Amazon’s Fake Review Economy(buzzfeed.com)
buzzfeed.com
Amazon’s Fake Review Economy
https://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolenguyen/amazon-fake-review-problem
123 comments
On the other hand, what you describe is exactly what I love about Amazon.
Say I have an idea for a robot, and I need a few dozen battery clips, some NiMH batteries, a dozen servo motors, a bunch of disc magnets, a box of M3 screws/nuts, some PLA filament, a microcontroller board, and a small display panel to show status/errors/etc.
I can buy all of that and have it delivered in a day or two, for less than $5 more per item than I would pay if I ordered it from a Taobao listing and waited on international shipping. And I tend to have less problems with the Amazon listings, presumably because the sellers know I can return them quickly and painlessly if there are quality issues.
There is a huge benefit to being "the everything store".
Say I have an idea for a robot, and I need a few dozen battery clips, some NiMH batteries, a dozen servo motors, a bunch of disc magnets, a box of M3 screws/nuts, some PLA filament, a microcontroller board, and a small display panel to show status/errors/etc.
I can buy all of that and have it delivered in a day or two, for less than $5 more per item than I would pay if I ordered it from a Taobao listing and waited on international shipping. And I tend to have less problems with the Amazon listings, presumably because the sellers know I can return them quickly and painlessly if there are quality issues.
There is a huge benefit to being "the everything store".
Yep and unless you spend hours researching the sellers, 100% of those NiMH batteries and servo motors will be absolute crap. The batteries will have fake UL logos, fake Samsung or whomever logos, etc. etc.
At this point, I would rather order my socks from Target and my electronics from Mouser. At least i know they have long standing relationships with distributors and I wont be getting fake products.
At this point, I would rather order my socks from Target and my electronics from Mouser. At least i know they have long standing relationships with distributors and I wont be getting fake products.
Thanks for mentioning Mouser... not familiar with it, but it feels like Newegg (my prior goto) is chasing Amazon down the quality black hole.
You may also want to checkout Digikey. It’s more focused on discreet components, but they have a huge catalog of electronics that’s worth searching through, and pretty reasonable shipping.
Yeah, I've used Digikey for a few odds and ends too. I wish Amazon would just deal with their seller issues. Per-seller labels to at least track which seller's goods are counterfeit and/or problematic would be a good start. A big fat warning when refunds/returns aren't handled by Amazon would be another.
True enough, batteries are a really bad example - although companies like Panasonic have started signing on to the 'fulfilled by Amazon' program with good prices - but it is genuinely useful for a wide variety of small parts and electronics that aren't carried in any local stores and which often require high shipping fees from specialty retailers.
For the specific parts I mentioned, I'd probably go to Pololu, but you get the idea.
For the specific parts I mentioned, I'd probably go to Pololu, but you get the idea.
But that's not what the parent comment is talking about. Sure it's great to have every product listed on Amazon, however, only select sellers (based on certain metrics) should be able to sell those products.
Okay, but who's going to pay for that sort of thing? Ultimately it'd mean higher prices, and since sellers already face a burden of (iirc) ~$3/unit plus shipping to FCs for Amazon to handle shipping/returns, people will just buy from eBay at that point.
Also, it would lead to more stories like the other one that was popular today, along the lines of "Amazon Shut Down my Store for No Good Reason".
Also, it would lead to more stories like the other one that was popular today, along the lines of "Amazon Shut Down my Store for No Good Reason".
Higher prices are fine if it stops buyers spending money on worthless filler products that either work poorly or don't work at all.
Your comment demonstrates why price-driven as opposed to value-driven economics are essentially irrational.
"I want to pay as little as possible" turns out to have all kinds of unpleasant outcomes, not least of which is the complete collapse in quality in certain sectors on Amazon.
Your comment demonstrates why price-driven as opposed to value-driven economics are essentially irrational.
"I want to pay as little as possible" turns out to have all kinds of unpleasant outcomes, not least of which is the complete collapse in quality in certain sectors on Amazon.
I agree, but if you're being realistic, retail is a cut-throat market where most people make their decisions based on price.
It's a question of what can be done. Again, you're already paying $12.99 for a $9.99 item, and $6.99-$7.99 for a $3-4 one.
It's a question of what can be done. Again, you're already paying $12.99 for a $9.99 item, and $6.99-$7.99 for a $3-4 one.
They are mortgaging the credibility of the primary brand they built with years of direct retail of verified goods to prop up a marketplace for third parties who disrespect it and take their money and run.
I have seen a huge increase in product listings being changed from one item to something completely different.
For example, a listing had reviews from prior to 1/18 that mentioned how the product was a metallic ruler however the product page had been completely changed and it was now selling USB wall chargers, using the positive reviews previously posted for credibility. I haven't seen this scam mentioned much. I'd imagine it is people selling their old, unused Amazon product pages to someone else.
For example, a listing had reviews from prior to 1/18 that mentioned how the product was a metallic ruler however the product page had been completely changed and it was now selling USB wall chargers, using the positive reviews previously posted for credibility. I haven't seen this scam mentioned much. I'd imagine it is people selling their old, unused Amazon product pages to someone else.
Ya, ever since products began being listed together in a single listing I've lost a lot of trust in the reviews. For example, when looking at dog beds I found listings where the reviews talked about different shapes, sizes, materials, colors, and manufacturers. Back when I first started using prime it was great because I could find good products quickly, while trusting the reviews and prices. In recent years I've drastically cut my purchasing from Amazon, because it takes much more time and effort to find high quality, authentic items with reasonable prices. I've been considering cancelling prime
When you are viewing the reviews, there is an option to filter displayed reviews to only the currently displayed "style" or subitem. Go down to the reviews and select "See all reviews" and a list of filter selectors will become visible at the top of the displayed results. Where it says "All formats" you can drop down and change this to "Show only reviews for <variation-type>: <variant> [| ...]" where the variant info is based on whatever product you were actually looking for.
Too bad this isn't the default. Or better yet, something like "All versions of this product (...) / Just this variant (...)". Similar to the way Apple segments mobile app reviews by release version.
Three years ago I made a significant amount of my purchases each month with Prime. I haven't renewed Prime in over a year and my last Amazon purchase was about 6 months ago.
