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Fake Product Review Problem Persists For Amazon Customers
They can sputter and pontificate all they want about discouraging that sort of behavior but as long as the money keeps pouring in they will do squat. Much like claims from corporate polluters caught in the act or politicians of any sort it's all a bunch of hot air until people close their wallets.
Very comprehensive article. Deserves a more thorough reply than I have time to devote. First, everyone should bookmark the Fakespot site https://www.fakespot.com/ and do checks of every product they are considering purchasing at Amazon or every reservation they’re considering thru Trip Advisor. Using algorithms Fakespot scans every review submitted for the product and arrives at a “reliability” score. I have rarely been misled by its results - whether buying a new product or reserving a hotel room. On the contrary, when I haven’t checked with Fakespot I’ve often learned to my displeasure that I should have.
It doesn’t take rocket science to understand the myriad number of ways by which fake reviews can be submitted. I’ll neither defend nor chastise Amazon on that front. I don’t have that much insight into their gigantic operation. Partner in crime? Perhaps. Willing partner in crime? I very much doubt that. I enjoy submitting reviews on Amazon (and to a lesser extent at Trip Advisor), both of positive and negative nature. Amazon ranks reviews as “most helpful” to “least helpful”, as I suspect most already know. Until very recently, I would almost immediately have my critical reviews inundated by dozens of “not helpful” votes which I felt were of spurious origin. That had the effect of burying a good (but critical) review deep in the pack where it was unlikely to be read. A year or so ago, Amazon took away the “not helpful” button - recognizing, I think, that sellers were using that as a way to keep critical reviews from being widely read. Since than, my own reviews have climbed the ladder, with a number now occupying the top spot among specific product reviews.
Another thing Amazon now does that may not be widely known is to artificially bump higher reviews from reviewers like myself who have proven themselves over the years to be genuine / trustworthy reviewers. So, sometimes a new review of mine with no “helpful” votes as of yet will be placed at the top of the “most helpful” ranking, ahead of others that may already have received helpful votes. It cuts both ways. Readers have a better chance of seeing a reliable review first. And knowing that Amazon values my reviews a bit more than some others motivates me to write more and better ones.
Amazon does not take their responsibility in this area lightly. They do monitor reviews (for many reasons I assume) before allowing them to go up on the forum. It typically takes about 3 days now to have a review approved and posted, whereas in the early days reviews went up immediately. One regret, of sorts, is that whenever I’ve tried to slip the Fakespot link into one of my reviews (to alert readers to that resource), Amazon has killed the entire review because they do not allow links / references to outside sites to be included. However, when that has happened, they’ve allowed me to correct / resubmit the review.
I submit quite a few reviews (a dozen or more a year) on everything from bicycle accessories to movies. I want to help other shoppers make important buying decisions. And I genuinely enjoy writing. If not happy with an older review I’ll delete it, as I’ve done with dozens over the years. If I think it is a good one, I’ll continue to edit / revise it for weeks after the initial submission. This can be very time consuming. But the reward comes in the form of positive feedback from readers. Since “Googling” a product often leads to reading a review on Amazon, the audience is much wider than might at first appear.
I’ve had more time to look at @LewisBraham’s excellent linked article. The tactic of opening bogus accounts, buying large quantities of your own product with hard-to-trace gift cards and than gifting / delivering those cheap rubbish products to unsuspecting recipients (all to allow you to flood the Amazon site with “verified” fake reviews) is ingenious. It also helps answer a question I’ve long pondered: Why is it that the under-$30 products appear so often to bath in obviously fake reviews? (A couple of hopelessly worthless ice-cube trays comes to mind.)
Having a review designated “verified purchase” does give it priority over the “non-verified” ones. I like to think, however, that in the end, the “good guys” like myself who routinely submit honest and detailed product descriptions and ratings will win-out, especially since Amazon now prevents sellers from trashing negative reviews by inundating them with “not helpful” votes. Most of my reviews are of products bought at Amazon - meaning they receive the “verified purchase” designation.The exceptions are mostly used DVDs (often 20+ year-old classics) for which there’s often better prices elsewhere. Those who purchased their DVD thru Amazon will have their review initially ranked higher. In this case, however, the question of “brushing” seems rather pointless. How many sellers are going to bother mailing out dozens of unsolicited Blu-ray DVDs of Renee Fleming in Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera - priced at over $50?
