Definitely. You can usually tell when it's a situation (a) where you can't please everyone or (b) a serious problem hidden by fake reviews. I try to put some thought into my reviews so that they can be identified as real (I hope). For example I bought cat food and did the review from the point of view of the cat if he could talk. I know exactly what he's thinking. Well usually.
@@origamiandcats6873 Unfortunately many fake reviewers copy and paste legitimate looking reviews from other (usually) similar products. Looking for ear buds I found a lot of reviews copied from product pages of Bose and other well known brands. If you didn't know better you'd think it was a well thought out review for that product.
Absolutely. Pay no attention to number of stars and ignore (or de-rate) positive reviews, and read the negative ones. Also be sure to sort the reviews by “most recent” so you can see reviews by buyers who have owned the product for a long time. That’s when problems happen, after the warranty expires.
In the same time you may end up reading fake negative reviews posted by competitors to catch someone like you. I personally don't know how to avoid scam like this but prefer to trust long detailed reviews more no matter of how much stars they give. It's also important to understand why someone reviewed the product in the first place. It more complicated than it might seem. People tend to leave negative reviews more often then positive thus if no fake reviews ever exist we would still be getting incorrect first impression about a product since most reviews would be negative. Also useful if reviewer explicitly states how long he/she uses the item and how. But it rarely happens. Unfortunately, good detailed reviews rarely happen. Even if the review is sincer but not detailed, it still useless
My favourite are the one's that buy a $20 product and then write a 3 or 4 star review saying it's a decent product but then 3 paragraphs about how it's not as good as the $100 version.
stacking 3 stars against 0 star raises the star rating. you just need more 3 star reviews than >3star reviews. think about how averages work. although 3stars is not best review, it makes it easier to offset to a 5star rating once you have out averaged the lower reviews.
Actually, that’s not true. Some companies offer you the option to purchase 3 and 4 star reviews to make you look less suspicious to Amazon. Amazon started trying to crack down on these a couple years ago (but they went about it poorly) when people where selling Amazon FBA courses teaching how to fake reviews. After Amazon sued the course creators people started selling all different star reviews because having enough 3 and 4 stars reviews protect them from algorithms. Currently, there are lawsuits to some companies for this. I work as a paralegal editor, however as some of these cases are not open to the public yet, Amazon has yet to take action on those being sued.
I purchased three shirts that had the "Amazon's Choice" banner on them. They were advertised to be 60% cotton & 40% polyester. When they arrived, they were 100% polyester. I tried to give them a two-star review explaining exactly why I was doing so without being mean or unnecessarily negative -- simply stating that the advertised material was not in fact the real material. Amazon then refused to publish my review. I have a long history of giving fair reviews on Amazon, but what is the point of having a review system if fair but low-star reviews are blocked by Amazon itself? How can you trust anything on their site if their "Amazon's Choice" is slapped on bogus and inferior products?
I am willing to accept that Amazon hast problems tracking all the fake reviews because of the massive scope, but simply refusing to even publish real reviews just because they're not that good is just outrageous!
@@rmm3803 well they don’t know, unless they actually buy that product. Or the 3rd party can give a 100% natural t-shift for Amazon to approve but then sell all polyester t-shirts on Amazon. I mean I’m not saying that’s what they did but it’s possible.
Lulzs. Pro tip, boys and girls: when someone like Jean gives you very vague anecodets, it's probz because they're giving you a very one-sided story. Jean was probably going full Karen in the comments, using slurs, and being unnecessarily aggressive and slanderous. Amazon is not in the business of arbirtarily removing negative reviews.
Supposedly the Levi's jeans I bought might be fake. The only reason I still use Amazon is there return policy. I figure I can always return it. Edit- since a like reminded me of this post. I had so many times Amazon messed up and blamed the rite aid(hub) I just closed my account. Amazon might be convenient but there's other options out there.
I got a card in a box I bought. It was at the very bottom of the box. Said “Leave us a 5 star rating and get $5.00” I reported it to amazon but nothing happened...
I have fallen for this once. It was a steam cleaner that I bought based on reviews. It leaked steam everywhere and was outright dangerous as one of the spots that was leaking steam was the handle that you were supposed to be holding the product by. I looked at the actual reviews and the top five star review said, "steam clean bathrooms" and that was it. I reported this to Amazon. No response. I tried to post MY OWN review with a VIDEO showing the product leaking steam everywhere and Amazon rejected my review, saying that it violates their terms of service. I am sincerely suspicious that some people at Amazon might be in on what's happening after that experience.
@@opinanlosjovenesrd3477 99% of everything on that site is from CHINA. To ask if it was or wasn't, as if you're going to find an American made version is F*CKING hillarious.
@@jeremymetcalf2502 wrong answer. The correct answer is, buy from anywhere but china. Us made is great, but not realistic. Now, I want you to review your study materials and be a good peasent and and try again tomorrow.
Thats usually because they are the same product from different people. What people do is shop from Alibaba or AliExpress and resell on Amazon. A lot of people actually made a lot of money doing this but as information got out more and more people do it until now there is just page after page of the exact same product. So for future purchases if the shipping time is too long for AliExpress just go with the cheapest listing on Amazon.
There's a new trend in online shopping, where the same item is sold at a variety of prices under several, different company names (regardless of who actually makes the item.) If you're searching for a better price for ABC Lamp (for example,) you won't find it, as the cheaper price is listed as XYZ Home Light. I had to use an image search to find the best price on an island light I recently purchased, and was only successful because it was a VERY unique design.
Because they may have bought it elsewhere. Some of my early reviews were of things I purchased elsewhere. I stopped posting those some years back, but o can see people wanting to recommend or warn others about a product they bought in person somewhere.
I've written reviews on Amazon for some items I bought elsewhere. I don't get any monetary gain but if it's a product I really like, I don't mind to promote it. I depend on reviews quite a bit, especially for shoes because I wear a 15 and can't hardly buy them in stores, so I appreciate people taking time to write quality reviews. Just trying to pay it forward.
Instead of having the button available on the item's page to "Leave Review," Amazon should remove that feature and only allow reviews of verified purchased items. That would cut nearly all, if not all, the faked reviews out. Have the review link be included in the purchased item's emailed receipt from Amazon or on the order from the Orders area.
I still remember the golden day of REAL reliable reviews on Amazon. It was around 2008 when online shopping was just emerging. Fake reviews happened at that time already. However, Amazon did an amazing effort to curb out the bad guys. As a result, increasing consumers' confidence has made them switching sides from Ebay by vast numbers. Now, Amazon reviews have become a big disappointment to me. Either Amazon has neglected the importance of reliable reviews or the bad reviews are just weed after every morning rain that can never be mown clean. Whatever the case may be, it is unacceptable. One day, this flaw will become an opportunity for another online shopping platform to crush Amazon.
One time I bought something from Amazon, and when I opened it there was a note inside saying if I gave a 5 star review, I would get $5 back. I didn't give it a 5 star review because I thought that was super shady and ever since then I've had a hard time trusting reviews
@@MM-xc2bt that’s exactly what i did! Amazon didn’t post my review. After the submission I received an email saying my review won’t be posted. I reworded and submitted again. The second time it was rejected immediately. It was for a supplement which review count grew thousands over night and they were offering free product in exchange for review. So now I think Amazon not only does nothing to stop but promote fake reviews.