Amazon's prices are no longer cut-throat.
Amazon's prices are no longer cut-throat.
Have you found good alternatives? The friction of typing in credit card/shipping details on various websites (with sometimes questionable security) has kept me on Amazon. Shopify and Stripe are moving in the right direction with their "Remember Me" option that works across stores.
Yes. I Google the product I want and I almost always find it listed at a cheaper price on Google Shopping or in the first few links in the search pane. For electronic accessories, I skip the Amazon reseller middlemen, and just use Aliexpress directly.
Chrome's autofill works across devices so, besides entering my security code, I haven't manually entered my card info in quite some time.
Chrome's autofill works across devices so, besides entering my security code, I haven't manually entered my card info in quite some time.
Chrome does a decent job remembering credit cards. I just have to remember the CVC code.
Its worse with tech items that are completely different but share the same page and reviews. I'm sure amazon allows it because it ends up making them lots of cash.
I saw this for a product highlighted as a daily deal on Amazon this morning. The listing was for a USB cable but the reviews and customer pics were for a birthday candle.
I'm not exactly sure if it's for scam or some problem on Amazon side.
I was looking for gaming mousepad for a known brand and item was sold by Amazon. Majority of the reviews (mainly 3 stars or less ones) were mentioning as sensitivity of the mouse is not good or one of the mouse button got broken quiet fast.
I don't think a well known brand would do this trick but apparently there is a problem and Amazon should fix it.
I was looking for gaming mousepad for a known brand and item was sold by Amazon. Majority of the reviews (mainly 3 stars or less ones) were mentioning as sensitivity of the mouse is not good or one of the mouse button got broken quiet fast.
I don't think a well known brand would do this trick but apparently there is a problem and Amazon should fix it.
This is fraud and against Amazon Seller TOS. Reporting is really appreciated by all honest sellers :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
I don't know a way around this with Amazon but it is getting increasingly annoying using a site where everything is 4-5 stars with hundreds or thousands of reviews and you need incredible intuition to tell the fake reviews from the real ones.
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
I don't know a way around this with Amazon but it is getting increasingly annoying using a site where everything is 4-5 stars with hundreds or thousands of reviews and you need incredible intuition to tell the fake reviews from the real ones.
For sure, this is a prime example of Goodhart's law in action. Before Amazon came along, I rarely depended on reading reviews before buying a product. Yes, there were definitely sites where reviews helped persuade a purchase, for example Newegg.com, but at that time it wasn't required that I scour a list of reviews before buying a product, it was more of a scavenger hunt around the internet for personal reviews/blogs, or just not at all. Then Amazon came along, and it transformed the way I buy products.
But now, you're right. It has gotten so difficult to trust any review and I often find myself ping-ponging around competing products trying to intuit what reviews are the least fake. Good reviews have simply become a target that don't necessarily signal a good product.
But now, you're right. It has gotten so difficult to trust any review and I often find myself ping-ponging around competing products trying to intuit what reviews are the least fake. Good reviews have simply become a target that don't necessarily signal a good product.
Sounds like a business opportunity for someone to introduce the meta review, which will review and rank all reviews for a given product and/or search.
https://www.fakespot.com/
It's not perfect, but it's something.
It's not perfect, but it's something.
You'd think that Amazon would have some technology similar to FakeSpot's by now, but I'm not convinced that they do. I bought a product that had the special "Amazon's Choice" label on it that turned out to be a dud. I looked up the product on FakeSpot just now, and FakeSpot (correctly, I believe) identifies the reviews on that product to be unreliable (grade level "C"). Just a single anecdote, but it's clear to me that there's a ton of room for improvement on Amazon's part.
Another strange thing about the "Amazon's Choice" label is this: I've seen a product get that label in part due to a low number of returns ... but the seller doesn't accept returns! That should be a con, not a pro.
As you can probably tell, I have not been happy with the results of following Amazon's product choice advice.
Another strange thing about the "Amazon's Choice" label is this: I've seen a product get that label in part due to a low number of returns ... but the seller doesn't accept returns! That should be a con, not a pro.
As you can probably tell, I have not been happy with the results of following Amazon's product choice advice.
Plenty of the "Amazon's Choice" flags are...a little deceptive. Maybe not deceptive in a conventional sense, but say you see a product in the search results on Amazon and one has that flag. You click on it, because hey.
Then you notice the keywords attached to "Amazon's Choice". Oftentimes, they're strange and esoteric. Oftentimes, that flag is put on what appears to be a random off-brand item sitting right next to a much, much better product more deserving of that "Choice" insignia.
Then you notice the keywords attached to "Amazon's Choice". Oftentimes, they're strange and esoteric. Oftentimes, that flag is put on what appears to be a random off-brand item sitting right next to a much, much better product more deserving of that "Choice" insignia.
From what I've seen I'm guessing the amazon's choice tag is arbitrary and generated by some algorithm that simply matches up common search terms to the most-bought item. When it's something simple and common like "wireless mouse" it's probably alright. When it's a bit more esoteric like "male displayport socket soldered connector" or some other hopeless attempt to optimize search results and filter out noise, you get strange things.
Fakespot has lower negative impact if it mis-identifies a genuine product as grade level "C". But if Amazon does that you will certainly see people publishing stories about how their genuine product has been mis-identified by the giant called Amazon. For example today's submission:
https://bardsandsages.com/juliedawson/2018/05/06/amazon-froz...
It will be like de-monization (of YT videos) all over again.
https://bardsandsages.com/juliedawson/2018/05/06/amazon-froz...
It will be like de-monization (of YT videos) all over again.
I would imagine any sort of product review classification system would be exploitable for abuse.
Anecdotal evidence: when my mother and her team were running for student council (in college), the opposing team introduced blatantly fake votes (photocopied) in favor of her team; my mother's team got disqualified for cheating, and the opposing team won.
So I could certainly picture a way in which a mischievous seller could submit fake-looking reviews for another product and get it taken down.
Anecdotal evidence: when my mother and her team were running for student council (in college), the opposing team introduced blatantly fake votes (photocopied) in favor of her team; my mother's team got disqualified for cheating, and the opposing team won.
