[HN Gopher] Up to tenth of Amazon shoppers in GB 'bribed' by sel... ___________________________________________________________________ Up to tenth of Amazon shoppers in GB 'bribed' by sellers to offer good review Author : PaulHoule Score : 63 points Date : 2023-10-06 21:34 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com) | oakmad wrote: | I've had offers to remove a review. Bought a highly rated kettle | that broke in a couple of weeks which I returned. Left a review | saying such and started to receive offers to remove the review. | Started at PS20 and they kept coming even though I reported them. | No, I didn't take the offer. | soperj wrote: | Why not take the money and just not remove the review? | JohnFen wrote: | I'm in the US. Before I stopped buying things from Amazon (this | is one of the reasons why I stopped -- a minor one, but one | nonetheless) I'd say this happened with about 1//3 of my | purchases. | | I never left a review, but would report the practice to Amazon. | If Amazon cares, they didn't indicate it to me. | gumballindie wrote: | Afters year of not doing so i bought something off of amazon | (here in the uk). A lawn mower with a large number of positive | reviews. And a heat blower. Both where atrocious when they | arrived. Went back to reading the reviews and in depth i noticed | that a large number of review images were obviously fake. Left | then reviews stating as such and guess what? Amazon rejected the | reviews. | | This makes me think that all of these issues on amazon are a | feature not a bug. Amazon allows this to happen to drive a wide | offering. And of course no consumer protection agency taking | proactive steps to prevent this. They do issue refunds, but after | you've wasted time waiting for and testing the product and then | returning or threatening them. | standardUser wrote: | I would love to hear any sites that people still trust and rely | on when choosing products to buy (or reviews in general). | LeoPanthera wrote: | I find that Wirecutter is still fine, despite its weird new | reputation. | | Rtings.com for electronics. | | https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?reviews/ for | high-end audio products. | malfist wrote: | Consumer reports is still pretty good | wil421 wrote: | Consumer reports is ok but I've found it's better for the I'm | lookin for "any" car in x segment type person. If you | research your purchases deeper than the average person it's | not worth it IMHO. | | I agree for average buyers it's better than anything else. | Especially for the uniformed. | albertgoeswoof wrote: | What I like to do is just not buy stuff | koolba wrote: | It's like war games, only way to win is not to play. | PaulHoule wrote: | dpreviews for photography stuff | kstrauser wrote: | I'm one of them. I wrote this last week: | https://honeypot.net/post/amazon-seller-tried-to-bribe-me/ | | I reported it to Amazon, and they've done nothing yet but to take | down my review that said the seller tried to bribe me. | terrik wrote: | Fakespot is a tool that can help identify products with | manipulated reviews. | | https://www.fakespot.com/ | dheera wrote: | US-based but I've been bribed multiple times to get a gift card | in exchange for changing my review to 5 stars. Usually I change | the review, take the gift card, and then change it back to fewer | stars indicating that seller bribed me. | | It's the only way I can think of that actually financially | discourages the practice. | LeoPanthera wrote: | This happens to me (here in California) regularly. | | When this happens I leave a review saying so, either on the | product itself or on the seller's page. | | Amazon always deletes these reviews. So, Amazon knows about the | practice, and approves of it. Not much you can do at that point. | slimsag wrote: | Yep, I've posted more than a few 'Seller sent me a giftcard to | bribe for a good review' - Amazon deletes them. | quantumsequoia wrote: | [flagged] | quantumsequoia wrote: | Reason being those are supposed to be reviews of the _product_. | The same reviews will be shown if a different seller is selling | the same product. Seller-specific reviews hurt completely | independent sellers | | Amazon has suspended big sellers like Mpow and Aukey for this | practice, so they do take action on these tactics | LeoPanthera wrote: | > Reason being those are supposed to be reviews of the | product. | | I understand that, so I only leave reviews on the product if | it's a single seller, selling their own product. I think | "this product comes with a scam offer" is a _valid review of | the product_. | | I also leave seller reviews, of the seller, on the seller's | page. (Many people don't realize you can do this.) These are | deleted too. | jehb wrote: | Once you realize the full scope of reviews that Amazon | deletes, it's hard to take anything left behind as credible | whatsoever. | | I went down a long odyssey recently of trying to get a | refund for a food item that was four months expired the day | it was delivered. Amazon refused. I escalated it. Amazon | refused again. I tried to leave a bad review. Amazon | deleted it. I reviewed the seller itself. Deleted again. | Kept trying over and over again for several days, making | ever so slight tweaks to conform to the policy. I came to | the conclusion it was simply impossible to leave a negative | piece of feedback. | epistasis wrote: | This makes little sense when the product is already filled | with tainted reviews related to a seller. | | All those fake positive reviews also go along with the new | product. | | Therefore the only logical thing to do is to associate these | reviews of the practice with the original product, as an | indication of review quality. | candiddevmike wrote: | Amazon should publish the percentage of buyers who returned the | item | tpmx wrote: | Why doesn't Amazon care? | distract8901 wrote: | I'd guess that juicing total review scores for a product | results in more sales | RoyalHenOil wrote: | Like many companies, they prioritize short-term profits over | their long-term reputation. This is very common with publicly | traded companies. | [deleted] | PaulHoule wrote: | Cause you keep buying. Or rather, because you haven't canceled | your Prime yet. Do it now. | tpmx wrote: | I guess I'm happy to live in a country where Amazon showed up | too late (Sweden). Their offering for western products seems | like a joke in comparison to the online retail landscape | here. It's good for cheap noname (weirdname?) Chinese | electronics (think e.g. TPA3116D2-based amplifier boards) | though. | PaulHoule wrote: | AMZN is actually not that good in much of the U.S. | | If you live in a ZIP code full of congressional staffers, | sitcom writers or stock market analysts you get 1 day | shipping with Prime. If you're not so lucky (say you live | in the same ZIP code as the warehouse) it could be 5 days. | | I just ordered the lens that I need to shoot Volleyball | games, a famous camera store can get it to me one day | sooner than AMZN can despite being closed for a Jewish | holiday. AMZN would sell me a 'refreshed' lens but the last | one of those I bought from them failed in six months. | | All the time I see something on the shelf at Target for $45 | that is $65 on AMZN. The chattering classes who are bought | off with 1 day shipping wax about AMZN's logistics network | (always seems to use USPS, UPS and FedEx to reach me, maybe | they get a better deal because they threaten to leave...) | or payments (hmmm... Visa, Mastercard, American Express, | ...) but it is gaslighting end-to-end. | | Once a store gets one of those membership programs they | quit thinking straight (how do I make money off sales?) and | wind up thinking crooked (line goes up...) | | The only thing harder than canceling your Prime is making | an order without being signed up for a "trial" subscription | which is one more reason to shop elsewhere. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-06 23:00 UTC)