[HN Gopher] Up to tenth of Amazon shoppers in GB 'bribed' by sel...
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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.
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(page generated 2023-10-06 23:00 UTC)