At the same time though... you can't give 5 star and request a refund. lol So if they rely on real customers to give 5 star, then at least the product isn't trash. The reviews from fake customers are the real issue.
I purchased a USB microscope form a Chinese seller for use to view electronic circuits. It actually was an ok product but the direct light from the ring-formed light around the lenses made it hard to read text on chips. The company offered a free stand with two LED lights on flexible arms making it possible to get illumination from the sides, which would have been a great help. I just needed to send an email and ask for it. I send them a mail after which I got a mail back with a link to an Amazon side where I was supposed to write a review, take a screenshot, and forward it to the company. Needless to say, that I would NEVER click on a link in a mail, so I never got the stand. A pity actually because I was quite happy with the product.
I can’t tell you how many items I passed on buying because of negative reviews. To know that ppl post negative reviews on their competitors Amazon accounts to deter buyers is insane, it actually works and I may have passed up on pretty decent products because of those fake negative reviews
I try and look at multiple sites and read the reviews. This usually gives me a better perspective. I'm pretty sure Wayfair was doing this too because their products are crap. Yet they always had great reviews, I don't buy there anymore. I also avoid Amazon as much as possible.
I use a few tactics when I look at reviews. Sadly, my wife doesn't bother looking any deeper than the average rating. The first thing is to actually read a few of the top reviews. It's often pretty easy to spot fakes and paid ones. Second, to get a real perspective, switch to "recent" reviews instead of the highest rated ones. I wish there was a way to "exclude seller" from searches when you spot the companies committing fraud.
It’s absolutely brutal especially as a new seller on the platform. Customers don’t leave positive reviews nearly as frequently as ones who are unhappy. The “:) thank you” customer will leave a star rating at best usually, vs the “can I speak to your manager??” customer who needs the world to know they think this product stinks. In my opinion, the best way to start is by looking for a registered brand vs a brandless product. If there’s no brand, 99% of the time it’s cheaply made and Alibaba repackaged
I had a friend who wrote fake reviews for Amazon sellers to make some extra money in college. Ever since he told me that, I’ve taken 5 star reviews with a grain of salt.
Same here, I’m Chinese and many of my Chinese friends were introduced to making 5 star reviews. And my mother started doing it as well, since she can’t speak English so, I’m the one making the reviews. I feel sooo guilty for making this reviews.
Hah I got a product from amazon and in the product, they said if you put a 5 star review you can get a free product. I wrote about this in my review about the product, however it got pulled down!!!
This report missed one important aspect of reviews: Amazon's blind cancellations of legitimate reviewers. Thousands of people who care about the review process and faithfully take the time to write honest reviews are routinely banned from the review portion of Amazon and their years-long history of reviews is deleted. It is an automated process, and while they claim to have a review board, all messages are automated and there is no way to determine why you are banned or any possibility of pleading your case and being reinstated. So often, sellers offer reimbursement for reviews AFTER you purchase a product. Dealing with these companies will put you on the banned list even if you do not accept their offers! Once banned, that's it, you cannot undo it. If you get an offer for an incentive of any kind from a seller, DO NOT REVIEW THEIR PRODUCT!!! It is ruining the review process, but its so broken now anyway it really doesn't matter.
This happened to my account out of the blue, too. 13 years with no returns or tomfoolery and suddenly my account got nuked with no explanation. I got an automated email citing nebulous TOS violations, threatening to ban me for good if I tried to appeal. Even customer service will not respond to you by phone. I pity some of the self righteous people on these comment sections. If this happens to you, there's nothing you can do about it.
It isn't a review problem, it is an Amazon problem. The service and quality has dipped greatly in the last 5 years. It is also why I do not have an Amazon account anymore.
Amazon not only has a fake review problem, they have a "most of what they carry is now cheap garbage" problem. I rarely buy anything on Amazon any more, because the quality is worse than Walmart.
I would never buy electronics on Amazon either, mostly fake and refurbished stuff and the manufacturer warranty is invalid, so if it’s a lemon there’s no refund
All or almost all of the negative reviews on great material will be by people who are jealous of the success of the company and the quality of the product. Let me give you a totally random example: I like chess and want to step up my game. I heard about a chess book called Applying Logic in Chess that won 2nd place in a major book of the year award by the top ranked chess coach in the world, International Master Erik Kislik. Chess is a 100% science, where everything is proven, and the book has 20 Amazon sample pages, a 20 minute video explaining what is in the book, and 40 hours of free content up online by the author. In other words, there is no subjectivity at play. The best coach in the world, who is the fastest improver in the game, presents proven content that makes him the best coach in the world, published by the best chess company that exists in the game. So what do I see when I log into Amazon? Here are the negative reviews: 2 star: Review does not discuss the book (against Amazon's policies) and says the author is not an International Master. That is defamation, against Amazon's policies, and outright illegal and disgraceful, but up on Amazon, from an account with ONE review, only that one. They probably did this for legal reasons to try to protect themselves. 2 star: Review only says the book is not logical. No examples are given, and this violates the Amazon policy of "be critical of expertise only respectfully." This would be like reviewing a medical textbook and saying, "There is no medical advice in this book." Surely, even an 80 IQ person could not get tricked by that. It is not even a creative fake review. 1 star: Reviewer calls the Norwegian author Jewish, which is obviously hate speech and against Amazon's policies. No discussion of the book is made, but the author is attacked repeatedly. Completely and obvious against Amazon's policies, without even a slight doubt. 1 star: Reviewer says the book on chess is "boring." This is analogous to a medical textbook being called boring. Logically, would anyone buy the book who finds the material boring, especially after seeing 20 pages of the book in a sample and a 20 minute video? Of course not. Would anyone who finds chess boring buy this book? Of course not. That is why it is obviously a fake review. There is no indication that this person read the book, and they appear to be connected to a group of online trolls who targeted the book with fake one star reviews to taunt and mock Amazon. 1 star: A well-known chess troll named Vishnu Sreekumar, who was kicked out of the Washington DC Chess League for writing defamatory comments about a FIDE Master on Twitter, and caught cheating in a simultaneous exhibition against Grandmaster Sam Shankland, writes a scathing one star review. No details about the book are given, and you can find on his Twitter that he is making death threats to the author on there, as well as saying, "I am going to leave more one star reviews." His one star reviews are a form of straightforward threats and bullying to popular people in chess, and as a well-known cheater and defamer, this is par for the course for him. Amazon doesn't know any better and cannot identify this well-known troll as a troll. So how does Amazon get tricked by all of this? Well, it is an area outside of their area of expertise, and they refuse to respect their own policies. I am sure that everyone reading this can readily and easily agree that the only 5 negative reviews are OBVIOUSLY fake, without even a slight doubt, and OBVIOUSLY in violation on Amazon's policies, often 4 or 5 of them at once. See the problem here? It is extremely easy for some kind of hateful troll to use fake reviews as manipulation tactics and for bullying and abuse. Amazon needs to step up their game or they will be sued into oblivion. Since they are publishing the defamation, they are legally responsible. If you are reading this, please report all 5 of those fake reviews. This is pathetic. I'm an interested beginner chess player and whenever I go on Amazon, I see obviously fake reviews, that are blatantly in violation of their policies, and even obviously true to me as someone without much knowledge of the field. Amazon must do better. If this is happening on such a large scale in something as irrelevant as chess books, imagine what is happening elsewhere.
