed a novel play style amounts to a sense of winning as entitlement rather than earned. Again, the above presupposes intentional design, or judgement that emergent behavior nonetheless keeps gameplay in balance..
    - theamk 6y ago
      Yes, this is called “not being a jerk”. Doing something which is technically legal, benefits you, but causes other players to “hate playing” is not a good long term strategy. This normally ends with either the person being rejected, or, if the rest of people are nice, the group itself disbanding. Nothing silly about this.
willhslade 6y ago
I’ve been party to this scheme incidentally and the antenna I bought mentioned that they would only honour one purchase for a discount.
- Buttons840 6y ago
  But how many products/companies are doing this? If there's 500 different products/companies offering $20 gift cards for 5-star reviews you can milk that for awhile and spread the word to others who are also in on the scheme.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Unfortunately they don't seem to advertise the gift card. Maybe there should be a site with current gift card offers - call it something like reviewbribes.com?
    - OJFord 6y ago
      And do we use that site to avoid dodgy products/companies, or to 'side hustle' (god I hate that) reviewing and returning?!
      - Buttons840 6y ago
        Both. Those in on the hustle will do the work to keep the site updated (making money in the process). Everyone else just uses it to spot fake reviews.
        rzzzt 6y ago
        A review review site, then.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        6y ago
merb 6y ago
btw. in germany there was a video that 3rd party sellers are sending inventory to specific people, because its cheaper to gift it to somebody instead of destroying/trashing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT4IJYzbMi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT4IJYzbMi0
- resoluteteeth 6y ago
  I don't know German but there is also "brushing" where the products are bought and sent to an unrelated party so that the seller can leave verified reviews (as opposed to as a method of disposing of unwanted inventory).
dheera 6y ago
Someone I know made easier money by listing Amazon-available products on eBay and selling them there for higher prices. They didn't even need inventory, they just got them with Prime shipping after a purchase on eBay. People are stupid. On eBay before buying stuff I always ask the seller if they can beat the Amazon price - 5% cashback that I get on Amazon, or deduct CA sales tax in their price if the product is available on B&H. If they can't beat that I buy on Amazon / B&H.
- Buttons840 6y ago
  Eww. Meanwhile someone is out there saying "I refuse to support Amazon, I buy stuff on ebay even if it costs a little more."
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    Isn't it great when somebody's ethics are seen as an arbitrage opportunity by somebody else? It's almost like that whole "voting with your wallet" idea is incorrect.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Not incorrect, just not universally effective.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    Or could just be impulse buyers on eBay.
- mikequinlan 6y ago
  People do this with Walmart and Amazon -- they list products at higher prices on Amazon and when people order it, they drop ship it from Walmart.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    And Home Depot / Lowes. Every small tool I look for is cheaper there than on Amazon. Often by 1/3 or more. Same brand or better in most cases. And also with free shipping.
csnover 6y ago
> The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a 5-star review. That may well be worth it for the company, so I'm not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse. Sometimes when I see a product being sold FBA I will do a search on Alibaba (they’re always on Alibaba) to find the wholesale price. I’ve found that the markup on most products is high enough that if a seller were to give every buyer $20, they’d still be making money.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  You won't get 2 days delivery but you can probably buy two dozens for the same price.
  - pishpash 6y ago
    Then you'd be a seller. They buy bulk on Alibaba, store it in near warehouses (FBA) and parcel out single sales at a higher price.
ben174 6y ago
Alter your review after the reward has been issued.
ineedasername 6y ago
guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme Maybe not in the short term, but in the long term it could. There are already things I haven't purchased because the review contents just didn't seem right, lots of 5 star and 1 star, practically no 3 or 4 star. I can't be the only one, and the situation is only getting worse.
- gowld 6y ago
  So? You not buying a product that you wouldn't have bought anyway if the reviews were honest, doesn't hurt the merchant. What might hurt amazon ia if people who buy junk get mad and reduce overall Amazon shopping even for good products.
- esyir 6y ago
  I'll say that this is less an issue with amazon and more an issue with the overall culture. Anecdotally, I've noticed a move from score based metrics to binary like/dislike based metrics. Thus, reviews also take a binary 5 star: I loved it. or 1 star: I didn't approach.
CGamesPlay 6y ago
So, once you start doing this in bulk the seller is going to stop honoring their agreement to send you gift cards. What happens when you report the seller for that? Does Amazon remove the seller? Remove you for admitting to leaving fake reviews?

