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"As many as 30 percent to 40 percent of online reviews are fabricated or otherwise not genuine," LOL. Put a decent or at least nearly decent product on sale o

"As many as 30 percent to 40 percent of online reviews are fabricated or otherwise not genuine," LOL. Put a decent or at least nearly decent product on sale on Amazon. Accrue positive reviews. Switch product to pile of cac. Positive reviews sell pile of shite. I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Otherwise I am allowing Amazon to treat me and their other customers like a twat, which they do, with monotonous regularity. It would be nice if Amazon didn't treat me and everyone else as twats. They will continue to manage to make more money than pure avarice in its wildest dreams could contemplate. You do have to wonder what on earth happens at a board meeting in these monsters.

fsckboy 3y ago
>I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. specify what? that you bought it?
- Bawoosette 3y ago
  Presumably, they specify what the product was that they bought, in case the product listing is changed in the future.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    ah, i gotcha
- Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
  Probably exactly what they bought. So when the item gets switched for something different, it stands out more.
dotnet00 3y ago
Amazon typically shows the review date, which helps with that sort of thing. I usually pay more attention to more recent reviews when assessing an item's quality.
- Derbasti 3y ago
  Also, just don't read five-star reviews. Whether fake or not, they won't contain any interesting information. The important insight is invariably in the "negative" one-to-four star range.
  - gorbachev 3y ago
    My Amazon shopping experience works like this. Find products I'm interested in using their search. This is harder than it sounds, because Amazon's search is horrible. Filter results by aggregate user ratings. Only consider anything 4.5 stars or higher. In rare cases when product is more niche or I know people have unrealistic expectations and leave reviews like: "coffee maker didn't brush my teeth, 1 star" I make an exception. Filter remaining products by number of orders. Products with high aggregate rating and lots of orders are far more likely to be better. Then after all that read a few of the negative reviews to see if there are any systemic flaws, e.g. poor hinges that give out quickly. Then I pick the cheapest product out of the remaining ones. Usually...unless, like a good consumer, I'm addicted to a particular brand.
aaronbrethorst 3y ago
From the article: The rules also forbid a few more shady tactics such as review “hijacking.” That’s when a merchant takes a product listing page filled with legitimate reviews and swaps in a different product that those customers never actually used. (Earlier this year, the FTC made its first enforcement action for this practice, fining a supplement maker $600,000 for doing this on Amazon.)
- stefan_ 3y ago
  Why is the FTC doing Amazons job for them? Fine Amazon until they fix this shit.
  - superturkey650 3y ago
    How would Amazon generally know if a product has been switched out with an inferior product on the same listing?
    - djur 3y ago
      They could inspect the goods that they sell like a normal retailer.
      - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
        So drop shipping is illegal then?
        djur 3y ago
        Drop shipping from a huge number of barely-vetted vendors should be legally risky, yes.
    - godelski 3y ago
      Well the product title and pictures change, don't they? If your semantic meaning of the product change significantly and/or your images do, then it gets automatically flagged. Seems like not too difficult of a machine learning problem. Hell, you could do a lot of it without ML.
DropInIn 3y ago
Just a note for those who didn't consider the following: Theres likely plenty of businesses which have legitimately engaged and not pulled the switch, but you would still receive the counterfeit product due to the manner in which Amazon handles and fulfills orders (big bin of products from any vendor that labels thier product as X without any checking to validate it's legitimacy).
daniel-cussen 3y ago
Worst is when they insult you by changing a legitimate name like "Polo" to the glaringly knock-off name "Pölo" after the fact, to manipulate users (this happened to me) into blame themselves for falling for such a blatant typo. Like i had to stoy using them entirely, n if they make huge piles of money, like at least they don't make that n a tiny additional amount from me. Like in many ways not crappy but very hit n miss, like too problematic.
koolba 3y ago
Wouldn’t Amazon be trivially able to detect this when the weight / dimensions of the product completely changes? Though I guess they don’t care because they get their cut. I don’t even think they pay for the returns as they’d pass that on to the seller.
- notfed 3y ago
  Seems trivial by simply showing a timeline of star ratings. I imagine Amazon is incentivized against such self-incrimination.
AnonCoward42 3y ago
