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I don't understand what you guys are purchasing and how the experience is so different if this is a real probability. I've had an Amazon account at this point s

I don't understand what you guys are purchasing and how the experience is so different if this is a real probability. I've had an Amazon account at this point since the late 90s, been a Prime member I think since 2004, wouldn't be surprised if I've exceeded six figures in total purchases after a quarter century considering several degrees worth of textbooks, furniture, appliances, clothing, the fact that both my family and my wife's family have been putting kids birthday and Christmas wish lists on there for close to a decade now. I have never once been bribed to leave a review. Obviously, this does actually happen, but it buggers belief that 1 in 10 is a real expectation and yet it never happens over the course of thousands of purchases in over 20 years. Unless there is something special about Great Britain in particular. I'm not saying I trust the reviews on Amazon, but why even read them? I'm trying to think of purchases I made recently of stuff that actually mattered. I got all of my Minisforum Ryzen small-form factor PCs for my homelab cluster. Le Creuset cookware to stock my kitchen. I think I probably got the Dyson v7 Fluffy that's sitting in the corner of my room staring at me right now. My wife got our Litter Robot boxes from Amazon. When a bunch of my DeWalt power tools got stolen, I actually tried to restock from Home Depot, but they were out of a bunch of shit and Amazon wasn't. All of my Aruba Instant-On access points came from Amazon. Clearly, not everything is reputable and you should avoid certain categories of things. I know my wife was trying to get skin care products from there at some point and says it was all obvious knock offs that were watered down and she could get the same stuff but actually real from department stores and just started doing that. But best I can tell, high quality durable goods from well-known brands sold by the actual brand with pre-existing reputations are perfectly fine. Go to Gamer's Nexus or L1 Techs if you want honest word on the best PC parts. My dad was a plumber for 45 years. If I want to know what brand of tools to get, I ask him.

NikkiA 3y ago
This has pretty much been my experience too, although I only read the low-star and 4-star reviews, I assume everything 5-star is fake/bought (or someone that hasn't put much real thought into the review). I suspect it largely comes down to the brands purchased, the shadier brands will be lower quality, and more likely to be underhanded, with the more respectable brands being less likely to bribe, and more likely to be 'reasonable to good' quality. All that said, I do purchase no-name brand chinese products occasionally, but have never really had much of an issue with that other than the occasional 'didn't arrive'.

NikkiA 3y ago

This has pretty much been my experience too, although I only read the low-star and 4-star reviews, I assume everything 5-star is fake/bought (or someone that hasn't put much real thought into the review). I suspect it largely comes down to the brands purchased, the shadier brands will be lower quality, and more likely to be underhanded, with the more respectable brands being less likely to bribe, and more likely to be 'reasonable to good' quality. All that said, I do purchase no-name brand chinese products occasionally, but have never really had much of an issue with that other than the occasional 'didn't arrive'.