pc86 6y ago

Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.

toxik 6y ago
... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!
- jrockway 6y ago
  There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this. It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won't actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain. Seems silly to me. (Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that's a strong argument to not do it.)
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
  - jdmichal 6y ago
    If you've never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin's Playing to Win. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ Specifically the chapter "Introducing... the Scrub" discusses exactly this sentiment. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub > In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.
    - cafard 6y ago
      If you are applying this to computer games, I see your point. If you are applying it to 5-star reviews for $20, then I disagree. (Luigi Barzini mentions an Italian book on card-playing--written, I think, by a clergyman--that begins "Always try to see your opponents' cards." He was trying to point out the light value to that Italians assign to official rules.)
      - jdmichal 6y ago
        But this is life, and there's not really a difference between "arbitrary rule system designed for a game" and "arbitrary rule system designed for 5-star reviews". They're both just "arbitrary rules", and some people are going to Play to Win. So what are you going to do about them?
        brendoelfrendo 6y ago
        This is what the guillotine was invented to solve.
        6y ago
  - martamorena918 6y ago
    This has nothing to do with unwillingness to exploit. If you would get a 1 million dollar coupon by leaving a 5 star review, almost everyone would do it (except perhaps billionaires). The thing is: Everybody has a price, but what that price is, is always different. The less money I have, the more incentive I have to take advantage of these schemes. For me, the effort of earning 20$ this way would make this a few hundred dollars net loss (compared to working my job instead). So yeah, give me a 1000$ coupon and I am game! For the same reason, I rarely return items I buy if they are in the under 50$ category, or write negative reviews for products that suck. It's just a waste of time, considering time is the most precious resource, and it is also money. I often write positive reviews for products that amaze me (doesn't happen too often), but here the product gave me so much value that I am willing to spend my time for this.
    - gowld 6y ago
      You post on HN, so obviously you have plenty of free time that could be given to help your fellow shoppers and quality merchants.
  - topkai22 6y ago
    The point of a game isn't to win, its to have fun. A certain character may disrupt the mechanics of the game that are the most fun to a subgroup of players. To take it to an extreme, let's say a character is introduced to a fighting game and this character will win as soon as the "A" button is pressed. Now whatever fun people were doing to win in the game before is gone. In order to win, you just have to pick this super-character and hit the A button. Doesn't sound very fun to me. At a deeper level, that people won't "exploit the brokenness for their own gain" is key to a functioning society. Just as the promise of laying out rules in detail (expert systems) failed to capture the complexity required to get high-functioning AI, societies can not function by formal rules (laws and regulations) alone. There are sorts of complexities about norms, mores, and moral codes that are important to keep societies and organizations running. What is expected behavior when everyone is queued up to buy tickets at an event, but there is no formal sign saying "please queue here"? I mean you could audiciously walk up, stand next to the person in front of the line, and then walk up to the windows when they say "next please" and not be breaking any written rule, but everyone sure would be angry, and if everyone did it you'd have near total anarachy where the pushiest or strongest always got to the front of the line first. One of the biggest problems with internet scale is that its pretty easy to start running into individuals who ARE ok with exploiting the rules, or just ignoring them. This can be because they are from societies with different norms than the one they are encountering online, or just because they are in the small minority of people who just don't care. This effect is aided and abetted by the relative anonymity online. If you cut in line, people who you can see and here are going to yell at you right now. Break the social norm (or actual policy) of not paying for reviews and you'll most likely just get a strongly worded letter and possible ban on selling (which is easy enough to get around). In short though, not exploiting a broken rule or system just because its broken isn't silly. Its the a huge part of having a functioning society.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Well, with game you have to be careful to distinguish between behavior unintended by developers and intentional design. The Street Fighter series has had any number of opportunities to "fix" behavior that some players consider "cheap" or an exploit. Developers have kept them in. If using those moves deprives another player of fun, that doesn't mean it shod be removed. There is always a winner and a loser, and someone who loses repeatedly to the same technique isn't any more entitled to the fun of winning. Winning is not meant to be a resource evenly divided among all players. Winning is predicated on skill, which is also not evenly divided among all players. Given effective counters, which always exist, calling other players cheap for having developed a novel play style amounts to a sense of winning as entitlement rather than earned. Again, the above presupposes intentional design, or judgement that emergent behavior nonetheless keeps gameplay in balance..
  - theamk 6y ago
    Yes, this is called “not being a jerk”. Doing something which is technically legal, benefits you, but causes other players to “hate playing” is not a good long term strategy. This normally ends with either the person being rejected, or, if the rest of people are nice, the group itself disbanding. Nothing silly about this.

willhslade 6y ago

I’ve been party to this scheme incidentally and the antenna I bought mentioned that they would only honour one purchase for a discount.