@@lillianmurphy3937 basic knowledge of business. No one who is rich has done so by being completely honest. All businessmen want profit and that's already getting over on someone in itself. Sure profit is important because you gotta make money but when you're charging 10x what a product is actually worth then that's just being greedy.
What I don't like about Amazon reviews is that they have taken away the ability to post responses to reviews, and there is no 'unhelpful' option to click, so if a fake or negative review is posted there is no way to call it out for being wrong.
Almost like it's not in their financial interest to allow people to talk bad about a product they're taking a 15% cut on. Inaccurate and shallow positive remarks from shills solicited with the promise of free stuff? That's fine. Almost like.... RU-vid? Owned by Google? Owned by Alphabet Inc, the world's biggest tech corporation? Who takes a % cut (unsure what) of each monetized video's ad revenue? Even if it's fake, harmful, inaccurate or simply worthless? Oh, you betcha!
A seller attempted to give me an extra $50 on a refund, if I left a 5 star review. I agreed to avoid the seller getting suspicious and immediately sent the screen shots of our conversation to Amazon. Amazon promptly reviewed the product and deleted the sellers account. I like money as much as the next but I do not like being lied to, and I was angry they misrepresented a product with bought reviews.
A seller is offering an Amazon $10 giftcard if I send a screenshot of a picture review, that has been approved by them already to appear on the site, of their product to them. Is this legitimate? The offer came with my product (which is 100% fabulous).
This “brushing” and “sock puppeting” happened to a friend of mine. Someone hacked her Amazon account and bought products with their own cc (never saved it, all we could see is the last 4 so she knew it was none of hers), sent them to her essentially for free, then wrote 5 star reviews on every product shipped. It was all for really obscure, cheap, and in essence trash products (many like alarm clocks didn’t even work). She tried to tell Amazon that someone was doing this and they (Amazon customer service) said they would fix it, but they never did despite her asking multiple times over the course of a year. It got so bad that she ended up deleting her account. She will never use Amazon again because of this. So not only are the reviews messed up and illegal activity going on, Amazon is not doing anything about it, nor do they care.
She should have edited all those reviews to one star and changed the text to some cut and paste "this company stole my account to make fake reviews" text.
There’s a lot of average middle men, there’s tutorials on yt on how to buy in stock for few cents and sell for x10 the price, then during a return they will not respond.
One day I left a bad review on a phone case that looked very different from the picture. And after that, Amazon wouldn't let me review any future products that I ordered. Something is fishy!
They just want control of reviews for themselves. TBH reviews are usless except for you using them to make sure the product isn't fake or just cheap crap. They think other sellers are taking their potential sales because of the reiviews. I don't buy it. No one, cares that much or reads that many reviews or even uses reviews in their judgement unless the reviews are all legitimately bad. They will just get rid of reviews and censor people then they can control the market. You see it seems like a ploy to try and silence people altogether much like they have here in the comments on YT.
Amazon: Don't post fake reviews! Fake Reviewer: **sells several million worth of product** Amazon: This is a great product! Just look at these reviews!!!
I'm trying to source products from outside of Amazon (UK for me)! e.g. in the past I would have just gone to Amazon to buy things like books, diaries etc, now I go to national chains and buy them from there - OK, I have to wait instead of getting it next day, but at least I know that the products should be good and covered by UK consumer laws!
This is a “news report” about a corporation that pays no tax in America and CNBC dedicated 16 minutes of air time to it. Ya’ll really think this is helpful? Also… what fake ass profile u using…. All in an Asian language with a Russian face…
This has been a problem for a long time. Now the masses are noticing. Any product that has majority 5 star reviews I give the side eye too. I'll read a few, then go down to the 1 star and work my way back up. If the lower stars are people complaining from what is clearly their own error then I'll probably buy it. Especially when the higher stars address any complications and offer solutions. But if the lower stars site real issues, and the 5 stars just say "I love it" or "it's great" without saying why it's probably a dud. Basically I judge a product based on the 3 & 4 star reviews.
The better solution - Don't buy anything from third party sellers. Just buy everything from original seller accounts. If it's unavailable or expensive buy same products from local stores. The reviews don't change anything and not too much work either.
I've been doing this since I began using amazon almost a decade ago. Yes it is a lot of detective work but I have no other way because where I live, there are no stores that have the product locally, hence why I am looking for it on amazon.
Today, one of Japan’s courts found guilty a case of fake review, whereby a person was paid 3-5USD to post bad reviews on a competitor’s product. Let’s see how the US follows.
Is it even only restricted to Amazon reviews ? There used to be lots of smart phone reviewers that are paid to attack their opponents brands. Even youtube comments can be paid comments.
I bought hair extensions on Amazon, they were awful, so I gave them a bad review and the company MAILED me a letter that said they would refund me if I deleted/ changed the review to 5 stars.
@@sheep5403 No, it's because most consumers tend to get rid of those physical letters. Emails are harder as stuff on the internet stay on the internet. If you buy locks on the internet, sometimes they have a rebate coupon attached to it asking for a positive review.
I agree, I stopped trusting Amazon reviews. They didn’t even accept my negative review about a bad laptop experience for $2000. I couldn’t return and I was stuck with a non working laptop. While it has almost 5 stars.
They probz didn't accept it because you most likely let your child play with it, they spilled their Starbucks frappucinio all over it (because you're probz someone who would buy their kid Starbucks), and tried to blame the seller for selling you a "broken/used" laptop. You're not fooling anyone, Tatyanna, which is why you have to be very vague on the details.
Funny how this works, but when i look into reviews, I always go to 2 star reviews first and then 3 star review. These people generally give you an idea of How bad a product can really be.
They can also not be experienced There's always a risk when you buy something. I try to look at everything. So far all my purchases have been great/good. No real issues.
I personally dont count those 1-2 sentence reviews at all. I generally look for those paragraph long reviews because they likely went out of the way to see if the product is what it seems. but all really good points there.
@@thirtyonefifty3133 Same. Even if they're by a legitimate consumer, reviews that short aren't informative as to why they liked/disliked the product. I like specifics, and the ones that have updates months later are even better.
