4 ms·

> And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those. This has to be a joke, right? It’s nearly impossible to filter

by yunwal 3y ago

> And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those. This has to be a joke, right? It’s nearly impossible to filter by legitimate unpaid-human reviews on Amazon.

crazygringo 3y ago
Of course it's not a joke. It's easy to filter for only negative reviews, and obviously none of the negative reviews are paid. If it's a popular product and all the negative reviews are dumb complaints about shipping speed, the product is probably fine. If all the negative reviews are about how the handle snaps off by the third time you use it, then don't buy it. It doesn't matter how many paid 5-star reviews there are.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  > If it's a popular product and I find it quite weird to acknowledge in one breath that positive reviews have been paid for while also assuming in the next that a product with many reviews is popular and hasn't just acquired the mass of its reviews fraudulently. What steps are involved in determining legitimate popularity?
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    I don't get your point. Amazon literally tells you things like "400+ people bought this in the past month". On top of category rankings like "#3 in iPad stands". It's easy to tell if it's popular or not, if it's something people are actively buying. If a product is bad, some of those people will be leaving negative reviews, regardless of the number of paid reviews. Does that make sense? Zero weird about it.
    - BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
      > Amazon literally tells you things like "400+ people bought this in the past month" Yeah, about that. People buy fake purchases for verified reviews too. The scam is a lot bigger than just spinning up dummy accounts. They make fake purchases, sometimes even ship empty boxes, and then switch the listing after a month when purchases are accumulated. You have no way to know that those "400 people" were actually 400 real human customers and not 400 fraudulent sales or how many months a particular listing has been consistent for without being switched. There are tons of websites, forums, and facebook groups all for doing this. I originally had linked some, but I don't actually want to drive traffic to them, so you can google or dig on facebook for "verified amazon reviews". And then when a person does leave a negative review, the seller contacts them and says "We'll refund you your money and send you a new one free if you take the review down." And they almost always either take their negative review down in exchange for the refund and free shitty item, because free is free, or update their review to complain about getting the offer, in which case Amazon itself takes the review down for being off topic.
      - crazygringo 3y ago
        A product that has been listed for 1 or 2 years, that's highly ranked in sales, with a ton of reviews all over the spectrum, is genuinely and legitimately popular. End of story. I don't care if they got 100 fake reviews via 100 fake purchases at first. If you're a human with a reasonably functioning BS detector, you can figure it out. It's not exactly rocket science.
        yunwal 3y ago
        > A product that has been listed for 1 or 2 years No way to filter on this. Also, sellers "edit" (read: completely change) their items all the time. > highly ranked in sales Faked all the time > a ton of reviews all over the spectrum Faked all the time. Yes, people pay for a few negative/middling reviews sprinkled in for exactly this purpose. Generally, reviews follow a few common statistical distributions, and sellers pay to match those distributions. There is literally no purpose in looking at any aggregation of amazon reviews. You can likely read an individual review and tell if it's real, but that's about it.
        crazygringo 3y ago
        Your argument makes as much sense as saying there is "literally no purpose" in reading books because authors can lie. You're missing the big picture which is that it all works pretty fine if you have a decent BS detector. > No way to filter on this. Who cares? Most listings showing in search results have been around for a while, and you check the date on each listing > Also, sellers "edit" (read: completely change) their items all the time No they don't. It happens occasionally, and it's quite clear that pre-existing top reviews are talking about a totally different item > Faked all the time You can't fake sales rankings for any substantial length of time, it would destroy all of your profit on the item and then some The truth is that while it can be economical for sellers to pay for some reviews/purchases at first to get a product listing off the ground, it can't be sustained. And listings can be switched to other products, but that's generally extremely obvious because the reviews and photos are for something entirely different. In the end, it's just not a problem if you pay attention at all.
- deleted 3y ago
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by yunwal 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago

Of course it's not a joke. It's easy to filter for only negative reviews, and obviously none of the negative reviews are paid. If it's a popular product and all the negative reviews are dumb complaints about shipping speed, the product is probably fine. If all the negative reviews are about how the handle snaps off by the third time you use it, then don't buy it. It doesn't matter how many paid 5-star reviews there are.

BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
> If it's a popular product and I find it quite weird to acknowledge in one breath that positive reviews have been paid for while also assuming in the next that a product with many reviews is popular and hasn't just acquired the mass of its reviews fraudulently. What steps are involved in determining legitimate popularity?
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I don't get your point. Amazon literally tells you things like "400+ people bought this in the past month". On top of category rankings like "#3 in iPad stands". It's easy to tell if it's popular or not, if it's something people are actively buying. If a product is bad, some of those people will be leaving negative reviews, regardless of the number of paid reviews. Does that make sense? Zero weird about it.
  - BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
    > Amazon literally tells you things like "400+ people bought this in the past month" Yeah, about that. People buy fake purchases for verified reviews too. The scam is a lot bigger than just spinning up dummy accounts. They make fake purchases, sometimes even ship empty boxes, and then switch the listing after a month when purchases are accumulated. You have no way to know that those "400 people" were actually 400 real human customers and not 400 fraudulent sales or how many months a particular listing has been consistent for without being switched. There are tons of websites, forums, and facebook groups all for doing this. I originally had linked some, but I don't actually want to drive traffic to them, so you can google or dig on facebook for "verified amazon reviews". And then when a person does leave a negative review, the seller contacts them and says "We'll refund you your money and send you a new one free if you take the review down." And they almost always either take their negative review down in exchange for the refund and free shitty item, because free is free, or update their review to complain about getting the offer, in which case Amazon itself takes the review down for being off topic.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      A product that has been listed for 1 or 2 years, that's highly ranked in sales, with a ton of reviews all over the spectrum, is genuinely and legitimately popular. End of story. I don't care if they got 100 fake reviews via 100 fake purchases at first. If you're a human with a reasonably functioning BS detector, you can figure it out. It's not exactly rocket science.
      - yunwal 3y ago
        > A product that has been listed for 1 or 2 years No way to filter on this. Also, sellers "edit" (read: completely change) their items all the time. > highly ranked in sales Faked all the time > a ton of reviews all over the spectrum Faked all the time. Yes, people pay for a few negative/middling reviews sprinkled in for exactly this purpose. Generally, reviews follow a few common statistical distributions, and sellers pay to match those distributions. There is literally no purpose in looking at any aggregation of amazon reviews. You can likely read an individual review and tell if it's real, but that's about it.
        crazygringo 3y ago
        Your argument makes as much sense as saying there is "literally no purpose" in reading books because authors can lie. You're missing the big picture which is that it all works pretty fine if you have a decent BS detector. > No way to filter on this. Who cares? Most listings showing in search results have been around for a while, and you check the date on each listing > Also, sellers "edit" (read: completely change) their items all the time No they don't. It happens occasionally, and it's quite clear that pre-existing top reviews are talking about a totally different item > Faked all the time You can't fake sales rankings for any substantial length of time, it would destroy all of your profit on the item and then some The truth is that while it can be economical for sellers to pay for some reviews/purchases at first to get a product listing off the ground, it can't be sustained. And listings can be switched to other products, but that's generally extremely obvious because the reviews and photos are for something entirely different. In the end, it's just not a problem if you pay attention at all.
deleted 3y ago
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