> I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Thank you! There is no way of knowing otherwise. This is also true for genuine listings where multiple versions are offered. There is also a more general problem with this because this is also true for OEMs using the same name for fastly different products (i.e. router with different SoC, TVs with different panel technologies, SSDs with different controller and/or cache). And in that case it's just hard to even leave a proper review because you might not know that other versions exist and how to distinguish. The issue is mostly the same and the intention is often also the same (but not necessarily).
heavyset_go 3y ago
> I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Otherwise I am allowing Amazon to treat me and their other customers like a twat, which they do, with monotonous regularity. Amazon banned me from leaving reviews years ago because I'd leave negative reviews when I had negative experiences with the products I bought. Turns out they don't like that, and it leaves me wondering how many bad reviews go unseen because they're blocked from being written in the first place.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  Sellers routinely ship large items in their original packaging. Things like air conditioners. Amazon does not allow any mention of shipping or packaging in the reviews. So consumers that continually receive damaged items can't warn other buyers about the high likelyhood of receiving the item damaged because it wasn't packaged properly. The seller knows they don't have to respond to complaints because of the enormous hurdle of sending the items back. The customers just bang the sheet metal back in place, replace any broken components, and install it to avoid anymore hassle (hey! We'll send you a new damaged one!).
noduerme 3y ago
Walk down a street market at night in Thailand and look at the warez on sale at the tables. Every single thing you see that looks like it's from a brand is counterfeit. Every movie or program is pirated. And the home utensils? Don't put those in the microwave, and definitely don't let your baby play with them. I know we all think of Amazon as an American company that sells legitimate products like books, but why should we have thought it would be any different from a 2nd or 3rd world marketplace? There's no harm to it once you view it with the same level of suspicion that any average Thai person views the home goods sold on the street. The only issue is that Americans aren't adapted to thinking critically about what they're being sold. They're adapting, and they will learn, because they're no longer a first world country. TL;DR: It's not that you're being treated like a twat, it's that you actually are a twat if you're still trying to buy shit on Amazon.
- code_duck 3y ago
  I've increasingly wondered about counterfeit items not only from Amazon but in local stores. After someone left a tobacco vape pen at my house I decided to buy some of my own. I went to a couple local liquor stores and purchased some Elfbars. Apparently stores often ask that you sample it before leaving to make sure it works as they don't take returns. Okay. At both stores the clerk opened the box, removed the packaging and handed it to me... while throwing away the box. I realized that the boxes have holograms, QR codes and serial numbers to check authenticity. So, I bought another and asked to keep the box. Checked the QR, and sure enough it went to a dead website "e1fbar.com", obviously not legitimate. I entered the serial on the real website and it said it was not authentic, too. Word online is that a huge amount of these products are counterfeit - Elfbar says they have helped identify and shut down over 120 organizations selling fake products. So it makes me wonder, is everything else these store sell legitimate? What's to stop them from selling counterfeit liquor and cigarettes?
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Hey, just from personal experience, don't smoke fake vapes. I ended up in the hospital with a golf ball sized ...thing... blocking my esophagus, which was initially thought to be cancer, and I was told I had 3 months to live, but it turned out to be a reaction to some shit in an unmarked vape from China. I lost a lot of weight. This was about 10 years ago when basically all vapes were sketchy and off-brand, and I thought it was a great idea to quit smoking and become an early adopter. I'm completely fine now and back to cigarettes. Seriously, don't inhale it if you have any doubts as to its origin. Oh but like per your question... who's gonna defend anyone from an unscrupulous butcher selling someone cat meat, and stuff, Like, no one. That's how it is everywhere else in the world. Amazon is just a rampant zoo of it all in one place, exposing all this deadly garbage to naive first worlders for the first time... but it's just backwash.
jacquesm 3y ago
> You do have to wonder what on earth happens at a board meeting in these monsters. 'Dogma', board meeting scene.
Waterluvian 3y ago
Amazon engineers might be complacent and docile but they’re not incompetent. This could be fixed so easily if management willed it so.

fsckboy 3y ago

>I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. specify what? that you bought it?