But this doesn't work if it's an actual quality product that is the best on the market (it's effectively only true for fake or bad products). All or almost all of the negative reviews on great material will be by people who are jealous of the success of the company and the quality of the product. Let me give you a totally random example: I like chess and want to step up my game. I heard about a chess book called Applying Logic in Chess that won 2nd place in a major book of the year award by the top ranked chess coach in the world, International Master Erik Kislik. Chess is a 100% science, where everything is proven, and the book has 20 Amazon sample pages, a 20 minute video explaining what is in the book, and 40 hours of free content up online by the author. In other words, there is no subjectivity at play. The best coach in the world, who is the fastest improver in the game, presents proven content that makes him the best coach in the world, published by the best chess company that exists in the game. So what do I see when I log into Amazon? Here are the negative reviews: 2 star: Review does not discuss the book (against Amazon's policies) and says the author is not an International Master. That is defamation, against Amazon's policies, and outright illegal and disgraceful, but up on Amazon, from an account with ONE review, only that one. They probably did this for legal reasons to try to protect themselves. 2 star: Review only says the book is not logical. No examples are given, and this violates the Amazon policy of "be critical of expertise only respectfully." This would be like reviewing a medical textbook and saying, "There is no medical advice in this book." Surely, even an 80 IQ person could not get tricked by that. It is not even a creative fake review. 1 star: Reviewer calls the Norwegian author Jewish, which is obviously hate speech and against Amazon's policies. No discussion of the book is made, but the author is attacked repeatedly. Completely and obviously against Amazon's policies, without even a slight doubt. 1 star: Reviewer says the book on chess is "boring." This is analogous to a medical textbook being called boring. Logically, would anyone buy the book who finds the material boring, especially after seeing 20 pages of the book in a sample and a 20 minute video? Of course not. Would anyone who finds chess boring buy this book? Of course not. That is why it is obviously a fake review. There is no indication that this person read the book, and they appear to be connected to a group of online trolls who targeted the book with fake one star reviews to taunt and mock Amazon. 1 star: A well-known chess troll named Vishnu Sreekumar, who was kicked out of the Washington DC Chess League for writing defamatory comments about a FIDE Master on Twitter, and caught cheating in a simultaneous exhibition against Grandmaster Sam Shankland, writes a scathing one star review. No details about the book are given, and you can find on his Twitter that he is making death threats to the author on there, as well as saying, "I am going to leave more one star reviews." His one star reviews are a form of straightforward threats and bullying to popular people in chess, and as a well-known cheater and defamer, this is par for the course for him. Amazon doesn't know any better and cannot identify this well-known troll as a troll. So how does Amazon get tricked by all of this? Well, it is an area outside of their area of expertise, and they refuse to respect their own policies. I am sure that everyone reading this can readily and easily agree that the only 5 negative reviews are OBVIOUSLY fake, without even a slight doubt, and OBVIOUSLY in violation on Amazon's policies, often 4 or 5 of them at once. See the problem here? It is extremely easy for some kind of hateful troll to use fake reviews as manipulation tactics and for bullying and abuse. Amazon needs to step up their game or they will be sued into oblivion. Since they are publishing the defamation, they are legally responsible. If you are reading this, please report all 5 of those fake reviews. This is pathetic. I'm an interested beginner chess player and whenever I go on Amazon, I see obviously fake reviews, that are blatantly in violation of their policies, and even obviously true to me as someone without much knowledge of the field. Amazon must do better. If this is happening on such a large scale in something as irrelevant as chess books, imagine what is happening elsewhere.
I've seen fake reviews first hand on Amazon. Did it ever occur to anyone else that Amazon is likely in on the fake review game? They stand to gain just as much as the marketplace seller as Amazon makes money on every sale too
They stand to lose plenty as well. If people don't trust you to supply quality goods, people will find it elseware. I've gotten to the point that I only buy stupid little trinkets or whatnot from amazon because I know I'm just gonna get the same cheap chinese crap at any other store.
Never cared for Amazon only ever bought one thing from their website along time ago, and never looked back when I realized I could get the same stuff for cheaper on eBay and other places.
I'm close to a former engineer at Amazon, she can attest that Amazon doesn't manipulate their own products review. internally Amazon has a 3* limit for their own branded product. if it cannot achieve above 3* it basically gets slashed. hence why PMs and engineers are worked to the bone in order to ensure their own products stand the test of reviews. the one thing you can trust Amazon to do is exploit and burn its own employees to ensure that their public perception is positive.
This absolutely true. All these big companies are infested with bots, look at fb instagram for example. Almost every verified account on IG has top comments which are just bots. It's so shambolic, but they still won't take enough action. Their human support is miniscule in size. At one point, they didn't have anyone in US to review the reported comments, it was all being done in bangladesh by a group of 30-40 people. Unless we have strict laws forcing these companies to take action, there's very little incentive for change.
Amazon has updated their review policy in the beginning of 2020. And so far it’s the best .wheh thus policy was implemented lakhs of reviews were removed , accounted were banned for reviewing and even the sellers got ban . I have been a part of this and I know how serious Amazon is about it . Amazon never entertain these fake reviews and always get updated to counter these acts
Let’s talk about the fact that I was reading reviews for a heater that had 5 stars and up. When I went further back, the reviews were actually for an entirely different product. THATS VERY UNSAFE!!
Yup, I was looking at an eye drop guide, and all the reviews were for an eye wash cup, which this company also sells. As I was trying to choose the best eye drop guide, this was very annoying.
Oh yeah, you can now change products as a seller and keep the reviews the old one generated. For entirely unrelated products too, which is just foolishness.
I was once offered a refund on an item I left a 2 star review for - if I delete the review ... I decided to leave my review (because I thought the item was dangerous and it needed to be said) in because it went against my integrity to get bribed to delete it.
Good. They don't care about a refund anyway. They destroy almost all returns because it's so low value. Many people are low value to for shopping at this ratchet froud that is Amazon. I don't feel sorry for them.
A seller on ebay would only refund me if I left a positive review. They were selling useless garbage that didn't match the description at all, but I took their offer. And then I stopped shopping on Amazon or Ebay.
At least you were able to keep the negative comment to warn other people. My honest negative review on a thermo pot was deleted without any explanation! That pot is $99 and has a design flaw. It's dangerous to use! But I am not able to warn anybody about that. Shame on you Amazon!
All or almost all of the negative reviews on great material will be by people who are jealous of the success of the company and the quality of the product. Let me give you a totally random example: I like chess and want to step up my game. I heard about a chess book called Applying Logic in Chess that won 2nd place in a major book of the year award by the top ranked chess coach in the world, International Master Erik Kislik. Chess is a 100% science, where everything is proven, and the book has 20 Amazon sample pages, a 20 minute video explaining what is in the book, and 40 hours of free content up online by the author. In other words, there is no subjectivity at play. The best coach in the world, who is the fastest improver in the game, presents proven content that makes him the best coach in the world, published by the best chess company that exists in the game. So what do I see when I log into Amazon? Here are the negative reviews: 2 star: Review does not discuss the book (against Amazon's policies) and says the author is not an International Master. That is defamation, against Amazon's policies, and outright illegal and disgraceful, but up on Amazon, from an account with ONE review, only that one. They probably did this for legal reasons to try to protect themselves. 2 star: Review only says the book is not logical. No examples are given, and this violates the Amazon policy of "be critical of expertise only respectfully." This would be like reviewing a medical textbook and saying, "There is no medical advice in this book." Surely, even an 80 IQ person could not get tricked by that. It is not even a creative fake review. 1 star: Reviewer calls the Norwegian author Jewish, which is obviously hate speech and against Amazon's policies. No discussion of the book is made, but the author is attacked repeatedly. Completely and obvious against Amazon's policies, without even a slight doubt. 1 star: Reviewer says the book on chess is "boring." This is analogous to a medical textbook being called boring. Logically, would anyone buy the book who finds the material boring, especially after seeing 20 pages of the book in a sample and a 20 minute video? Of course not. Would anyone who finds chess boring buy this book? Of course not. That is why it is obviously a fake review. There is no indication that this person read the book, and they appear to be connected to a group of online trolls who targeted the book with fake one star reviews to taunt and mock Amazon. 1 star: A well-known chess troll named Vishnu Sreekumar, who was kicked out of the Washington DC Chess League for writing defamatory comments about a FIDE Master on Twitter, and caught cheating in a simultaneous exhibition against Grandmaster Sam Shankland, writes a scathing one star review. No details about the book are given, and you can find on his Twitter that he is making death threats to the author on there, as well as saying, "I am going to leave more one star reviews." His one star reviews are a form of straightforward threats and bullying to popular people in chess, and as a well-known cheater and defamer, this is par for the course for him. Amazon doesn't know any better and cannot identify this well-known troll as a troll. So how does Amazon get tricked by all of this? Well, it is an area outside of their area of expertise, and they refuse to respect their own policies. I am sure that everyone reading this can readily and easily agree that the only 5 negative reviews are OBVIOUSLY fake, without even a slight doubt, and OBVIOUSLY in violation on Amazon's policies, often 4 or 5 of them at once. See the problem here? It is extremely easy for some kind of hateful troll to use fake reviews as manipulation tactics and for bullying and abuse. Amazon needs to step up their game or they will be sued into oblivion. Since they are publishing the defamation, they are legally responsible. If you are reading this, please report all 5 of those fake reviews. This is pathetic. I'm an interested beginner chess player and whenever I go on Amazon, I see obviously fake reviews, that are blatantly in violation of their policies, and even obviously true to me as someone without much knowledge of the field. Amazon must do better. If this is happening on such a large scale in something as irrelevant as chess books, imagine what is happening elsewhere.