Amazon customer reviews: many times very helpful, if used with caution.
Depending on the nature of what I'm buying I sometimes pay serious attention to the user reviews. Hank's right regarding the cheaper stuff... the grammar of many of those reviews is a dead giveaway as to the commercial and geographic source of the BS reviews.
On expensive items, for example a 30 amp emergency generator which I purchased about a year ago, the reviews were very important and valuable. It turned out that that particular generator is something of a favorite in the camper community, and there were many good ideas and suggestions in those reviews.
Another instance, of not-so-expensive purchases, concerns purchasing DVD sets of older PBS/BBC mystery series- Lord Peter Wimsey, Maigret, and Inspector Morse for example. Those DVD sets are available in quite a variety of formats and varying quality of the DVDs themselves. For instance, many are available quite inexpensively in the European vs the North American video format. Some sets have subtitles, others don't. With my severe hearing loss that's very important, and many reviewers advised regarding the sound quality and the availability of subtitles. I was also interested in buying the P.D. James series, but the reviews noted poor sound quality and no subtitles, so I passed on those.
With respect to playing European video formats ("Region 2") here in the US ("Region 1") , cheap but decent quality DVD players are available from Amazon for under $30 which are able to play ANY DVD "Region" format. The "Region" coding has nothing to do with technical issues- it's strictly a matter of allowing a VERY wide price differential for exactly the same DVD content as sold in different parts of the world.
For instance, there's a huge price differential for those DVD sets between the "European" vs the "North American" versions. Well worth the $26 for the extra DVD player when saving many times that amount on various DVD sets.
Lord Peter Wimsey (complete series): • North American "Region 1": $99.79 (and an Amazon "Choice", too!) • European "Region 2": $25.36 + $4 shipping.
Inspector Morse (complete series): • North American "Region 1": $899.90 (apparently "region 1" sets are not widely available) • European "Region 2": $29.36 + $9 shipping.
An interesting aspect of that whole situation is that North American merchants are supposedly restricted to selling only the North American format coded players. I checked our local Best Buy, and found that to be true, notwithstanding the fact that their website suggests otherwise. How Amazon does that is very interesting- something to do with quite a variety of merchants with quite a spread of rule-following, and located in many different geographical locations. Caveat emptor, for sure.
And a Christmas note, since it's that day- my wife really liked the the Lord Peter Wimsey DVD set, and I'm in good shape around here, at least for a little while.
Comments
They can sputter and pontificate all they want about discouraging that sort of behavior but as long as the money keeps pouring in they will do squat. Much like claims from corporate polluters caught in the act or politicians of any sort it's all a bunch of hot air until people close their wallets.
It doesn’t take rocket science to understand the myriad number of ways by which fake reviews can be submitted. I’ll neither defend nor chastise Amazon on that front. I don’t have that much insight into their gigantic operation. Partner in crime? Perhaps. Willing partner in crime? I very much doubt that. I enjoy submitting reviews on Amazon (and to a lesser extent at Trip Advisor), both of positive and negative nature. Amazon ranks reviews as “most helpful” to “least helpful”, as I suspect most already know. Until very recently, I would almost immediately have my critical reviews inundated by dozens of “not helpful” votes which I felt were of spurious origin. That had the effect of burying a good (but critical) review deep in the pack where it was unlikely to be read. A year or so ago, Amazon took away the “not helpful” button - recognizing, I think, that sellers were using that as a way to keep critical reviews from being widely read. Since than, my own reviews have climbed the ladder, with a number now occupying the top spot among specific product reviews.
Another thing Amazon now does that may not be widely known is to artificially bump higher reviews from reviewers like myself who have proven themselves over the years to be genuine / trustworthy reviewers. So, sometimes a new review of mine with no “helpful” votes as of yet will be placed at the top of the “most helpful” ranking, ahead of others that may already have received helpful votes. It cuts both ways. Readers have a better chance of seeing a reliable review first. And knowing that Amazon values my reviews a bit more than some others motivates me to write more and better ones.