Bawoosette 3y ago
Presumably, they specify what the product was that they bought, in case the product listing is changed in the future.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  ah, i gotcha
Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
Probably exactly what they bought. So when the item gets switched for something different, it stands out more.

dotnet00 3y ago

Amazon typically shows the review date, which helps with that sort of thing. I usually pay more attention to more recent reviews when assessing an item's quality.

Derbasti 3y ago
Also, just don't read five-star reviews. Whether fake or not, they won't contain any interesting information. The important insight is invariably in the "negative" one-to-four star range.
- gorbachev 3y ago
  My Amazon shopping experience works like this. Find products I'm interested in using their search. This is harder than it sounds, because Amazon's search is horrible. Filter results by aggregate user ratings. Only consider anything 4.5 stars or higher. In rare cases when product is more niche or I know people have unrealistic expectations and leave reviews like: "coffee maker didn't brush my teeth, 1 star" I make an exception. Filter remaining products by number of orders. Products with high aggregate rating and lots of orders are far more likely to be better. Then after all that read a few of the negative reviews to see if there are any systemic flaws, e.g. poor hinges that give out quickly. Then I pick the cheapest product out of the remaining ones. Usually...unless, like a good consumer, I'm addicted to a particular brand.

aaronbrethorst 3y ago

From the article: The rules also forbid a few more shady tactics such as review “hijacking.” That’s when a merchant takes a product listing page filled with legitimate reviews and swaps in a different product that those customers never actually used. (Earlier this year, the FTC made its first enforcement action for this practice, fining a supplement maker $600,000 for doing this on Amazon.)

stefan_ 3y ago
Why is the FTC doing Amazons job for them? Fine Amazon until they fix this shit.
- superturkey650 3y ago
  How would Amazon generally know if a product has been switched out with an inferior product on the same listing?
  - djur 3y ago
    They could inspect the goods that they sell like a normal retailer.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      So drop shipping is illegal then?
      - djur 3y ago
        Drop shipping from a huge number of barely-vetted vendors should be legally risky, yes.
  - godelski 3y ago
    Well the product title and pictures change, don't they? If your semantic meaning of the product change significantly and/or your images do, then it gets automatically flagged. Seems like not too difficult of a machine learning problem. Hell, you could do a lot of it without ML.

DropInIn 3y ago

Just a note for those who didn't consider the following: Theres likely plenty of businesses which have legitimately engaged and not pulled the switch, but you would still receive the counterfeit product due to the manner in which Amazon handles and fulfills orders (big bin of products from any vendor that labels thier product as X without any checking to validate it's legitimacy).

daniel-cussen 3y ago

Worst is when they insult you by changing a legitimate name like "Polo" to the glaringly knock-off name "Pölo" after the fact, to manipulate users (this happened to me) into blame themselves for falling for such a blatant typo. Like i had to stoy using them entirely, n if they make huge piles of money, like at least they don't make that n a tiny additional amount from me. Like in many ways not crappy but very hit n miss, like too problematic.

koolba 3y ago

Wouldn’t Amazon be trivially able to detect this when the weight / dimensions of the product completely changes? Though I guess they don’t care because they get their cut. I don’t even think they pay for the returns as they’d pass that on to the seller.

notfed 3y ago
Seems trivial by simply showing a timeline of star ratings. I imagine Amazon is incentivized against such self-incrimination.