So I could certainly picture a way in which a mischievous seller could submit fake-looking reviews for another product and get it taken down.
There’s nothing better than the support from the college administration of such behaviour by directly acting upon it. Some of these people now sit somewhere higher up.
Part of the problem for Amazon introducing it is that it could be seen as vouching for reviews that were not detected as fake, even though they may still be fake. Unless the false negative rate is sufficiently low, it may give false confidence in products.
> but the seller doesn't accept returns! That should be a con, not a pro.
US? In the UK, the seller has to accept returns, so that removes one variable (and if the product is bad, you can just send it back).
> but the seller doesn't accept returns! That should be a con, not a pro.
US? In the UK, the seller has to accept returns, so that removes one variable (and if the product is bad, you can just send it back).
I could see why they don't jump into the review verification side though. If they acquired one of these apps or built their own and another fake review comparison engine outperformed Amazon's, they'd have to deal with the backlash of why theirs isn't good enough.
It feels a lot like Consumer Reports to me, where the reviews of products are handled separately from the vendor.
It feels a lot like Consumer Reports to me, where the reviews of products are handled separately from the vendor.
I'm pretty sure Fakespot has no idea what they're doing. They provide very little detail on methodology and I've found a lot of their letter grades highly suspect. It's easy enough to assess their accuracy by looking at some items that have few enough reviews that you can tell yourself whether they're real or not. More often than not, I've found that Fakespot's grades are terrible.
I wonder if it would make sense for vendors to post obvious fake reviews on their competitors product pages to discredit these.
One (partial) solution would be to simply eliminate reviews. They're compromised. They aren't worth anything anymore and are just taking up bandwidth and bothering users. Not to mention fostering a weird little black market.
Just make people research what they're buying elsewhere--which will probably also get swamped with fraud--or just let customers roll the dice without the false sense of security. They're already doing it, but with a bunch of fake 5-stars instead of a bunch of unreviewed items.
Just make people research what they're buying elsewhere--which will probably also get swamped with fraud--or just let customers roll the dice without the false sense of security. They're already doing it, but with a bunch of fake 5-stars instead of a bunch of unreviewed items.
> it is getting increasingly annoying using a site where everything is 4-5 stars with hundreds or thousands of reviews and you need incredible intuition to tell the fake reviews from the real ones.
While it's definitely a problem, there are WAY more 1-3 star listings than you know, but you'll never see them because the sellers stop selling them or their sales slow down and are dropped from the rankings.
While it's definitely a problem, there are WAY more 1-3 star listings than you know, but you'll never see them because the sellers stop selling them or their sales slow down and are dropped from the rankings.
I think part of the problem, is that there really needs to be a "seller verification" process, similar to an EV cert for sellers, that's easier for users to filter. It used to be enough to filter "Fullfilled By Amazon" .. hell, now I mostly click the "Seller: Amazon" option, but it feels like Amazon has reduced their own inventory in favor of 3rd party sellers.
The reason why Amazon reduced their vendor program is because they were getting scammed. Here's an example:
Vendor sells Amazon 500 shirts at $4/unit, retails at $10.
Once in stock, vendor sells the shirts very quickly. They do this by either putting the shirt on sale for pennies, or by using hacked accounts to buy the shirts (or by paying people to buy the shirts).
What happens when Amazon sees that the shirts they ordered sold out in 3 days, and are going to take 30 days to replenish?
They buy more, and although the vendor may have initially been down the $4 * 500, when Amazon places that reorder for 5,000+ units, the vendor is up substantially and bails, leaving Amazon with a ton of inventory.
Vendor sells Amazon 500 shirts at $4/unit, retails at $10.
Once in stock, vendor sells the shirts very quickly. They do this by either putting the shirt on sale for pennies, or by using hacked accounts to buy the shirts (or by paying people to buy the shirts).
What happens when Amazon sees that the shirts they ordered sold out in 3 days, and are going to take 30 days to replenish?
They buy more, and although the vendor may have initially been down the $4 * 500, when Amazon places that reorder for 5,000+ units, the vendor is up substantially and bails, leaving Amazon with a ton of inventory.
I think this is the tragedy of the commons in action. In this the case, the "common" is our collective willingness to post helpful information on websites for other customers. From my point of view, I'm adding value to the merchant and getting nothing in return. I used to get the fuzzy warm feeling of contributing to the collective good of humanity, but now that it's so commoditized I'm not willing to do it anymore. There are two solutions that I know of; the socialist one and the capitalist one.
The socialist solution is some kind of collectively-funded watchdog organization that provides useful review information. The capitalist solution is an organization that straight up charges for reviews, ie, Consumer Reports.
I'm sure someone's working on their startup about it now.
The socialist solution is some kind of collectively-funded watchdog organization that provides useful review information. The capitalist solution is an organization that straight up charges for reviews, ie, Consumer Reports.
I'm sure someone's working on their startup about it now.
>The socialist solution is some kind of collectively-funded watchdog organization that provides useful review information.
That's more like the liberal social democrat solution.
The Socialist solution is to abolish exchange based production of goods so there's no longer an incentive to lie to increase sales of poor quality products.
That's more like the liberal social democrat solution.
The Socialist solution is to abolish exchange based production of goods so there's no longer an incentive to lie to increase sales of poor quality products.
That sounds more like the communist option to me.
Forget fake reviews... I'm encountering alarming level of fake products on Amazon. If you are buying batteries, water filters, razor blades, power cords, sun glasses etc then you are likely buying fake products pushed from China with same branding as the real thing. These items are usually even marked as "Prime" and "shipped by Amazon" and many qualifying for same day free shipping for prime members. So naive customers would go on to trust this and have no clue they are getting fake products made in China but warehoused and shipped by Amazon's awesome logistic system. For lot of high margin recurring items, fake producers are minting mountain of money these days.
And if its batteries you want, find a trusted brand and buy directly. I trust anker, I buy their batteries from their site. Funny enough they end up having the item fulfilled by amazon. Ends up being cheaper since I don't have prime and anker still gave me free two day shipping.
Just as bad is the Q&A section, for the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would respond to a Q&A question if they do not know the answer, have not used the product, or just generally have no useful input to add. It's maddening to see the question you'd like to ask, only to find out some buffoon has provided non-answers-often to the point of burring correct (or at least, marginally valid) responses. This should be easier to correct...