YES. I tried to submit a review that Amazon had sent me the same damaged phone case TWICE (first one was damaged, I returned it and tried to buy it again a few weeks later) and to not buy from them and Amazon didn’t approve my review!
Thtas the reason i dumped Amazon long ago. Charging me a monthly fee for "free" shipping when I can simply drive or walk tonthe store and.get iy myself is ridiculous. Plus it reduces package and plastic waste. If I can't find it locally like at goodwill or ANY store or even garage sale...ebay is my nect stop. Just filter sellers that accept returns. In all the years I shopped ebay I only returned something twice.
@Clarissa 1986 for the same price you can get disney plus pack with Hulu. Besides all that plastic packaging and boxes creates more waste, pollution, and demand to cut more trees. I still prefer to buy in person.
@Clarissa 1986 its called reusable shopping bags..and Amazon also banned some products. I had no idea dumbo was banned..lol. I just watched it some time ago...the original cartoon..not the live action travesty of a film.
Well I can't say this has gotten any better since this story was posted. It's not just the fake reviews either: my family has attempted to return substandard or deceptively represented products in the past, and found the sellers make returns as difficult as possible, in a clear effort to wear down the purchaser and make them give up (incorrect return labels, return information not in the buyer's native language, circular messages from the seller, etc.) Reporting them to Amazon A to Z has worked, but it's tough to get their attention. Its annoying and time consuming to dig into the seller, but if I don't recognize the brand, I usually spend at least 20 minutes looking into them: look up the company behind the seller, where are they located, what is their business address, what shipping company are they using? There seems to be a general movement among overseas sellers to extract as much money as possible from the American "suckers." Well, Amazon, you wanted to "be" the market - congratulations.
What about the influencers who pretend the products are so great and lure people into buying? All those marketing and advertisements are false information too!
This was EVERYWHERE in the youtube beauty community in 2015-2017. So many beauty gurus were sucking up and praising every single PR product they got in order to stay on makeup companies' good side. Every PR product was their "new holy grail" or "best ever" even though many of them were never mentioned again in future videos or were clearly not working out well on camera for the guru. Fortunately because of that, some of the big makeup video trends now are anti-hauls, "worst of" videos, and declutter videos. I'm glad that people are realizing that it's okay to say negative things about a product if you dislike it.
It's a 2 way street. YOU have to have common sense and be a smart consumer by not falling for sale pitches from "influencers" It's easy to get sucked up into buying something our favorite influencers is peddling. But nobody is making you buy anything
Part of the problem is Amazon's censorship of reviews. If you say something negative about the product or the shipper, often your review will be rejected by Amazon. I have had this happen to me twice in recent memory. I have now stopped writing reviews altogether, as they really don't want to know the whole truth.
i was nr 30 best german reviewer about 5 years ago. i was writing 100% honest reviews. even investigating into fake reviews and posting it on amazon reviews. it got so bad i stopped buying on amazon completely
I had received a pair of knockoff sneakers that were suppose to be name brand. They were packed inside of a plain looking box, while wrapped in that grey looking packaging you’d get from items overseas. My review was deleted because I talked about the packaging being sketchy.
I had same problem too! That is what happen in Amazon now! All fake review! Since the Amazon reject the reviews with negative about sellers, I am stop send all the reviews and feedback 😡
I've stopped buying anything brand name or of value on Amazon. Last Christmas, 50% of the many gifts I bought from Amazon were obvious Chinese knock-offs.
Yeah, if you check where the seller is based, most of the time they are registered in China. Last year, my parents bought a computer chair for their grandson, and were told 7 to 10 days delivery. It took over 2 months to arrive, and we discovered that it was sent from China. I was looking to buy a computer chair too, but gave up after several days when I saw that almost all of them were sellers in China. I bought my chair from a UK company on their own website. It arrived in 3 working days.
I once received a TON of random stuff from Amazon. There were no charges on my account, but they were delivered to me with the correct address, but my name was only listed by my initials. I went crazy calling everyone i knew to ask if they had accidentally sent them to me, no dice. I guess they posted a 5-star review on my behalf. It felt weirdly intrusive (kinda like when you're car gets broken into) and unnerving.
I’ve unsubscribed and will not be a part of the the “customer obsession” as Jeff had emphasized in his companies growth. You cannot live without Amazon, Jeff says. Prove him wrong.
@User I stopped using Amazon when I moved back to Australia. It was handy when I lived in Europe (3days for delivery max) and used to buy dvds. Sending anything to Australia takes forever, even in pre Covid times. I shop online but only from trusted sellers, or go to a local store. If there is something wrong with the product, you just take it back with the receipt. Very reliable old school method.
It definitely depends on your access to transportation and how much money you have. Because of online shopping and covid, a lot of physical items aren't really available anymore. For example, some college bookstores don't have school supplies or office stores near them.
Indeed, they don't care. As a personal experience, I was warned by Amazon when I signalled them that the reviews for a certain Chinese product were clearly fake: all 30+ of them posted in just 2 days, all of them were 5 stars, and reviewers' names like Jake, Mike, Joe etc....
The only way solving is to stop ordering from Amazon. I honestly don't even know why people do that. The man is literally enslaving people, to make himself the richest man in the world.
This might actually cause us to ponder a deeper issue. Good reviews is the real business! Not actual Good products! Amazon makes profits by getting a piece of every transaction either good or bad. And if all you need to see is a positive review in order to spend your money. Then you about to see a positive review. Because the source of product reviews when you research the internet is....You guessed it... AMAZON REVIEWS! Amazon is one of the biggest places people feel SAFE spending thier money online and that's because they created it this way.
@Clarissa 1986 Then Instagram models who advertise products on their page should got to jail if they buy bot followers that happen to click 'like' on that post? You're not the sharpest knife in the drawer...
True. If there's something that you want that you REALLy want to make 100% sure is genuine, skip Amazon, because fakes are EVERYWHERE, on every product.
