Amazon Bans Free / Discounted Products in Exchange for Review

[DrekiTech]

Link to Announcement Here.

What're your thoughts?

 

[DT MI]

 

[Street Guardian USA]

Interesting

I shared your post on this other related hot topic thread from awhile back:
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/are-amazon-reviews-trustworthy.10460/

 

[Nigel]

Maybe the title should be "Amazon takes control of free product distribution for reviews".

Maybe an incentive to join "Amazon Prime Executive", to gain access to the free product hand-out, only available if you purchase $x worth of Amazon Prime product/year.

I'm guessing it won't actually help the quality of the reviews much...

 

[DrekiTech]

Maybe the title should be "Amazon takes control of free product distribution for reviews".

Maybe an incentive to join "Amazon Prime Executive", to gain access to the free product hand-out, only available if you purchase $x worth of Amazon Prime product/year.

I'm guessing it won't actually help the quality of the reviews much...

I'm part of Amazon Vine in Canada. There's no way to buy into Amazon Vine. It's an invite only program where an Amazon employee invites reviewers based on rank/quality (supposedly). The difference is through this program sellers are not allowed to directly contact reviewers, whereas with other incentivized reviews sellers can influence by asking for 5-stars, harassing a reviewer to change their reviews, etc.

I also doubt the quality of the reviews is going to improve. Amazon still allows anyone to review any product whether they bought it on the site or not. It's just that now the sellers will need to send products in a way that does not involve Amazon at all. The people who were getting paid through PayPal to review "honestly" (against the rules) will keep at it and those of us who were genuinely trying to help others (to the best of our ability) within the old rules will just get pushed away. The difference now is that people will not post their free sample reviews with the disclosure to hide, which in my opinion is not good.

I'm disappointed, but I have a bias because I believe in what I did and it also helped me start my YouTube channel.

 

[jokiin]

I'm sure the regular offenders have lists of past reviewers that they can still get to do their dirty work for them, very hard to eliminate the fake reviews on a site that big

 

[SawMaster]

Reviews? Who reads them? Most people just count the stars and spend foolishly

Those in the know only half-believe on-page reviews, and the only the ones being very specific. Fake reviews are too easy and unstoppable unless you end all reviews. So to me nothing is different and it never will be

Phil

 

[Paul Schmehl]

Reviews? Who reads them? Most people just count the stars and spend foolishly

Those in the know only half-believe on-page reviews, and the only the ones being very specific. Fake reviews are too easy and unstoppable unless you end all reviews. So to me nothing is different and it never will be

Phil

I always read the reviews. I read a few of the verified purchase 4s and 5s and then go straight to the ones. If there are multiple ones mentioning the same problem, you can bet you have a good chance of experiencing it with that product.

I always post reviews on Amazon for products I buy, whether I got them from Amazon or not. I try to make them as realistic as possible and mention the problems I've encountered. I also edit reviews and downgrade my rating if I run into problems with the product after purchase.

 

[Lola]

Here is an example. I've always used (and father and relatives) Square-D well switches to control the water pressure in our houses. I just bought one last week from Amazon with great reviews as usual. It looks the same but the build "quality" has gone down considerably ( FSG2j24MYCP). I won't know how it works til it breaks for some reason.
Theres one thing about those reviews, people buy things (maybe) that is supposed to last for a long time, maybe years then a couple weeks/days post a review of how great the item is, that should tell us all something.

 

[Dashmellow]

Whether it is on Amazon or anywhere else, I always take customer reviews with a grain of salt. It's not always that people have an agenda, sometimes they are just clueless know-nothing idiots.

For example, I was shopping for a new vacuum cleaner some time ago and more or less had decided on a Dyson D-23. Some guy left a review that said some very positive things about the Dyson but his major complaint was that he claimed that this model had no on-board tool storage. I almost didn't buy the thing after I read that! But then it turned out that the reviewer simply couldn't figure out the clever engineering that Dyson used for the on-board storage that the machine does happen to enjoy. I have to admit that it took me a minute of head scratching to figure it out myself after it arrived as it wasn't immediately obvious. Later, I discovered that it's all there in the instruction manual anyway but the "reviewer" obviously hadn't bothered to avail himself of that resource before giving up in frustration and leaving his review. I wonder if anyone else didn't buy this vacuum because this guy didn't know what he was talking about? I see reviews like that all the time on Amazon.

Regardless of the incentive or motivations in leaving reviews, unless they are from a competent, knowledgeable reviewer they can be way less than helpful.

 

[Street Guardian USA]

I prefer Shark over Dyson these days
(I've had several of both)

 

[Dashmellow]

I prefer Shark over Dyson these days
(I've had several of both)

Yeah, Shark has been trying very, very hard to compete with Dyson. What strikes me is that when I visit a store like Walmart or Target practically every brand of vacuum cleaner looks exactly like a Dyson. That kind of trend is becoming all too common these days and my experience is that it is usually best to go with the original.

 

[DT MI]

...but his major complaint was that he claimed that this model had no on-board tool storage....

My favorite '1 star' reviews are those where the buyer rated it low because they bought the wrong product. WTF?

 

[jokiin]

My favorite '1 star' reviews are those where the buyer rated it low because they bought the wrong product. WTF?

we got a 1 star once because the product is made in China, racism alive and well in the review system

 

[Dashmellow]

My favorite '1 star' reviews are those where the buyer rated it low because they bought the wrong product. WTF?

I like that! It's very creative.

 

[Paul Schmehl]

we got a 1 star once because the product is made in China, racism alive and well in the review system

@jokiin, that's not racism. If anything it's nationalism. People resent that fact that so few things are made in America any more and so much is made in China. There are many good reasons for that that having nothing to do with racism. For example, Chinese manufacturers don't suffer from the same regulatory burden that American manufacturers labor under, and that exacts a financial penalty that is hard to overcome.

 

[jokiin]

@jokiin, that's not racism. If anything it's nationalism. People resent that fact that so few things are made in America any more and so much is made in China. There are many good reasons for that that having nothing to do with racism. For example, Chinese manufacturers don't suffer from the same regulatory burden that American manufacturers labor under, and that exacts a financial penalty that is hard to overcome.

reading the guys other reviews he was clearly racist, he basically reviewed anything that was made in China as 1 star, sure he might have been patriotic but clearly some things are just not made in the USA and his reviews all had rants attached

 

[Street Guardian USA]

I remember the 1 star made in China reviewer. His other products reviewed were huge machete knives and other survival gear type stuff

 

[Dashmellow]

@jokiin, that's not racism. If anything it's nationalism. People resent that fact that so few things are made in America any more and so much is made in China. There are many good reasons for that that having nothing to do with racism. For example, Chinese manufacturers don't suffer from the same regulatory burden that American manufacturers labor under, and that exacts a financial penalty that is hard to overcome.

The reason so much manufacturing is done in China has far more to do with very low wages than "regulatory burdens". Less regulation has simply led to extreme water pollution and unbreathable air over there even if it does lower costs to industry. Little by little China is seeing that they too will have to regulate many of the same things that get regulated elsewhere for the same reasons.

 

[kamkar]

Hard to argue with a prepper

And China is making the same mistakes all of us other countries have done, and it is sad they have not been able to learn from our mistakes as they have advanced their society.

Then again is is a human right to be stupid