I think Amazon sends emails saying "someone has asked a question about this product," which can make it seem like someone asked YOU, even though they send the email to a lot of people.
This is correct. It's more of a UX problem by Amazon to non-tech users. Amazon phrases it like "martincmartin asked you, bluetidepro, blah blah blah." and a lot of times the non-tech user will literally reply back with "I'm not sure" or "I don't know" and then Amazon still records that response as an answer to the question. I wish their system was smart enough to recognize these replies like this that I often see and just ignore them.
It's not restricted to emails, I've seen mobile push notifications from the app (which were enabled b/c of shipping notifications) asking me to respond. Tapping the notification brought me directly to the question.
I'm sure this is the main reason for the garbage answers, since it's as much work to answer as responding to a text.
Wow, gross. I hate push abuse. This is another reason why I have a strict policy that if an app works in a web browser, it should stay in a web browser. It only wants out of that web browser so it can get its greasy little fingers all over your stuff.
I especially hate services that intentionally break their mobile site and disallow forcing the desktop site to make you to install their greasy, slimy mobile app. Like Facebook and Reddit. So scummy.
I especially hate services that intentionally break their mobile site and disallow forcing the desktop site to make you to install their greasy, slimy mobile app. Like Facebook and Reddit. So scummy.
You see the same problem with Google Guide questions these days -- in the last year or so the number of "I don't know" answers I see has risen tremendously. (Some respondents are even hostile, recently someone asked whether a nearby pub allowed pets and the answerer went on a tirade about animals in public spaces...)
Yes, they need two buttons in that email: "I know the answer" and "I don't know". That would sort this out pretty well.
The cost to develop that functionality is not feasable with curent silicon limitations.
Yeah, I also puzzled why somebody would intentionally post "I don't know" for the world to see until I realized that was happening and I just have amazon's stupid emails turned off. What a spammy thing to bother their users with.
If you send that message to random people's inbox as if it's personally addressing them, you're going to get mostly noise in return. Really dumb. And they've seen how it works thus far yet they don't change it.
If you send that message to random people's inbox as if it's personally addressing them, you're going to get mostly noise in return. Really dumb. And they've seen how it works thus far yet they don't change it.
I noticed that they ask the seller first, before making the question publicly available.
I got my first question yesterday and I really appreciated being able to give an in-depth answer before everyone else.
I got my first question yesterday and I really appreciated being able to give an in-depth answer before everyone else.
Like others mentioned, Amazon sends the question via email to verified buyers as "some user have a question and needs your help" and there is a button to answer their question (which opens the browser).
I saw lots of "I don't know" answers to questions, I guess Amazon realised this also as now they put "I don't know" button to emails.
I saw lots of "I don't know" answers to questions, I guess Amazon realised this also as now they put "I don't know" button to emails.
Amazon sends out mails asking the question A not very tech savvy person could misunderstand that and post a q&a answer by answering the mail.
"...An Amazon spokesperson told BuzzFeed News the percentage of inauthentic reviews on the platform is “tiny,”..."
This is clearly total and utter crap, as anybody who has spent any time on Amazon knows.
What was not mentioned in the article, but is critically important, is that many times you can get more mileage out paying for negative reviews of competitors than you can your own positive reviews. Many times I've been looking at product X only to read in the reviews something like "X was okay...and enjoyed it. But it wasn't near as good as Y"
And over to Y I'm headed. It's an in-site referral.
I've read many negative reviews where it's obvious that the competitors are paying. "Great look, but why can't they have A?" (A is not important, but another vendor offers it and wants to use it as a market differentiator)
I don't see any easy answers to Amazon's problems. As they continue to monopolize all commerce, it'll just get worse.
This is clearly total and utter crap, as anybody who has spent any time on Amazon knows.
What was not mentioned in the article, but is critically important, is that many times you can get more mileage out paying for negative reviews of competitors than you can your own positive reviews. Many times I've been looking at product X only to read in the reviews something like "X was okay...and enjoyed it. But it wasn't near as good as Y"
And over to Y I'm headed. It's an in-site referral.
I've read many negative reviews where it's obvious that the competitors are paying. "Great look, but why can't they have A?" (A is not important, but another vendor offers it and wants to use it as a market differentiator)
I don't see any easy answers to Amazon's problems. As they continue to monopolize all commerce, it'll just get worse.
> This is clearly total and utter crap, as anybody who has spent any time on Amazon knows.
"Today's Deals" is absolutely infested with brand new products with tons of suspicious reviews, and has been for the last year. Even just checking the date from the first to the last review (e.g. one week) reveals problems for a product with 100+ reviews.
> I don't see any easy answers to Amazon's problems.
There's no "easy" answers, but user reputation is a good start. Right now every review is worth the same as every other review, but looking at the data available we can rate reviews:
- Did the verified buyer actually receive the item before review?
- Is the reviewer's account brand new?
- What does account activity look like outside of reviewing (e.g. Do they browse products? Shop? Check order history? How many non-buy/non-review interactions do we have for every review posted?)
- How did they get back to the product to review it (e.g. direct link? third party site? order history?)
- Did they use a coupon for a discount on the product? Is that coupon posted on Amazon? What % was the coupon? If it is 90% are they even a verified buyer?
- Was the shipment tracked? If not how do we know they even received anything?
"Today's Deals" is absolutely infested with brand new products with tons of suspicious reviews, and has been for the last year. Even just checking the date from the first to the last review (e.g. one week) reveals problems for a product with 100+ reviews.
> I don't see any easy answers to Amazon's problems.
There's no "easy" answers, but user reputation is a good start. Right now every review is worth the same as every other review, but looking at the data available we can rate reviews:
- Did the verified buyer actually receive the item before review?
- Is the reviewer's account brand new?
- What does account activity look like outside of reviewing (e.g. Do they browse products? Shop? Check order history? How many non-buy/non-review interactions do we have for every review posted?)
- How did they get back to the product to review it (e.g. direct link? third party site? order history?)
- Did they use a coupon for a discount on the product? Is that coupon posted on Amazon? What % was the coupon? If it is 90% are they even a verified buyer?
