Amazon Might be Finally Doing Something About Fake Reviews - Apeman Delisted

There are plenty of companies that give free products for people to honestly review as well.
 
mentadent said:
There are plenty of companies that give free products for people to honestly review as well.
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Rightfully. Wonder where you sign up for those product tests? Or do most recruit youtubers with millions of viewers / social influencers?
 
When I'm searching Amazon there are lots of unknown to me brand names. I avoid them.

I bought a short mini USB cable that failed in about a month, something happened inside the A connector. When I searched Amazon for a replacement I found about a dozen or so identical cable pictures to mine under various unknown names.

Ended up buying a known UGreen one that is giving good service.
 
EGS said:
I don't know how you feel about it but to me this is maddening. So they are actively deliberately contributing to the issue as it generates revenue for themselves.


www.cnbc.com

Amazon asked Apple to remove an app that spots fake reviews, and Apple agreed

Fakespot is a well-known app used to help shoppers detect fraudulent reviews on Amazon.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
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Not that complicated to understand really. Fakespot’s code is clearly violating Apple’s policy (5.2.2) on third party software access without permission. End of story. Applies to everyone.

Common sense shows you can still use their website to achieve the same result. Or use other apps that do as good if not better jobs without violating policy.
 
HonestReview said:
I get that part. But let's say you give away 1000 freebies to "fake reviewers". The benefit of gaming the system depends upon the quality of the product. If the product is a piece of crap or a knock off, the real buyers between 1001 and 11,000 would start leaving negative feedback. Causing ranking and reviews to tank.

On the other hand, if the product is a solid performer, I see the benefit of gaming the system. You get 1000 reviews, top ranking, and then people notice your product. Those real buyers 1001 to 11,000 leave more positive feedback, making being a top billed item very profitable.
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The amount of people who could not be bothered to leave a review without incentive, even if the product is kinda garbage, is pretty high. But frankly the "free gift with review" thing is what I think pushes a lot of people who have no context for quality to leave 5 star reviews that look organic to any test sites like fakespot. Free SD card with your dashcam? Sure that cheap cam that barely does HD and is sold as "4K" can get a 5-star review cause it turns on and records video, the bare minimum for a dashcam.....
 
HonestReview said:
Rightfully. Wonder where you sign up for those product tests? Or do most recruit youtubers with millions of viewers / social influencers?
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I as a small youtuber used to get many review products by also reviewing on amazon, admittedly, but I tried to be honest about it. Once they made it "you must review 5-star or we will withhold paypal refund" it became problematic. Prior to that sellers would send 99% off coupons or just outright send the product but a few years ago once Amazon banned incentivized reviews the game changed. No longer would you put "I received this product for free in exchange for my honest feedback", and now everyone is Verified Purchase, because the refunds happen behind the scenes. And the sellers say, if you won't give it 5-stars, we won't refund you, just return it to Amz.

Sellers reach out to me through my Amazon profile often still, and I mostly just ignore them because it's all generic garbage that is practically e-waste out the door. You're not really missing much.
 
DrekiTech said:
I as a small youtuber used to get many review products by also reviewing on amazon, admittedly, but I tried to be honest about it. Once they made it "you must review 5-star or we will withhold paypal refund" it became problematic. Prior to that sellers would send 99% off coupons or just outright send the product but a few years ago once Amazon banned incentivized reviews the game changed. No longer would you put "I received this product for free in exchange for my honest feedback", and now everyone is Verified Purchase, because the refunds happen behind the scenes. And the sellers say, if you won't give it 5-stars, we won't refund you, just return it to Amz.

Sellers reach out to me through my Amazon profile often still, and I mostly just ignore them because it's all generic garbage that is practically e-waste out the door. You're not really missing much.
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Seems Amazon's earlier premise was more transparent. I received this item in exchange for a review at least notifies potential buyers this review may not be fully transparent. With "Verified Buyer" and refunds behind the scenes, now every purchase appears "Legit". Which to regular people, appears to make a crap product seem "Great" if everyone leaves 4 or 5 star reviews.
 