I was an Amazon Vine reviewer for over a decade and have been reviewing my own purchases since 1998. I have seen some of these tactics used against my reviews and have heard the same from other Vine reviewers. I have always taken pride in writing the most helpful review I can. It outrages me when honest reviewers like me are accused of being fake reviewers. I am a VERY informed Amazon customer and even I now have trouble telling the fakes from the reals. Amazon needs to put more manpower on this problem--it is ruining the trust that many of us have had in Amazon for more than two decades.
Actually I’m happier shopping with AliExpress and DHGate lol at least I know what I’m getting 😂 yes there are fakes! I mean the price reflects item is fake! It seems AliExpress sellers can’t delete negative reviews, because negative reviews are everywhere! Another bonus, if my items don’t arrive to my home country from China, I’ve gotten refunds. I’ve stopped shopping Amazon, shopping is too expensive for us people outside USA.
They kinda have it customers have to press on the start ratings and pull down a tab for verified purchases. Customers need to open they're minds more if the reviews are fake they need to look for that same product under another website who reviewed that product. Even better come to RU-vid and watch multiple reviews from different youtubers where they unbox the item and talk about it in depth.
It wouldn't work. I watched a clip from a TV show from here in the UK called This Morning (clip is on RU-vid) and some of these sellers get people to buy their products and after leaving a 5 star rating reveive a full refund.
I’ve been shopping less and less on Amazon, but it was mostly due to soooo many identical products, all by different companies, all with the same photoshopped stock photos. (ie: Look closely, is that lady actually wearing those headphones?) It really has become a great big phony-product zone. Sadly though, I tried ordering through Walmart for things and lately a lot of what I order gets cancelled before it arrives due to “errors.” Incredibly frustrating. I find myself shopping more on independent sites for things instead.
@@forgivenhallelujah I ordered Walmart a lot in 2020. I was sweeping up the burst sugar for weeks. Lol. But I can understand a burst plastic bag, but dented cans in an unbroken box lmao so obvious. I used to get my money back for that. And yeah super large boxes. Wacky stuff. But I forgave that part since supplies were short because if the pandemic. But dented cans in an undamaged box? Lmao. Yeah right. ps. They once threw in some maternity shirts (just your basic comfy jerzees type stuff in plastic) I asked if they wanted them back. No, they said keep them. Still haven't given them away.
@@forgivenhallelujah wow, your comment is all over the place, but let's dissect it: 1. You ordered a case of canned goods from Walmart and they showed up damaged. Did you document it and report it? Walmart would have no issue giving you a replacement or refund. 2. Mom and pop shops went out of business? Well, that's life. Throughout all of human history things have come and gone. Your business is not entitled to survive just because it exists. In the exact same comment, you admit to ordering food from mega corprations (Walmart). Why not get your lazy ass out of the sofa and drive to those mom and pop shops you reminsince about? Oh, that's right, because you enjoy the convience modern technology has brought you - while at the same time pretending you disapporve of it to make yourself feel morally superior. 3. "We didn't demand it". Of course, you did, Timmy. The reason why these products are so prevelant is because they're in high demand. You're acting as though there's literally no alternative to cheap products. There's always a better altnerative, but people demand the cheaper products. 4. "all of the camicals, pollution, and wate ruining our planet" Umm okay, that's a totally different conversation. Focus! 5. "I remember having school shoes, gym shoes and play shoes. Until I got my first job, I was lucky to have 3 pairs of pants that fit" Well, clearly you and your parents prioritized shoes. I grew up with only one pair of shoes lol. 6. "Knowing there are people (children!) out there with far less in such a lucrative country really makes me sad." Point to anywhere in the world, at any point in history, where this hasn't been the case. 7. "But seeing kids with roomfuls of plastic crap makes me sadder. " So, you're more okay with a kid having nothing at all than something to play with? 8. "We seem to be living in an era when people think they need so many "things" to satisfy them." You just literally said that seeing kids with nothing makes you sad. So, I guess you're one of those people you're talking about lol. 9. "I’ve discovered all i really need to fill my heart is God, family and friends. " Then why write an entire novel about how horrible this world is because we don't have good "stuff" anymore?
It's not just Amazon. I ran a boat tour company in Maine for 25 years and I used to get offers from Asian companys where they would write fake Trip Advisor reviews of my boat tours for so much a review. I mentioned this once to the owner of another boat tour company and his face turned red. Sure enough when I checked there were tons of new 5 Star reviews for his company. Buyer beware!
@@dietrevich I know but that’s why I only look at reviews that have pictures so I know there’s proof. I just spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at reviews so I know which ones are legit because yah girl like to save a dolla. If there’s a bunch of fake reviews you’ll notice a pattern and I just ignore those and usually when someone is paying for reviews there’s lots of negative reviews with pictures of the same default.
@@Pupyluv98 I don't think you quite get it. Even the negative paid reviews are made to sound legit. They post similar "flaws" so that you may think you see a pattern but a lot of this manipulation is done by computers so that you can still be tricked.
Interesting fact is that Amazon has removed my reviews and won’t let me write any. I have only written honest reviews over the years on products I liked. Have NOT violated any of their community guidelines. This has been going on for about a month now and I have written to them twice with no response. I am now shopping on product sites instead of Amazon and feeling insulted. Fake reviews are a problem but when you have a loyal customer that has been cut off from reviewing that is another.
This is well done and I think educating consumers is an essential part of improving the problems. Another is to encourage consumers to use Amazon’s free and easy return process to send back disappointing or fake products at Amazon’s expense. If Amazon gets enough returns they have a greater interest in having well reviewed products actually be high quality products. Being potentially fined for each violation of consumer protection laws would also help. If you don’t hurt their bottom line they will just keep saying their doing something when, in reality, they’re hardly doing anything as several in this video attest.
If you return a product, Amazon gives it back to the seller if it's third party, at the seller's expense. The seller suffers. If it's from Amazon's warehouses, then it's at Amazon's expense.
Varun Aiyar The products with free returns are usually the ones that are “fulfilled” by Amazon even if many of those are technically sold by Chinese sellers. I would assume Amazon still has to pay the place you dropped it off at for packaging, the return shipping cost, and then pay to have the items, processed, inspected, etc. when they arrive back. If it’s an under $30 item it’s likely Amazon will have to spend far more their profit had you kept it to process the free return even if it ultimately gets returned to the manufacture. Even if they have contracts that let them bill the manufacture for all that, it’s still a burden on them. But, either way, the consumer is sending the message the product isn’t a 4.5 to 5 star product and it’s a safe bet it will be discontinued, improved, and/or the fake reviews deleted as SOMEONE has to pay all those costs. The problem is the Chinese manufactures who get in trouble just “go out of business” and turn up a month later under a new brand with the same old poor products and they just start over with fake reviews on the re-branded products. There are at least tens of thousands of examples of the exact same Chinese product being sold under 5 or more “no name” brands on Amazon. Those brands are disposable. Few last 1 year. It’s sad how many of those disposable brands end up at the top of the search results on Amazon ahead of much better products.
I don’t think this report puts enough emphasis on how enabling or outright intentional Amazon’s design is for fake goods and fake reviews. Chinese knockoffs, Best Choice labelling, the star system, even that Helpful button… none of it was on accident, the company designed it and pushed it through.
And Amazon COPIES the best selling products, make them with less quality and put them first in the search lists. I think that's even worse from what's being critisized in this video.