- Was the shipment tracked? If not how do we know they even received anything?
I've heard of folks gaming at least some of these points by offering refunds (through a different channel, e.g. paypal) to buyers to leave a positive review. I don't know if it's true, but it definitely seems plausible and an easy way to buy reviews from 'legit' buyers.
Amazon could counter this by offering a big bounty on turning in sellers that do this, and/or financially penalizing them (the sellers) if sufficient evidence is produced.
Amazon could counter this by offering a big bounty on turning in sellers that do this, and/or financially penalizing them (the sellers) if sufficient evidence is produced.
>I don't see any easy answers to Amazon's problems.
Machine learning is the obvious hot answer. If you could train a model on how accounts that tend to post bad accounts behave (like another reply said, do they browse a lot? do they tend to hit every product they order via a direct link?), you can set up a decent filter. Even things humans might not necessarily notice, like what time of day they tend to write their reviews or their zip code; AMZN has a treasure trove of data to work with.
Given the other story about AMZN on the front page currently (the book publisher's account being suspended), AMZN probably isn't afraid to let the AI ban accounts straight out and let them apply for reinstatement.
But then again, I also saw something today (sorry can't remember where) that the Data Scientists are all 100% engaged in building models that make people buy more, not fixing things. Because honestly, does this problem make that many people avoid AMZN completely? No.
Machine learning is the obvious hot answer. If you could train a model on how accounts that tend to post bad accounts behave (like another reply said, do they browse a lot? do they tend to hit every product they order via a direct link?), you can set up a decent filter. Even things humans might not necessarily notice, like what time of day they tend to write their reviews or their zip code; AMZN has a treasure trove of data to work with.
Given the other story about AMZN on the front page currently (the book publisher's account being suspended), AMZN probably isn't afraid to let the AI ban accounts straight out and let them apply for reinstatement.
But then again, I also saw something today (sorry can't remember where) that the Data Scientists are all 100% engaged in building models that make people buy more, not fixing things. Because honestly, does this problem make that many people avoid AMZN completely? No.
I used to sell iPhone apps (GeeTasks) and I had fans raving about my products, and sometimes trashing competitors. It was weird. Most certainly I did not pay for it.
What I learned from that is that there are people very different from me, with a different way of creating and expressing relationships, loyalty, and adversity.
What I learned from that is that there are people very different from me, with a different way of creating and expressing relationships, loyalty, and adversity.
It’s not just “fake” versus “authentic”, but the incentives are tied to star ratings, and so the text and the rating can be completely opposed. I recently read a review for a refrigerator that (no joke) read “It’s loud, and fails to maintain proper temperature. 5 stars.” WTF?
Perhaps that was a response to a "give it a 5 star review and you'll get a $100/50/10/5 refund"?
I suspect so. I too have revived such a solicitation, and then left a review point out that they were paying for 5 star reviews.
https://douglas-fraser.com/FakeReviews/index.html
If anyone is interested... it is my dissertation on developing ML ensembles to classify reviews as fake or not, strictly using features derived from textual analysis (deception theory, stylometry, etc). Behavioral type features, like IP address and relationships between spamming accounts are more useful, but the text still has some value. At some point, I will expand this to using actual Amazon reviews, but I had to drop that idea just to get the dissertation done on time.
Several years ago, the percentage of fake reviews was estimated at 2 to 6%, so I'm sure it has increased to (gut feeling) probably like 10% these days. Is that "tiny"? A really good stat to calculate would be the percentage of products that have more than just a few fake reviews - such that the consumer is given a bad impression. That stat probably is not "tiny" and thus creates the perception Amazon reviews are useless.
If anyone is interested... it is my dissertation on developing ML ensembles to classify reviews as fake or not, strictly using features derived from textual analysis (deception theory, stylometry, etc). Behavioral type features, like IP address and relationships between spamming accounts are more useful, but the text still has some value. At some point, I will expand this to using actual Amazon reviews, but I had to drop that idea just to get the dissertation done on time.
Several years ago, the percentage of fake reviews was estimated at 2 to 6%, so I'm sure it has increased to (gut feeling) probably like 10% these days. Is that "tiny"? A really good stat to calculate would be the percentage of products that have more than just a few fake reviews - such that the consumer is given a bad impression. That stat probably is not "tiny" and thus creates the perception Amazon reviews are useless.
>so I'm sure it has increased to (gut feeling) probably like 10% these days
That's consistent with the algorithmic estimate quoted in the article:
'the ReviewMeta algorithm labeled 9.1%, or 5.3 million of the dataset's reviews, as “unnatural.”'
I would say that's far from tiny, especially considering how many other reviews (at least in my own experience) have inadequate information in their text. A 3-star review that has only the words "It worked just fine but nothing special" is just as useless to me as a fake 5-star or 1-star review, whatever the fake text.
That's consistent with the algorithmic estimate quoted in the article:
'the ReviewMeta algorithm labeled 9.1%, or 5.3 million of the dataset's reviews, as “unnatural.”'
I would say that's far from tiny, especially considering how many other reviews (at least in my own experience) have inadequate information in their text. A 3-star review that has only the words "It worked just fine but nothing special" is just as useless to me as a fake 5-star or 1-star review, whatever the fake text.
I think the concentration of fake reviews varies a lot with the product, so for some products, they are essentially useless.
Are you using NLP of any sort to assist with feature extraction? Curious.
Yes - I primarily used spaCy [0] to handle all the NLP related tasks (tokenization, etc) as well as empath [1]. The Stanford Parser was only used for constituency parsing as spaCy doesn't handle that. The different feature sets were then derived from all that data.
[0]: https://spacy.io [1]: https://github.com/Ejhfast/empath-client
[0]: https://spacy.io [1]: https://github.com/Ejhfast/empath-client
Upton Sinclair on why Amazon has trouble getting rid of fake reviews and scammy sellers:
> “It is difficult to get a man to understand something,
> when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”I'm not even sure that Amazon really benefits from this.
I have become super wary to buy things from Amazon even with good reviews, because I am suspicious the reviews are fake.
I have become super wary to buy things from Amazon even with good reviews, because I am suspicious the reviews are fake.