Buttons840 6y ago
But how many products/companies are doing this? If there's 500 different products/companies offering $20 gift cards for 5-star reviews you can milk that for awhile and spread the word to others who are also in on the scheme.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Unfortunately they don't seem to advertise the gift card. Maybe there should be a site with current gift card offers - call it something like reviewbribes.com?
  - OJFord 6y ago
    And do we use that site to avoid dodgy products/companies, or to 'side hustle' (god I hate that) reviewing and returning?!
    - Buttons840 6y ago
      Both. Those in on the hustle will do the work to keep the site updated (making money in the process). Everyone else just uses it to spot fake reviews.
      - rzzzt 6y ago
        A review review site, then.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        6y ago

merb 6y ago

btw. in germany there was a video that 3rd party sellers are sending inventory to specific people, because its cheaper to gift it to somebody instead of destroying/trashing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT4IJYzbMi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT4IJYzbMi0

resoluteteeth 6y ago
I don't know German but there is also "brushing" where the products are bought and sent to an unrelated party so that the seller can leave verified reviews (as opposed to as a method of disposing of unwanted inventory).

dheera 6y ago

Someone I know made easier money by listing Amazon-available products on eBay and selling them there for higher prices. They didn't even need inventory, they just got them with Prime shipping after a purchase on eBay. People are stupid. On eBay before buying stuff I always ask the seller if they can beat the Amazon price - 5% cashback that I get on Amazon, or deduct CA sales tax in their price if the product is available on B&H. If they can't beat that I buy on Amazon / B&H.

Buttons840 6y ago
Eww. Meanwhile someone is out there saying "I refuse to support Amazon, I buy stuff on ebay even if it costs a little more."
- MereInterest 6y ago
  Isn't it great when somebody's ethics are seen as an arbitrage opportunity by somebody else? It's almost like that whole "voting with your wallet" idea is incorrect.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Not incorrect, just not universally effective.
- ballenf 6y ago
  Or could just be impulse buyers on eBay.
mikequinlan 6y ago
People do this with Walmart and Amazon -- they list products at higher prices on Amazon and when people order it, they drop ship it from Walmart.
- ballenf 6y ago
  And Home Depot / Lowes. Every small tool I look for is cheaper there than on Amazon. Often by 1/3 or more. Same brand or better in most cases. And also with free shipping.

csnover 6y ago

> The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a 5-star review. That may well be worth it for the company, so I'm not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse. Sometimes when I see a product being sold FBA I will do a search on Alibaba (they’re always on Alibaba) to find the wholesale price. I’ve found that the markup on most products is high enough that if a seller were to give every buyer $20, they’d still be making money.

Aperocky 6y ago
You won't get 2 days delivery but you can probably buy two dozens for the same price.
- pishpash 6y ago
  Then you'd be a seller. They buy bulk on Alibaba, store it in near warehouses (FBA) and parcel out single sales at a higher price.

ben174 6y ago

Alter your review after the reward has been issued.

ineedasername 6y ago

guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme Maybe not in the short term, but in the long term it could. There are already things I haven't purchased because the review contents just didn't seem right, lots of 5 star and 1 star, practically no 3 or 4 star. I can't be the only one, and the situation is only getting worse.

gowld 6y ago
So? You not buying a product that you wouldn't have bought anyway if the reviews were honest, doesn't hurt the merchant. What might hurt amazon ia if people who buy junk get mad and reduce overall Amazon shopping even for good products.
esyir 6y ago
I'll say that this is less an issue with amazon and more an issue with the overall culture. Anecdotally, I've noticed a move from score based metrics to binary like/dislike based metrics. Thus, reviews also take a binary 5 star: I loved it. or 1 star: I didn't approach.

CGamesPlay 6y ago

So, once you start doing this in bulk the seller is going to stop honoring their agreement to send you gift cards. What happens when you report the seller for that? Does Amazon remove the seller? Remove you for admitting to leaving fake reviews?