Paid fake reviews are taking over Amazon...

[Art&Science]

Say you got a gift card to a restaurant. You go there with the hopes of having a nice meal, however what you get is absolutely terrible. It's cold, it's not cooked properly and overall just a god awful meal.

Now the manager comes up and asks how your meal is.

Are you telling me that since you didn't have to pay out of your own pocket that you're going to tell the manager "it was fantastic and I can't wait to come back!" If you do, you're either a pussy or a liar (or a lying pussy). The exact same thing applies here. There is NOTHING stopping you from giving a product a shitty review other than your own fingers, regardless of if you paid full price or not.

That is NOT what is happening here and you know that.

People are being given SPECIFIC products for SPECIFIC reviews. The evidence is overwhelming. You keep complaining about people not listening to you - it's not by accident. People aren't falling for your argument.

 

[sdifox]

They are perfectly unbiased. I mean they have to be, right?

***I was offered cheap hardware by Anand for the fair and honest posting of this post***

wait, Anand sent you hardware? Doesn't he work for some other company now? You are working for the enemy!

 

[gorcorps]

That is NOT what is happening here and you know that.

People are being given SPECIFIC products for SPECIFIC reviews. The evidence is overwhelming. You keep complaining about people not listening to you - it's not by accident. People aren't falling for your argument.

That's exactly how it is. You're getting something for a discount, and somebody asked your opinion about it. You claim that people will naturally give a positive review as long as what they're paying is cheaper. I gave you an example about how that isn't true, and you try to brush it off because it doesn't prove your point. That's fine, it's exactly what I expected.

There's nothing for you to fall for, I have no reason to convince anybody... I'm just bringing my perspective. I haven't seen anybody else post any 1st hand accounts from using these sites, so I'm bringing mine. AFAIK I'm the only one that had signed up and tried one of these services to see how fucked up it was. Turns out it's nothing like the BS you're spewing, which at one point I also believed (until I actually used it). I don't care about your assumptions and rumors you've pulled from the internet, it means nothing to me because it's founded in nothing but imagination.

That's the thing about having 1st hand experience, I don't need to rely on what you think, or what anyone else thinks because I already KNOW how it works. I've heard ignorance is bliss but I guess in this case ignorance just leads to anger.

PS: You keep using the word "given" but people aren't given very much, it's a large discount at best. You thought this shit was free?

 

[purbeast0]

i did not know about fakespot until this thread. i'm going to use that thanks.

i bought some pillows based off of reviews and they aren't like the reviews say at all. they weren't cheap either.

 

[Jeff7]

YouTube/other videos and Amazon customer images and videos help me decide when choosing.
Negative reviews are what really concern me, but I know that some people are just morons, so I read a lot to make a determination.

Same with hotel/cruise reviews.
"0/10!!! My sink had a drip, which ruined my entire vacation!!!"
Some people are just hard to please.

"Super-easy to order, Amazon shipped quick, and the package was really colorful! Still haven't plugged it in yet. 10/10!"


"This toaster is really bad at making bacon. Terrible design. 0/10."

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I got a free product and was offered $5 to write a review with video.

I just kept the product and didn't bother cause I didn't want to make a video lol.

It's actually a pretty good product.

 

[Beer4Me]

I got a free product and was offered $5 to write a review with video.

I just kept the product and didn't bother cause I didn't want to make a video lol.

It's actually a pretty good product.

Glad I could be of assistance! :thumbsup:

 

[Markbnj]

I was looking for a phone case on Amazon the other day and noticed that a lot of the reviews were inaccurate, as in talking about the wrong product.

 

[XavierMace]

PS: You keep using the word "given" but people aren't given very much, it's a large discount at best. You thought this shit was free?

I used to do reviews of stuff, I've gotten about $20k work of 100% free stuff.

 

[Pandasaurus]

I usually only read negative reviews, so I rarely have this problem.

 

[John Connor]

When I look at things on Amazon, I make sure the review was a verified purchase. Although, I wonder if that can be fake too?

Use www.fakespot.com

Nice site! Bookmarked!

 

[John Connor]

Speaking of... Didn't South Park do a Yelp spoof?

 

[John Connor]

I was looking for a phone case on Amazon the other day and noticed that a lot of the reviews were inaccurate, as in talking about the wrong product.

I have seen this! I'm looking at Foscams and other things and they are reviewing the wrong model I'm looking at!Another example would be SD cards.

But concerning phone cases. You can't go wrong with OtterBox.

 

[gorcorps]

I used to do reviews of stuff, I've gotten about $20k work of 100% free stuff.

You bastard, I don't

 

[sdifox]

You bastard, I don't

Just call the IRS tip line :awe:

 

[Muse]

I've seen some items (only a few) that have reviews that state that the reviewer received the item at a reduced price in exchange for them posting a review. Never says what the price was, how you can do the same. Those reviews are, IIRC, always positive and probably 5 star. Those items have always had a really high rating, i.e. 4.7 or above. Once I see that I figure that the rating is basically biased. Yes, Amazon shouldn't allow those things from happening, if at all possible.