Amazon does not take their responsibility in this area lightly. They do monitor reviews (for many reasons I assume) before allowing them to go up on the forum. It typically takes about 3 days now to have a review approved and posted, whereas in the early days reviews went up immediately. One regret, of sorts, is that whenever I’ve tried to slip the Fakespot link into one of my reviews (to alert readers to that resource), Amazon has killed the entire review because they do not allow links / references to outside sites to be included. However, when that has happened, they’ve allowed me to correct / resubmit the review.
I submit quite a few reviews (a dozen or more a year) on everything from bicycle accessories to movies. I want to help other shoppers make important buying decisions. And I genuinely enjoy writing. If not happy with an older review I’ll delete it, as I’ve done with dozens over the years. If I think it is a good one, I’ll continue to edit / revise it for weeks after the initial submission. This can be very time consuming. But the reward comes in the form of positive feedback from readers. Since “Googling” a product often leads to reading a review on Amazon, the audience is much wider than might at first appear.
How’s this for a “quick” response?
Having a review designated “verified purchase” does give it priority over the “non-verified” ones. I like to think, however, that in the end, the “good guys” like myself who routinely submit honest and detailed product descriptions and ratings will win-out, especially since Amazon now prevents sellers from trashing negative reviews by inundating them with “not helpful” votes. Most of my reviews are of products bought at Amazon - meaning they receive the “verified purchase” designation.The exceptions are mostly used DVDs (often 20+ year-old classics) for which there’s often better prices elsewhere. Those who purchased their DVD thru Amazon will have their review initially ranked higher. In this case, however, the question of “brushing” seems rather pointless. How many sellers are going to bother mailing out dozens of unsolicited Blu-ray DVDs of Renee Fleming in Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Metropolitan Opera - priced at over $50?
Depending on the nature of what I'm buying I sometimes pay serious attention to the user reviews. Hank's right regarding the cheaper stuff... the grammar of many of those reviews is a dead giveaway as to the commercial and geographic source of the BS reviews.
On expensive items, for example a 30 amp emergency generator which I purchased about a year ago, the reviews were very important and valuable. It turned out that that particular generator is something of a favorite in the camper community, and there were many good ideas and suggestions in those reviews.
Another instance, of not-so-expensive purchases, concerns purchasing DVD sets of older PBS/BBC mystery series- Lord Peter Wimsey, Maigret, and Inspector Morse for example. Those DVD sets are available in quite a variety of formats and varying quality of the DVDs themselves. For instance, many are available quite inexpensively in the European vs the North American video format. Some sets have subtitles, others don't. With my severe hearing loss that's very important, and many reviewers advised regarding the sound quality and the availability of subtitles. I was also interested in buying the P.D. James series, but the reviews noted poor sound quality and no subtitles, so I passed on those.
With respect to playing European video formats ("Region 2") here in the US ("Region 1") , cheap but decent quality DVD players are available from Amazon for under $30 which are able to play ANY DVD "Region" format. The "Region" coding has nothing to do with technical issues- it's strictly a matter of allowing a VERY wide price differential for exactly the same DVD content as sold in different parts of the world.
For instance, there's a huge price differential for those DVD sets between the "European" vs the "North American" versions. Well worth the $26 for the extra DVD player when saving many times that amount on various DVD sets.
Lord Peter Wimsey (complete series):
• North American "Region 1": $99.79 (and an Amazon "Choice", too!)
• European "Region 2": $25.36 + $4 shipping.
Inspector Morse (complete series):
• North American "Region 1": $899.90 (apparently "region 1" sets are not widely available)
• European "Region 2": $29.36 + $9 shipping.
An interesting aspect of that whole situation is that North American merchants are supposedly restricted to selling only the North American format coded players. I checked our local Best Buy, and found that to be true, notwithstanding the fact that their website suggests otherwise. How Amazon does that is very interesting- something to do with quite a variety of merchants with quite a spread of rule-following, and located in many different geographical locations. Caveat emptor, for sure.
And a Christmas note, since it's that day- my wife really liked the the Lord Peter Wimsey DVD set, and I'm in good shape around here, at least for a little while.
And wishing all of you a happy Christmas also!
OJ