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I was like you. Prime member. Several purchases a month. Never had a problem with Amazon. Until I had a series of bad experiences. The first one was a wireless

I was like you. Prime member. Several purchases a month. Never had a problem with Amazon. Until I had a series of bad experiences. The first one was a wireless phone charging pad I bought. Skimmed through a gazillion options in the search listing. Found one with hundreds of good reviews. When it came, it looked much cheaper built than what I'd ordered and didn't work very well. I didn't seem to be able to place the phone anywhere that would consistently charge. Could have been a counterfeit. Returned it, which was a minor hassle (rebox it, get shipping tag, etc.). Then I went to look at the reviews, and now all the recent reviews were *BAD*. Like they had gone from 4.5 stars to 1 star. And the product was no longer for sale. I read more closely and realized all the old good reviews were for a completely different charging pad. When I searched for the item by name, I found a new listing with more great reviews. Yep, review fraud! The second issue was a power strip I bought. Plugs would not go into it! I opened it up and one of the parts was in backward. The sodering was extremely shoddy. At this point, I canceled Prime and walked away. I'm not going to be electrocuted or have my house burn down because Amazon is unable to stand behind the products they sell. I complained, but only got an offer to return the product for a refund. Never again. If I want to buy cheap shit, there's always eBay. It at least doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

kelnos 5y ago
> I read more closely and realized all the old good reviews were for a completely different charging pad. It completely boggles my mind that Amazon lets sellers completely change the product title, description, photos, and even product category on an existing listing and keep all the reviews and everything. I've seen weird things where the reviews for a product were talking about something completely different... like the listing being for a pet toy, but the reviews were talking about kitchen knives. It's just so obviously fraudulent.
- Closi 5y ago
  The rule is that it has to keep the item barcode (SKU). SKU recycling is common practice even among ‘legitimate’ sellers - agree that it’s completely ridiculous though. Amazon are aware it’s happening but ignoring it because it’s good for business. If they really cared about it they would do more than ban 600 sellers - given an afternoon I could put a big list of fraudulent products together because they are so easy to find, so it wouldn’t be difficult for Amazon to do the exact same.
  - okay475008 5y ago
    You should really have a correction in the title, because the problem is coming from american wholesale accounts that purchase things around 100mqo from ali warehouses, it's not chinese people talking in english and scamming english speaking consumers into buying cheap plastic bought for 2$ a piece sold for 20$ on amazon, that's purely american greed.
    - Closi 5y ago
      The title is correct - 600 Chinese brands were banned, and the reason for the ban was that the manufacturers were including incentives for leaving positive reviews within the product packaging. The issue isn't product quality in this particular instance, or buying something for $2 and selling it for $20, it's that these brands were including incentives to write fake Amazon reviews inside the packaging of the goods they manufacture.
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    Based on the experience below, that doesn't seem to be the case. Reviews for Klein bottles were hijacked and moved to apply to black-head remover. https://www.kleinbottle.com/Amazon_Brand_Hijacking.html https://www.kleinbottle.com/Amazon_Brand_Hijacking.html
    - Closi 5y ago
      I believe this has been done by setting up a SKU-Variant. The same-SKU technique is definitely correct - I was contracted to work on an inventory management system about 2 years ago and there were some requirements about how there might be different products with the same SKU barcode for this (unless it has changed since then). I'm not saying it's the right thing to do - but it's also just how being a large Amazon seller works. If you sell LiPo batteries on Amazon and have worked for 5 years to get lots of reviews and the top spot on the listings, and then your supplier discontinues your best-selling range, starting again with fresh listings can completely destroy your business. So you change suppliers and keep the same SKU and change the description. I'm not saying it's 'right', but unfortunately if you want to be an Amazon seller it's just what you have to do. There might be different techniques to do the same thing too though.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  This used to be the space that paper magazines handled, and to a limited extent orgs like Consumer Reports still do. "User" reviews are bullshit, and far too easy to game. And Amazon's system bodges together distinct products, so you can't even tell if you're reading a relevant review of the thing you want to buy or a different model/size/anything. I sometimes wonder if an independent review site would be a business idea. Crap merchants would avoid it anyway, but anyone with a solid product would get a tear down, lab report, subjective review, and objective performance details, with a couple of follow-up purchases just to check the product hadn't been substituted. Result would be high-value products standing out from the noise, with some objective reassurance for customers - which is the opposite of the Amazon model.

kelnos 5y ago

> I read more closely and realized all the old good reviews were for a completely different charging pad. It completely boggles my mind that Amazon lets sellers completely change the product title, description, photos, and even product category on an existing listing and keep all the reviews and everything. I've seen weird things where the reviews for a product were talking about something completely different... like the listing being for a pet toy, but the reviews were talking about kitchen knives. It's just so obviously fraudulent.

Closi 5y ago
The rule is that it has to keep the item barcode (SKU). SKU recycling is common practice even among ‘legitimate’ sellers - agree that it’s completely ridiculous though. Amazon are aware it’s happening but ignoring it because it’s good for business. If they really cared about it they would do more than ban 600 sellers - given an afternoon I could put a big list of fraudulent products together because they are so easy to find, so it wouldn’t be difficult for Amazon to do the exact same.
- okay475008 5y ago
  You should really have a correction in the title, because the problem is coming from american wholesale accounts that purchase things around 100mqo from ali warehouses, it's not chinese people talking in english and scamming english speaking consumers into buying cheap plastic bought for 2$ a piece sold for 20$ on amazon, that's purely american greed.
  - Closi 5y ago
    The title is correct - 600 Chinese brands were banned, and the reason for the ban was that the manufacturers were including incentives for leaving positive reviews within the product packaging. The issue isn't product quality in this particular instance, or buying something for $2 and selling it for $20, it's that these brands were including incentives to write fake Amazon reviews inside the packaging of the goods they manufacture.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  Based on the experience below, that doesn't seem to be the case. Reviews for Klein bottles were hijacked and moved to apply to black-head remover. https://www.kleinbottle.com/Amazon_Brand_Hijacking.html https://www.kleinbottle.com/Amazon_Brand_Hijacking.html
  - Closi 5y ago
    I believe this has been done by setting up a SKU-Variant. The same-SKU technique is definitely correct - I was contracted to work on an inventory management system about 2 years ago and there were some requirements about how there might be different products with the same SKU barcode for this (unless it has changed since then). I'm not saying it's the right thing to do - but it's also just how being a large Amazon seller works. If you sell LiPo batteries on Amazon and have worked for 5 years to get lots of reviews and the top spot on the listings, and then your supplier discontinues your best-selling range, starting again with fresh listings can completely destroy your business. So you change suppliers and keep the same SKU and change the description. I'm not saying it's 'right', but unfortunately if you want to be an Amazon seller it's just what you have to do. There might be different techniques to do the same thing too though.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
This used to be the space that paper magazines handled, and to a limited extent orgs like Consumer Reports still do. "User" reviews are bullshit, and far too easy to game. And Amazon's system bodges together distinct products, so you can't even tell if you're reading a relevant review of the thing you want to buy or a different model/size/anything. I sometimes wonder if an independent review site would be a business idea. Crap merchants would avoid it anyway, but anyone with a solid product would get a tear down, lab report, subjective review, and objective performance details, with a couple of follow-up purchases just to check the product hadn't been substituted. Result would be high-value products standing out from the noise, with some objective reassurance for customers - which is the opposite of the Amazon model.