You don't understand. By selectively continuing to give discounts to reviewers who are positive and discontinuing discounts to reviewers who post a couple negative reviews, now the reviews are biased.

It isn't that the reviewers themselves are dishonest or untrustworthy. It is the process of only feeding discounts to the continually positive reviewers that is the problem.

Even it a bad review gets through now and then, that biased process has just shotgunned a lot of good reviews to mask over the average result of the few bad ones.

That whole process is utterly corrupt and Amazon is foolish to allow it to continue. The review process if a big part of their success. I may buy something on ebay, but if I can, and there's doubt concerning it, I will research the item on Amazon. The fact that ebay usually doesn't (to my knowledge) have a review system for their products (other than their minimal feedback system, which is super-minimal) keeps me from buying on ebay a lot of the time.

There is some kind of system on ebay for reviewing products, but I've never figured out how it works, how to access it at will and how to add to it. And such as it is (or isn't), to my knowledge there's absolutely no way you can directly respond to another person's comments. Not so with Amazon.

Amazon should absolutely go after any system that tilts their reviews and they should make that policy known. Shame on them if they don't, and bad business!

But concerning phone cases. You can't go wrong with OtterBox.

I prefer no case at all, I just keep it in a front pants pocket.

 

[Moonbeam]

I don't read the reviews to get an objective valuation. I just want to see a bunch of likes to make me feel good about my purchase. I also like to see how much I'm saving for the same reason.

 

[Markbnj]

I have seen this! I'm looking at Foscams and other things and they are reviewing the wrong model I'm looking at!Another example would be SD cards.

But concerning phone cases. You can't go wrong with OtterBox.

Went with Speck, really like it so far. It's for an S7.

 

[Childs]

Amazon's rating system itself is messed up.

For example, this product:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...d-3035-4a40-b691-0eefb1a18396&pf_rd_i=desktop

I mean, how do you get 56% 1 star reviews and still get 3.9 stars overall?!?!!?!

This is based on verified reviews. Comes out to 3.9 exactly.

 

[13Gigatons]

I assume the positive reviews are all fake or written by 12 year old's.

I also assume the bad reviews are written by idiots who can't tie their shoe laces.


However some reviews have tips and tricks to getting the best out of the product.




===

 

[BudAshes]

Amazon reviews have gotten bad. In fact reviews online are pretty useless in general now that it's basically part of the advertising cost for companies.

Honestly i think the key to saving capitalism is to pull back the veil. We need to know where it was manufactured, how much their employees were paid, what the environmental cost the product is etc. To me that's more important than whatever garbage commercial jingle or stupid paid review.

 

[gorcorps]

Amazon reviews have gotten bad. In fact reviews online are pretty useless in general now that it's basically part of the advertising cost for companies.

Honestly i think the key to saving capitalism is to pull back the veil. We need to know where it was manufactured, how much their employees were paid, what the environmental cost the product is etc. To me that's more important than whatever garbage commercial jingle or stupid paid review.

That's partly why having a good return policy and customer service is so important. If you have confidence that you'll be taken care of, it's worth the risk. It'd still be nice to not have to gamble on a purchase though.

 

[shimpster]

how much r the paid fake reviewerz compensated?
where can a body sign up?

 

[SP33Demon]

I've read reviews where the reviewer got a free item and didn't give it the usual 4 or 5 stars but they are less common. You just have to go to the lowest star ratings and fish them out as they will give you the most honest feedback.

For example:
https://www.amazon.com/JUNGLEshackl...Star=three_star&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=1

We must have very voracious mosquitoes in our neck of the woods. DH and I both used one of these and it kept the blood suckers away from the one area where the repellent was, but not everywhere else! Next time we are out at night we will try two each to see if it helps, but I think these skeeters will ignore anything that is used. But we don't use DEET either as I am allergic to it. Willing to give this another try or two, may even see if attaching to pups collars will help repel some of the skeeters from them - at least around their head.

I received this product for a reduced price or free for a review.

There are some nice benefits to this product
- the smell is more pleasant than those deet filled products
- no worries about those awful sprays or creams
- natural method for repelling mosquitoes
The downsides
- the mosquitoes will still be rather pesty as they didn't mind flying in my vicinity
- we have a lot of small biting flies that didn't seem to be affected at all by this product
- you may need to wear more than one as I wore this on my wrist and did get bit a few times on my ankle
- the smell, while pleasant, is a bit strong and can overwhelm the olfactory senses a bit

Overall this product was somewhat effective. It did keep some of the bugs away but I have found that other repellent products are more effective - although they come with some of the downsides this product does not have.

I received this product at a discount in exchange for my honest review.

 

[SP33Demon]

Went with Speck, really like it so far. It's for an S7.

Tech21's are also amazing. I literally have thrown my phone intentionally without worrying about it (and my phone wasn't cheap - Samsung s6). There's a video on their website where they're playing phone nerf basketball. They're also way cheaper than otterbox/speck, think I paid 20 something bucks for it.