I bought some baby oil once and got a horrible rash. I wondered if others had the same reaction, so I looked up the reviews on Amazon. It had 5 stars but when you read the reviews most were under 3 stars. Someone writing a review commented on how does this product have 5 stars when most are under 3?? That was a red flag, like they aren't even writing fake good reviews they are just straight up lying on how many stars it has.
I'm pretty sure if you were making billions every year, you wouldn't care who was buying what or where it came from. If you knew where 90% of your stuff came from, and all the slave labor used in China to make it, would you throw it all away?
There are yt tutorials on how to con peopIe, buy for a few cents and sell expensive, he also conned paying taxes, happening right in front of us, it’s one of the shadiest, I worked on the grounds in warehouses, back in the days it was the worst and people used to cry at the load. Individuals should not buy! As the corp will continue profiting, better if it breaks so you look for another. One company can build a town please be considerate, instead of feeding commu, west will feel it last but impacted the most.
Unfortunately, I've only just 'twigged' with this kind of thing (2020) and I am trying to support more national (UK) or local companies to try and keep them afloat, instead of giving my money to Bezos!
I don't understand why Amazon opened up their marketplace for Chinese sellers and willingly invited them to sell on the platform. I don't want some cheap, broken piece of garbage that's been ripped off by the individual who actually developed the real item. I always look at the "brand" name that is selling items, 8 time out of 10 its some weirdly spelled word that literally doesn't exist and makes absolutely no sense if said out loud. I want to support sellers who are US based and care about their product and customers. Even if its a reseller, I want the profit from my purchase to go to supporting the people in my community and around my OWN country. Amazon might as well buy Alibaba because thats what it is now anyways.
I've experienced another problem: my review for one product, was moved to another similar product. I had to edit my review to tell people I was talking about another model. That's Amazon, not someone else doing this. Unless someone hacks them.
The same happened to one of my reviews! It had been up for years and had great comments then all of a sudden it was moved to another product. Very odd. Why would amazon do this?
@@bookbeing Yeah, I hope it's a glitch. They also sent me a request to answer a question for the product they moved my review to. And I've also lost likes on another review I wrote - from 19 they fell to 9. I'm thinking bug?
@@charlieb8788 Yeah, twice in the last couple weeks I received requests to answer a question on the product they moved one or more of my questions to. I'm thinking it's a bug, but an annoying one.
Amazon allows traders to modify products as they like. Even big brands use this to replace an old product with a new one without loosing the valuable reviews. Many company's also abuse the color selector to add completely different products to the same review pool.
That works for seller feedback but product reviews is different on eBay, the only reason I ever open up Amazon is to read reviews and this just made it harder to trust
@@nick2128 That's not true. But the fake reviews have figured out to verify the purchase. You know how? I actually did this myself for my selling account. I made a 2nd fake account and I bought an item from myself, that I also shipped to myself. I didn't actually ship it but I gave my self 5-stars, bragged about great the shipping was. So the only cost to me for creating a fake review was the percent of profit that Amazon took from me. The item itself was like $1 so it was pennies to crreate a fake review and get my rating up 100%.
@YoshiPeach Mario If you know what is WeChat and can read Chinese, then you can find tons of WeChat groups are doing the fake purchases and reviews thing (with paid or free giveaway of course).
@@sferrara but the consistency of those reviews are in question. If they complain about the same thing, you can still tell by doing a personality check on them. No 2 people complain about the same problem the same way.
You forgot to add that Amazon doesn't allow truly negative reviews anymore. They have blocked me multiple times from leaving my stark opinion on items many times. I didn't use foul language, or anything like that. Just honesty.
Before deleting my Amazon account, I kept getting my reviews deleted because "they were against the Guidelines" and I swear one of those reviews was only positive feedback.
It’s taking longer to act as a review detective and go through so many listings spotting the counterfeit ones than to just go to the store and get a product. It could be a great advertising leg up for stores that want foot traffic, they can remind their customers there’s no guessing on the quality!
This is disappointing to hear since I base almost all my amazon purchases on the reviews. I usually look for the negative reviews though. If a product has a substantial amount of reviews and the vast majority are 5 stars I tend to pay close attention to the 1 stars.
@Celine Policarpio It took you several months to figure out that you bought counterfeits?! 😂🤦🏻♂️ You’d buy directly from Nike or get your fat @ss to a retailer if you wouldn’t be so lazy and irresponsible. Or maybe you had a suspicion but didn’t care and bought it anyway. 🤷🏻☠️💩
Please go the sellers page on Amazon alerting the consumers (us) about counterfeit products and post a 1 star review with (with pictures) of your product attached with your complaint. As a a rule of thumb I don't purchase anything just because of five stars but I "specifically read" reviews and pay close attention to the ones that have more then just 2 paragraphs or at the very lest why its worth buying or why it's not. 3 star reviews a particularly tend to be more honest.
Google play store interferes with our ability to find decent apps by labeling every thing 'Free'. There's almost zero ability to filter searches by price, by date it was made, app permissions or anything. The search company can't do search.
So many games will give you extras if you give them a 5-star review, that's one reason so many awful games have great reviews on Google Play/the App Store.
Same with phone games. I've finally seen reviews that start with..."5 stars, how? It's horrible!" Or "There's no way this game has 5 stars, lies!". There needs to be more people calling this stuff out. If you do enough research on and off shopping sites you can find the truth so you don't end up buying crap. The part that sucks is when you try and narrow down a great product by choosing 4+ stars and you get all those bad items popping up that you have to then sort through because it's not accurate. I canceled my prime finally & haven't use it in a while. I'll shop somewhere else that has proper reviews, doesn't put more $ into Bezos pocket but into someone's who deserves it or actually needs it.
@@kev1277 they're not, whilst it's a better metric to look at rather than a bit of text many fake reviews also include pictures to sell the review, usually real reviews even positive ones include a bit on how the product isn't perfect or could be improved
This is what I do. Known brands that I can find info about outside of Amazon as well as only buying products that are sold and fulfilled by Amazon themselves. I rarely look at reviews because most of the time I already know what I'm buying and I'm only buying it from Amazon because of price and speed of delivery. I never buy from third party sellers on Amazon.
I’m always suspicious when something has hundreds of positive reviews. Yelp had this issue years ago. That’s why you should always read the negative reviews or reviews with pictures and make your decision.
When you're admitting that your company is so big that you can't possibly keep up with your own policies, what does that tell you about your company and the nature of retail business' getting this massive
Problem with ebay is you're often getting feedback on the seller and not the product (there are some product reviews but they're few and far between). This is fine if you understand the product you're buying but you'd have to do research elsewhere if you don't know the item (like which brand of drill should you buy). Ebay is great though if you know what you want and you're buying the exact item in the photos. Trusted sellers are also fairly dependable on ebay as it's a lot harder to manipulate feedback than on Amazon. It also really helps to filter *US Only.
Also: even though they can be, and are faked just as much, I find a good tactic is to go straight to the 1- and 2-star-reviews and look for communalities, i.e. actual fault of the product. Never ever trust a 5-star-review. Usually, it's easy by the amount of reviews to tell which listings to be careful of, especially if there are a lot of 5- AND 1-star reviews.
If I see a bunch of five star reviews with a single line of text, for example " great product " or " works good, I like it " Etc. I am immediately suspicious.