I agree. I am using amazon less now than before because I can't trust amazon the way I used to. Part of that is fake reviews. It may not hurt amazon now, as they're still acquiring a lot of new prime users (baby boomers) but they too will sour and then it will be too late for amazon to earn trust back.
It's an easy problem to solve too... only allow reviews from people who have purchased the product on amazon. Nearly every other major e-commerce site does that. The fact that amazon hasn't required this is a good sign that they don't think that is the most beneficial thing to them. Their system already has this feature, but most sellers don't enable it.
It's an easy problem to solve too... only allow reviews from people who have purchased the product on amazon. Nearly every other major e-commerce site does that. The fact that amazon hasn't required this is a good sign that they don't think that is the most beneficial thing to them. Their system already has this feature, but most sellers don't enable it.
Many reviewers are ordering through amazon, and are paid outside of amazon... Amazon needs to invest in heuristics for reviewers.
If someone literally reviews over 90% of what they order on Amazon, they're probably paid for it. If someone only buys things via external links, they're probably paid for it.
There's lots that Amazon can do. Hell, putting seller stickers on co-inventory to track the counterfeiters would be a nice start.
If someone literally reviews over 90% of what they order on Amazon, they're probably paid for it. If someone only buys things via external links, they're probably paid for it.
There's lots that Amazon can do. Hell, putting seller stickers on co-inventory to track the counterfeiters would be a nice start.
> putting seller stickers on co-inventory to track the counterfeiters would be a nice start
Great idea! They'd still have the benefits of mixing inventory but then you can track who is putting fakes in the bin.
Great idea! They'd still have the benefits of mixing inventory but then you can track who is putting fakes in the bin.
I'm sure Amazon has done studies on what the effect is.
It could be that products with fake positive reviews sell better individually but the presence of fake reviews in general reduces sales overall. But the former is really easy to measure and the latter is much harder.
It could be that products with fake positive reviews sell better individually but the presence of fake reviews in general reduces sales overall. But the former is really easy to measure and the latter is much harder.
Yep. It's easy to A/B test a narrow feature over a short timespan, but it's hard to test the multi-year effect of pollution -- by the time you learn the answer, you've already lost.
The prime reason I buy many things from Amazon is trust (if I have a problem with something, I know customer support will accept the return and I will have a refund/replacement quickly). If this problem becomes bad enough, it could definitely overrule that.
But, depending on the seller, they don't accept the return, or refund/replace the item.
It's pushing me to buy more things from brick-and-mortars, because an actual store MUST apply some curation, and they're highly incentivized not to carry crap that someone will have to return the next day.
I bought a book on "music theory". It was a relatively recent release and had about ten 5 star reviews. It was relatively cheap, so I bought it.
There was no music theory ... just an exhaustive list of scales. The "more than 100 exercises on CD" was simply 30 seconds of the author playing each scale.
So I went back and read the reviews. They were "Just perfect!" and "Exactly what I was looking for!".
Comically, a couple reviews of a different music theory book were obviously writing their review in a foreign language then translating it to English because instead of using the phrase "music theory" they used "music hypothesis".
There was no music theory ... just an exhaustive list of scales. The "more than 100 exercises on CD" was simply 30 seconds of the author playing each scale.
So I went back and read the reviews. They were "Just perfect!" and "Exactly what I was looking for!".
Comically, a couple reviews of a different music theory book were obviously writing their review in a foreign language then translating it to English because instead of using the phrase "music theory" they used "music hypothesis".
The Planet Money podcast had an episode on this recently that was really fascinating: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/04/27/606528176/epis...
It wasn't about Amazon specifically, but the sophistication of these scams are really intriguing.
It wasn't about Amazon specifically, but the sophistication of these scams are really intriguing.
Does anyone else think it's weird that this article is talking about scammy practices on Amazon by linking to scammy examples with the reporter's unique Amazon affiliate id?
In fairness, it BuzzFeed might automatically replace Amazon URLs with either their affiliate version of the link when an article is published or the reporter's affiliate version of the link. I think slickdeals does this when someone links to Amazon.
Well I guess if people still want to continue on to the product, why not get some zero-cost kickback? :)
Haha, yup.
Wait! It gets worse! There are sellers who get paid reviewers to write bad reviews on competitor's products.
Even the honest ones are forced to get fake reviews, because their competitor is winning with fake reviews. This is the cost of replacing humans with algorithms, before it is on par in accuracy.
Even the honest ones are forced to get fake reviews, because their competitor is winning with fake reviews. This is the cost of replacing humans with algorithms, before it is on par in accuracy.
How does a human detect a fake bad review?
The problem here is not replacing humans with algorithms, it's with replacing trusted humans with arbitrary humans (and not even checking whether one human is pretending to be many humans). This is the same problem with online forums and comment sections. We need a way to build a web of trust, so I can tap my network for reviews, but have a way to blacklist the shills who pop up.
The problem here is not replacing humans with algorithms, it's with replacing trusted humans with arbitrary humans (and not even checking whether one human is pretending to be many humans). This is the same problem with online forums and comment sections. We need a way to build a web of trust, so I can tap my network for reviews, but have a way to blacklist the shills who pop up.
You are right about replacing trusted humans (word of mouth) with arbitrary humans (reviews). But, the algorithm part comes because of the volume of arbitrary humans' reviews. Algorithm crunches these reviews/ratings and determines the top products, which is deeply flawed at the core. Today, our buying pattern is driven by the scale (volume of rating) rather than the quality (word of mouth).
Maybe require that you purchased the product on Amazon before they count a < 3 star review?
There's no reason the "average" from the reviews presented need to count them all... the search ratings could easily exclude reviews by those that didn't have a confirmed purchase.
There's no reason the "average" from the reviews presented need to count them all... the search ratings could easily exclude reviews by those that didn't have a confirmed purchase.
As stated in the article: The reviewer did purchase the product in Amazon and he's getting refund through PayPal.
I had a great laugh along with another reviewer for this bike that seemingly hired a bunch of exaggerated writers to post unverified purchase reviews for it.
https://www.amazon.com/VTSP-Upgrade-Bicycle-Mechanical-Wareh...