AnonCoward42 3y ago

> I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Thank you! There is no way of knowing otherwise. This is also true for genuine listings where multiple versions are offered. There is also a more general problem with this because this is also true for OEMs using the same name for fastly different products (i.e. router with different SoC, TVs with different panel technologies, SSDs with different controller and/or cache). And in that case it's just hard to even leave a proper review because you might not know that other versions exist and how to distinguish. The issue is mostly the same and the intention is often also the same (but not necessarily).

heavyset_go 3y ago

> I do occasionally bother to leave a review for a product I have bought and I always specify it. Otherwise I am allowing Amazon to treat me and their other customers like a twat, which they do, with monotonous regularity. Amazon banned me from leaving reviews years ago because I'd leave negative reviews when I had negative experiences with the products I bought. Turns out they don't like that, and it leaves me wondering how many bad reviews go unseen because they're blocked from being written in the first place.

datavirtue 3y ago
Sellers routinely ship large items in their original packaging. Things like air conditioners. Amazon does not allow any mention of shipping or packaging in the reviews. So consumers that continually receive damaged items can't warn other buyers about the high likelyhood of receiving the item damaged because it wasn't packaged properly. The seller knows they don't have to respond to complaints because of the enormous hurdle of sending the items back. The customers just bang the sheet metal back in place, replace any broken components, and install it to avoid anymore hassle (hey! We'll send you a new damaged one!).

noduerme 3y ago

Walk down a street market at night in Thailand and look at the warez on sale at the tables. Every single thing you see that looks like it's from a brand is counterfeit. Every movie or program is pirated. And the home utensils? Don't put those in the microwave, and definitely don't let your baby play with them. I know we all think of Amazon as an American company that sells legitimate products like books, but why should we have thought it would be any different from a 2nd or 3rd world marketplace? There's no harm to it once you view it with the same level of suspicion that any average Thai person views the home goods sold on the street. The only issue is that Americans aren't adapted to thinking critically about what they're being sold. They're adapting, and they will learn, because they're no longer a first world country. TL;DR: It's not that you're being treated like a twat, it's that you actually are a twat if you're still trying to buy shit on Amazon.

code_duck 3y ago
I've increasingly wondered about counterfeit items not only from Amazon but in local stores. After someone left a tobacco vape pen at my house I decided to buy some of my own. I went to a couple local liquor stores and purchased some Elfbars. Apparently stores often ask that you sample it before leaving to make sure it works as they don't take returns. Okay. At both stores the clerk opened the box, removed the packaging and handed it to me... while throwing away the box. I realized that the boxes have holograms, QR codes and serial numbers to check authenticity. So, I bought another and asked to keep the box. Checked the QR, and sure enough it went to a dead website "e1fbar.com", obviously not legitimate. I entered the serial on the real website and it said it was not authentic, too. Word online is that a huge amount of these products are counterfeit - Elfbar says they have helped identify and shut down over 120 organizations selling fake products. So it makes me wonder, is everything else these store sell legitimate? What's to stop them from selling counterfeit liquor and cigarettes?
- noduerme 3y ago
  Hey, just from personal experience, don't smoke fake vapes. I ended up in the hospital with a golf ball sized ...thing... blocking my esophagus, which was initially thought to be cancer, and I was told I had 3 months to live, but it turned out to be a reaction to some shit in an unmarked vape from China. I lost a lot of weight. This was about 10 years ago when basically all vapes were sketchy and off-brand, and I thought it was a great idea to quit smoking and become an early adopter. I'm completely fine now and back to cigarettes. Seriously, don't inhale it if you have any doubts as to its origin. Oh but like per your question... who's gonna defend anyone from an unscrupulous butcher selling someone cat meat, and stuff, Like, no one. That's how it is everywhere else in the world. Amazon is just a rampant zoo of it all in one place, exposing all this deadly garbage to naive first worlders for the first time... but it's just backwash.

jacquesm 3y ago

> You do have to wonder what on earth happens at a board meeting in these monsters. 'Dogma', board meeting scene.

Waterluvian 3y ago

Amazon engineers might be complacent and docile but they’re not incompetent. This could be fixed so easily if management willed it so.