HonestReview said:
Seems Amazon's earlier premise was more transparent. I received this item in exchange for a review at least notifies potential buyers this review may not be fully transparent. With "Verified Buyer" and refunds behind the scenes, now every purchase appears "Legit". Which to regular people, appears to make a crap product seem "Great" if everyone leaves 4 or 5 star reviews.
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Yes, you are correct. While fake reviews (and review farms) were still a problem behind the scenes, anyone doing incentivized reviews prominently told the buyer that the review might be sus.

Amazon got complaints about the number of people with the disclosure text in their reviews and so they banned incentivized reviewing. At some point I would go visit products and it would be 9/10 reviews with the disclosure text.

But banning it just moved underground, made it harder to tell who was doing incentivized reviews.

I'm doing a budget action cam showdown series, and since buying these cameras 6 / 8 of the brands have been banned from Amazon. Not that I'd directly want to earn affiliate revenue off of selling garbo cameras anyways, but affiliate revenue is the primary way I make money off of my channel, so now I'm kinda screwed for breaking even on this series... Also I am kicking myself for not starting patreon 2 or 3 years ago, but frankly I am not a very interesting personality so I have struggled to build up subscribers on YT anyways. Maybe Patreon by now would have grown into an actual revenue stream instead of something I just post on and hope for the best.

For me I am happy if the hobby pays for itself, as much as I would like to go full time at video production, it has been at times like yelling into the void, so I have taken whatever I can get from sellers and done a couple things I'm not proud of in order to get free samples for the channel. At least everything I've written is my honest opinion, built through a decent amount of testing, though.
 
DrekiTech said:
Yes, you are correct. While fake reviews (and review farms) were still a problem behind the scenes, anyone doing incentivized reviews prominently told the buyer that the review might be sus.

Amazon got complaints about the number of people with the disclosure text in their reviews and so they banned incentivized reviewing. At some point I would go visit products and it would be 9/10 reviews with the disclosure text.

But banning it just moved underground, made it harder to tell who was doing incentivized reviews.

I'm doing a budget action cam showdown series, and since buying these cameras 6 / 8 of the brands have been banned from Amazon. Not that I'd directly want to earn affiliate revenue off of selling garbo cameras anyways, but affiliate revenue is the primary way I make money off of my channel, so now I'm kinda screwed for breaking even on this series... Also I am kicking myself for not starting patreon 2 or 3 years ago, but frankly I am not a very interesting personality so I have struggled to build up subscribers on YT anyways. Maybe Patreon by now would have grown into an actual revenue stream instead of something I just post on and hope for the best.

For me I am happy if the hobby pays for itself, as much as I would like to go full time at video production, it has been at times like yelling into the void, so I have taken whatever I can get from sellers and done a couple things I'm not proud of in order to get free samples for the channel. At least everything I've written is my honest opinion, built through a decent amount of testing, though.
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DCT provides a great means of researching cameras. As people here actually take the time to evaluate a product. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the visibility or exposure of Amazon. Plus, Dash Cams are still a very "niche" market. I see far more people without than I do owning one. Outside of your countries like Russia and China (home to scams and corrupt police supposedly), most people don't seem all that interested. Confounding, seeing how a dash cam video doesn't lie and proves to be an unbias witness in an accident, road rage, or other similar scenarios.
 
Part of the problem is that the average person is at least somewhat stupid and lazy :eek: They're dazzled by the stars and don't read the reviews, many of which say they received the product but haven't tried it, or that they plugged it in and it seems to work. And Amazon doesn't help when they 'rank' reviews and put the most popular ones on top instead of the most comprehensive ones. Save for brand-new products, anyone can find out more if they will look, but most don't- instead they whine and complain when they fall into their self-made trap :mad:

Got an Email from Amazon (Did everyone?) saying they're ending arbitration in complaints with Amazon. I couldn't tell if this applied only to corporate disputes or if it applies to buyer-seller problems, but if it's the latter then only those near Amazon's HQ in Washington state will have a viable means of redress as any lawsuits have to be filed and heard there. Seems to me that Amazon may be killing itself; perhaps it's being run by the 'average' people I mentioned? :cautious:

Phil
 
I got that email as well, I wasn't sure if it was because we were previously selling on Amazon (I closed the store there, they were such a nightmare to deal with that it just wasn't worth it), or because I have bought off Amazon before, could be either I guess
 
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