Something about the language trying too hard that the reviews just came off fake. It's a real bummer having to add this to the mental wading through online junk.
On another front I definitely like the idea of Amazon's Choice, that's based on quantitative things like return rate and what not. I'd like to see more of that data trend in that direction.
Something about the language trying too hard that the reviews just came off fake. It's a real bummer having to add this to the mental wading through online junk.
On another front I definitely like the idea of Amazon's Choice, that's based on quantitative things like return rate and what not. I'd like to see more of that data trend in that direction.
Most of those reviews are satirical, as are the Q&As. The product is a grotesque parody of a bicycle, so some scallywags have reviewed it appropriately.
It has clearly been designed by someone who has seen a few photos of fast road bikes, but doesn't know or care about any aspect of what makes a bike fast. It's the bicycle equivalent of a cheap Honda that some teenager has absolutely ruined with tacky "upgrades". It might not be obviously apparent to a novice, but the product images genuinely made me laugh out loud.
The reviews are an embarrassment to Amazon, but so is the fact that this product is even for sale. It's an atrocious bicycle that should have never been built in the first place, designed with the sole intention of deceiving naive customers. A quick browse of the bicycles category on Amazon suggests that this is an endemic problem - the customer reviews suggest that many are dangerously defective.
It has clearly been designed by someone who has seen a few photos of fast road bikes, but doesn't know or care about any aspect of what makes a bike fast. It's the bicycle equivalent of a cheap Honda that some teenager has absolutely ruined with tacky "upgrades". It might not be obviously apparent to a novice, but the product images genuinely made me laugh out loud.
The reviews are an embarrassment to Amazon, but so is the fact that this product is even for sale. It's an atrocious bicycle that should have never been built in the first place, designed with the sole intention of deceiving naive customers. A quick browse of the bicycles category on Amazon suggests that this is an endemic problem - the customer reviews suggest that many are dangerously defective.
Woah, you're not exaggerating. It weighs 41 lbs!!!
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That's a totally different issue. There are multiple products on Amazon that develop a "following" (either because the product is ridiculous on its face, or because it's so ordinary ), and manage to accumulate all sorts of reviews, from funny to poetic. See https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-amazon-reviews/ and https://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Dairy-Whole-Vitamin-Gallon/dp/... as examples.
Amazon, Walmart, Target do a lot with their store brands. It becomes more and more tempting to buy just from those because I (presumably) don't have to worry about counterfeits (where Amazon co-mingles everything that's supposed to be an "Apple") or review rigging like this.
What ends up happening a lot for me is fraud fatigue: I go to buy something and after 20 minutes of studying I don't buy.
What ends up happening a lot for me is fraud fatigue: I go to buy something and after 20 minutes of studying I don't buy.
Quality doesn't even stand there either... I bought some amazon branded speakers (cheapy ones) that I used at work, didn't really need much... liked them... bought a couple more, all dead within a few months of use.
There's no quality control on anything anymore it feels like sometimes.
There's no quality control on anything anymore it feels like sometimes.
The absolute worst department on Amazon for this, IMHO, is kids electronic toys. I've been scammed multiple times on this, to the point that I won't buy R/C product there anymore.
Once you give a gift to a kid, you can't send it back without a fuss and I think that the sellers know this. The return rate for kids stuff must be a fraction of that for other consumer electronics.
Once you give a gift to a kid, you can't send it back without a fuss and I think that the sellers know this. The return rate for kids stuff must be a fraction of that for other consumer electronics.
Pretty much any simple (i.e. easily cloned) item under $10 suffers. Sellers know it's not worth the hassle of packing and returning something. Only about 5% of customers post reviews and since the items are cheap sellers can afford to give enough away to review farmers that they can overwhelm reviews from legit customers.
I always had this inkling, so since early on, despite the hype and 'attractive' prices, I have bought nothing but books. In fact, I can't see myself buying anything but books online, from any vendor and not just Amazon.
Even with books, especially technical books, I have fallen to the trap of unwittingly buying Indian version of the book (I am an Indian living in India) where chapters are culled, contents are 'adapted', preface and other such items are missing etc. But this could be my fault as I failed to read the fine print, which does exist.
(It enrages me that Indians are forced to use substandard versions of internationally acclaimed books for their reference. I am fine with using gray scale instead of 32M color images, or using thinner paper, smaller fonts etc but altering content, skipping content etc is bad. I am sure there is an economic constraint behind this - Indian versions are usually 1/5th to 1/8th the international price - and often think why don't they use substandard presentation instead of substandard content, but what do I know.
Many times, I buy older version of a book which will be far cheaper, and in 'Indian price range', than the freshly minted, latest and up to date version, especially when it deals with 'static' topics like maths, physics, linguistics etc because I have come to realize that the book companies whip out newer versions with negligible changes just to keep their business running, especially when its supposed to be a text book.)
Even with books, especially technical books, I have fallen to the trap of unwittingly buying Indian version of the book (I am an Indian living in India) where chapters are culled, contents are 'adapted', preface and other such items are missing etc. But this could be my fault as I failed to read the fine print, which does exist.
(It enrages me that Indians are forced to use substandard versions of internationally acclaimed books for their reference. I am fine with using gray scale instead of 32M color images, or using thinner paper, smaller fonts etc but altering content, skipping content etc is bad. I am sure there is an economic constraint behind this - Indian versions are usually 1/5th to 1/8th the international price - and often think why don't they use substandard presentation instead of substandard content, but what do I know.
Many times, I buy older version of a book which will be far cheaper, and in 'Indian price range', than the freshly minted, latest and up to date version, especially when it deals with 'static' topics like maths, physics, linguistics etc because I have come to realize that the book companies whip out newer versions with negligible changes just to keep their business running, especially when its supposed to be a text book.)
I was duped after buying a set of wireless headphones. I did a bunch of shopping online and landed at Amazon. The headphones they had listed had nearly 4,000 4+ star rating, I figured they were all legit so I purchased them. In the box when they arrived was a small postcard which read, "Give us a positive 4 or 5 star rating on Amazon, and you can order any of our products for 50% off!"
This was less than six months ago and clearly after Amazon had outlawed the practice in 2016.