I write reviews to help others make a good choice. I have to depend on reviews, especially for shoes because I wear a 15 4E and can't buy shoes in stores. So I appreciate when people take time to write quality reviews. Just trying to pay it forward. I don't get any monetary gain but I like helping others make informed choices.
Now I understand why I had a fan tell me she has tried twice to leave my book a 5 star review, even calling them both times yet still had no luck. It is so hard to get real reviews because of all these con artists and scams. :(
Thats not true. Source: I used to work there. In corporate. In Seattle. Customer complaints taken very seriously. Especially by bezos. Dont run your mouth when you got nothing to say.
Never been aware that so many fake reviews were such a problem with online shopping. Daily, i am receiving requests to write reviews and get the product for free, or cash incentives. Thanks for the exploration of the background and it s not just me being requested to help sellers with boosted false reviews.
Amazon, Spotify, Facebook, etc all claim they’re just providing a service and shouldn’t be held accountable for the actions of people who abuse that service. But in fact, they are accessories to the crimes.
What's happening with Spotify? I didn't know people were abusing it in any manner, aside from those that hack the app to get premium, I don't even know if that's possible anymore.
Range of approaches needed to reduce this problem. - Verified purchases only - Alerts shown on the listing if fake reviews detected/suspected - No anonymous reviewers - Reviewers flagged if they post excessive positive reviews in a short amount of time and seem fraudulent - Legal consequences to vendors soliciting fake reviews - Increase the complexity of the review placing process
I wrote a negative review once on Amazon food product that spilled out of its original flimsy plastic package but it was blocked by Amazon claiming that it is not product related. It made me feel that some negative reviews were blocked somehow to reduce impact to products.
You have to seriously browse through the reviews AND the items for hours to find somethings that’s (a) not made in China and (b) a legitimate decent item from a trustworthy seller.
Right, and Amazon has that commercial boasting “thousands of small businesses are supported on Amazon”...but I hardly ever find these small mom and pop shops, it’s just people buying crap from China to resell
As an influencer, I’ve been approached by more 10 Chinese brands to “purchase” an item and leave a review. They would reimburse me via PayPal. They also ask to edit the reviews. Super shady/unethical business practices.
It looks like you did the fake review when you say: they would reimburse me via PayPal. I am sure you did not take the PayPal but it sure looks like it based on your comment
Teller of unfortunate Truths I work full time in Influencer Marketing (as in a 9-5 with health insurance) and I make money off of my following on Instagram consistently . Don’t show your ignorance this publicly.
Let's try to start using other services, Amazon has issues with products & treats their workers poorly! It's better not to support them until they change.
@@janedoe247 pretty much feels so. My mum doesn't have a credit card so when she reaches out to her friend to buy things, that friend usually uses Amazon. They aren't very trusting of other sites, even when Amazon itself is shifty.
I’ve stopped using Amazon to buy products and I am very proud, it is not easy finding other websites to buy everything I get. Yes it’s slightly more expensive but I am 100% ready to pay a bit more if it goes to a smaller business. Also buying things in person usually isn’t an option for me because I cannot drive, but now that everyone around me is getting vaccinated maybe I can get a ride to go to physical stores again
I'm in Ireland and have experienced all of the issues mentioned in this video. I have reciveved the voucher in the box offering a full refund for a positive review. I have noticed "take overs" where a new product takes over the page of an older product but keeps the reviews of the older product. This 1 is widespread and frighteningly so. I have also taken serious time to write full, honest reviews both negative and positive only treceive a message from Amazon rejecting the review with no explanation as to why or any means to appeal or to find out why. The principle of reviews is a good 1 & IMHO, essential to online buying/selling. I no longer trust Amazon on this. Before purchasing anything, I go to numerous 3rd party sites to find reviews before making my decision. Shame on Amazon. So long as the cash keeps rolling in, the don't care.
should be titled: Why the internet has a fake problem. While Amazon is getting worse, these advertising tactics have been used since people started using the internet.
All or almost all of the negative reviews on great material will be by people who are jealous of the success of the company and the quality of the product. Let me give you a totally random example: I like chess and want to step up my game. I heard about a chess book called Applying Logic in Chess that won 2nd place in a major book of the year award by the top ranked chess coach in the world, International Master Erik Kislik. Chess is a 100% science, where everything is proven, and the book has 20 Amazon sample pages, a 20 minute video explaining what is in the book, and 40 hours of free content up online by the author. In other words, there is no subjectivity at play. The best coach in the world, who is the fastest improver in the game, presents proven content that makes him the best coach in the world, published by the best chess company that exists in the game. So what do I see when I log into Amazon? Here are the negative reviews: 2 star: Review does not discuss the book (against Amazon's policies) and says the author is not an International Master. That is defamation, against Amazon's policies, and outright illegal and disgraceful, but up on Amazon, from an account with ONE review, only that one. They probably did this for legal reasons to try to protect themselves. 2 star: Review only says the book is not logical. No examples are given, and this violates the Amazon policy of "be critical of expertise only respectfully." This would be like reviewing a medical textbook and saying, "There is no medical advice in this book." Surely, even an 80 IQ person could not get tricked by that. It is not even a creative fake review. 1 star: Reviewer calls the Norwegian author Jewish, which is obviously hate speech and against Amazon's policies. No discussion of the book is made, but the author is attacked repeatedly. Completely and obvious against Amazon's policies, without even a slight doubt. 1 star: Reviewer says the book on chess is "boring." This is analogous to a medical textbook being called boring. Logically, would anyone buy the book who finds the material boring, especially after seeing 20 pages of the book in a sample and a 20 minute video? Of course not. Would anyone who finds chess boring buy this book? Of course not. That is why it is obviously a fake review. There is no indication that this person read the book, and they appear to be connected to a group of online trolls who targeted the book with fake one star reviews to taunt and mock Amazon. 1 star: A well-known chess troll named Vishnu Sreekumar, who was kicked out of the Washington DC Chess League for writing defamatory comments about a FIDE Master on Twitter, and caught cheating in a simultaneous exhibition against Grandmaster Sam Shankland, writes a scathing one star review. No details about the book are given, and you can find on his Twitter that he is making death threats to the author on there, as well as saying, "I am going to leave more one star reviews." His one star reviews are a form of straightforward threats and bullying to popular people in chess, and as a well-known cheater and defamer, this is par for the course for him. Amazon doesn't know any better and cannot identify this well-known troll as a troll. So how does Amazon get tricked by all of this? Well, it is an area outside of their area of expertise, and they refuse to respect their own policies. I am sure that everyone reading this can readily and easily agree that the only 5 negative reviews are OBVIOUSLY fake, without even a slight doubt, and OBVIOUSLY in violation on Amazon's policies, often 4 or 5 of them at once. See the problem here? It is extremely easy for some kind of hateful troll to use fake reviews as manipulation tactics and for bullying and abuse. Amazon needs to step up their game or they will be sued into oblivion. Since they are publishing the defamation, they are legally responsible. If you are reading this, please report all 5 of those fake reviews. This is pathetic. I'm an interested beginner chess player and whenever I go on Amazon, I see obviously fake reviews, that are blatantly in violation of their policies, and even obviously true to me as someone without much knowledge of the field. Amazon must do better. If this is happening on such a large scale in something as irrelevant as chess books, imagine what is happening elsewhere.