This was less than six months ago and clearly after Amazon had outlawed the practice in 2016.
Can someone explain this to me:
"Shutting down disingenuous reviews is tricky for Amazon. By doing so, the company risks alienating sellers, a core part of its business."
In the next paragraph:
"Amazon is the place to be for e-commerce sellers and is increasingly seen as a utility. In 2017, Amazon accounted for nearly half of all e-commerce sales in the US (44%) with $196.8 billion in sales."
If Amazon is the place to be, alienating the bad actor sellers isn't going to be an issue.
"Shutting down disingenuous reviews is tricky for Amazon. By doing so, the company risks alienating sellers, a core part of its business."
In the next paragraph:
"Amazon is the place to be for e-commerce sellers and is increasingly seen as a utility. In 2017, Amazon accounted for nearly half of all e-commerce sales in the US (44%) with $196.8 billion in sales."
If Amazon is the place to be, alienating the bad actor sellers isn't going to be an issue.
I'm an Amazon Vine reviewer ... Ask me anything.
I've been one for years. It's an odd insider culture, which is pretty hard to talk about with anyone else. There's a lot of competition among the "Viners" as we call ourselves. And there's also a lot of decision-making. E.g., is the tax-value income and time required actually worth it to me? Many, many times, it's not.
I've been one for years. It's an odd insider culture, which is pretty hard to talk about with anyone else. There's a lot of competition among the "Viners" as we call ourselves. And there's also a lot of decision-making. E.g., is the tax-value income and time required actually worth it to me? Many, many times, it's not.
I used to skip past every single vine review + flag some as being bad. It's painfully obvious they're giving good reviews for the free product.
I really doubt that's actually happening. For a long time there was a Vine forum, and the culture was definitely about reviewing as honestly as possible. I'd posted many positive but also many negative reviews before being selected for Vine.
It also seems like there are many more products needing reviews than reviewers. I've never worried about being negative.
And finally, the item is definitely not free:
* Amazon displays the tax value of each item we're offered for review, and reports it to the IRS if we choose it. So literally, the product is taxable income.
* Some items, like books, take a lot more time and effort, compared to their monetary value. But all items require time.
* Some items have collateral costs. Just a couple of examples: I once reviewed an AC/DC converter for the car which blew a fuse when I tried it out. That cost me a trip to the repair shop. Another time I reviewed a floor lamp which arrived destroyed in the box and left my living room speckled in glass shards and styrofoam pieces.
tldr; To me, it's a contractual relationship that I'll continue doing as long as it makes sense to me.
It also seems like there are many more products needing reviews than reviewers. I've never worried about being negative.
And finally, the item is definitely not free:
* Amazon displays the tax value of each item we're offered for review, and reports it to the IRS if we choose it. So literally, the product is taxable income.
* Some items, like books, take a lot more time and effort, compared to their monetary value. But all items require time.
* Some items have collateral costs. Just a couple of examples: I once reviewed an AC/DC converter for the car which blew a fuse when I tried it out. That cost me a trip to the repair shop. Another time I reviewed a floor lamp which arrived destroyed in the box and left my living room speckled in glass shards and styrofoam pieces.
tldr; To me, it's a contractual relationship that I'll continue doing as long as it makes sense to me.
I consider the price of a Fakespot subscription part of the cost of doing business on Amazon. It's sad, but it works. Crazy that Amazon doesn't simply purchase it or similar service. The browser extension marks up listings nicely:
https://imgur.com/a/dQKdM0j
https://imgur.com/a/dQKdM0j
I think I agree that incentivized reviews aren’t necessarily bad (assuming the incentive isn’t tied to a certain star level).
Amazon has a real opportunity to legitimize and enable sellers to offer incentivized reviews on their platform. I’m not sure how Amazon Vine ever worked, but I envision an interface almost similar to AdWords, where sellers can try and narrow down their target audience and offer a select sample an incentive to review, inline with search listings.
Since amazon would know about serial reviewers as well as how critical they are based on prior reviews, they could finely tune who is offered the incentive. I can easily imagine a world where these Amazon ordained incentivized reviews become far more trustworthy than ordinary ones. After all, if a product is good why wouldn’t the seller get a few incentivized reviews through Amazon?
Amazon has a real opportunity to legitimize and enable sellers to offer incentivized reviews on their platform. I’m not sure how Amazon Vine ever worked, but I envision an interface almost similar to AdWords, where sellers can try and narrow down their target audience and offer a select sample an incentive to review, inline with search listings.
Since amazon would know about serial reviewers as well as how critical they are based on prior reviews, they could finely tune who is offered the incentive. I can easily imagine a world where these Amazon ordained incentivized reviews become far more trustworthy than ordinary ones. After all, if a product is good why wouldn’t the seller get a few incentivized reviews through Amazon?
If you want to see a bunch of fake reviews, search for Instant Pot cookbooks and read the reviews for those.
Amazon may not be able to stop it, but they could surely mitigate it significantly. They choose not to, because in the end, having lots of reviews for lots of products is better for them than having a few reviews for a few products, even if a significant number of the reviews are fake.
Amazon can fix this, but they have no incentive to. It doesn't matter who make the sales, they get 15%. If the seller uses FBA, Amazon get a cut there too.
An example of a fix could be take into account of reviews to sales ratio and flag those products with high reviews to sales ratio.
An example of a fix could be take into account of reviews to sales ratio and flag those products with high reviews to sales ratio.
How do you propose they determine which reviews are fake and which are real?
What if Amazon got rid of reviews?
I have tried to deal with this by mainly reading the bad reviews and looking at what people were complaining about specifically.
But I read that vendors will also fake bad reviews of competitors, so that might not be a good solution, either.
But I read that vendors will also fake bad reviews of competitors, so that might not be a good solution, either.
Happens to 95% of Packt books.
Awesome piece of content.
I would like to see Amazon raise the barrier to entry to prevent fly-by-night sellers from listing the same crappy products. I give up sometimes when looking for something after seeing dozens or hundreds of pages of the same thing listed under different brands from different sellers.
Is there really so much benefit to having everyone and their uncle selling on Amazon? I can go to Ebay for that. As Amazon becomes no more trustworthy than Ebay I lost my incentive to shop there.