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

[mentadent]

Just the opposite. Unless the reviews are dishonest, smart businesses respond to indications that their products are not working in the real world.

Lol.

 

[DrekiTech]

This was kinda exactly the problem in the first place. It ended up some big circle where sellers, who in many cases likely never used/saw their product, thought they were actually selling decent items. But in reality all the good reviews were incentivized for free items. So they would never respond and try a new item if one item was subpar. Because let's face it most of these action cams at least are just off the shelf from Alibaba just with a brand name silkscreened on it. The seller will have no idea how to fix issues, improve firmware or anything. But at least if reviews were bad they'd stop selling it and move on. Like those M-Star cameras that are still Live.

 

[Skylar132]

A woman I know bought a Rexing without consulting me, even though she knew I was heavy into dashcamming, and all because it had an affordable price and tons of 5-star reviews. She wanted it for parking recording and didn't get a HWK, didn't realize her tiny car battery wasn't going to give her more than a few hours anyway, and she was trying to run it on a 4GB card I gave her my newest 64GB Samsung card, did the install, and told her the bad news about parking protection, bot offered to do a HWK if she bought one. I don't think she even uses the cam anymore Lotsa tales like this where people didn't know, didn't look deeper, but just bought based on the stars they saw in their eyes From what I've heard that company was playing the review game as recently as 18 months ago, dunno if they still are, but I've been waiting to see their name and a lot of others pop up in this thread.

There's hardly any way to fix the problem and keep a review system; whatever measures are taken will be met with counter-measures to get around them in a never-ending game of cat and mouse Semper Caveat Emptor.

Phil

reminds me of a family friend who consulted me on what dash cam to get, i gave her recommendations based on her budget and needs and then she went and got a £30 dashcam from amazon with an unbranded card, oh well good luck to her if she needs the evidence from it

 

[DrekiTech]

Yep, aforementioned action cam brand Victure is back as GoVicture, asking for Amazon reviews on new listings for the same products (that, mind you, have 0 reviews now)

 

[mentadent]

I think Amazon would be better without reviews on the site.

 

[jokiin]

I think Amazon would be better without reviews on the site.

some are helpful, but yeah, no reviews would be better than fake reviews

 

[HonestReview]

I think Amazon would be better without reviews on the site.

Amazon could fix the problem by forbidding new accounts, accounts less than 6 months old, and accounts with fewer than X purchases from reviewing products. This would cut down on people making fake proxy accounts to post reviews. Since most of these accounts will have no purchase history and are newly created.

 

[jokiin]

Amazon could fix the problem by forbidding new accounts, accounts less than 6 months old, and accounts with fewer than X purchases from reviewing products. This would cut down on people making fake proxy accounts to post reviews. Since most of these accounts will have no purchase history and are newly created.

the problem is just as prolific amongst long term members that take incentives for positive reviews, perhaps more so, there are many that have made a living out of it

 

[HonestReview]

the problem is just as prolific amongst long term members that take incentives for positive reviews, perhaps more so, there are many that have made a living out of it

How so? Setting up "Youtube Review Channels"?

 

[mentadent]

How so? Setting up "Youtube Review Channels"?

By manufacturers paying them to buy the item and make a review. There's many self-service sites set up to do this, like Savesoo. It is not dishonest if you make an honest review.

People blocking banner advertising has probably made advertisers turn to paying youtubers for reviews.

 

[HonestReview]

By manufacturers paying them to buy the item and make a review. There's many self-service sites set up to do this, like Savesoo. It is not dishonest if you make an honest review.

People blocking banner advertising has probably made advertisers turn to paying youtubers for reviews.

1. Never knew about websites dedicated to recruiting testers....interesting.

2. Unless you are doing youtube promotional videos or other ad supported revenue sources, there's little chance of making an income. Buying a product and being refunded wouldn't be much of a windfall. Even if you turn around and sold the product, it's a lot of effort for little return. Since companies don't always production level models as samples.

Seems a lot of cool products on there, though!

 

[DashCamMan]

1. Never knew about websites dedicated to recruiting testers....interesting.

2. Unless you are doing youtube promotional videos or other ad supported revenue sources, there's little chance of making an income. Buying a product and being refunded wouldn't be much of a windfall. Even if you turn around and sold the product, it's a lot of effort for little return. Since companies don't always production level models as samples.

Seems a lot of cool products on there, though!

They are not recruiting testers. They are recruiting people to give 5 star reviews in exchange for a free product. This is a very common practice which has been happening for years on Amazon and is well documented. This article from 2 years ago shows how 1 person is getting thousands of dollars worth of free products. Not much income but lots of free stuff.

Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake.

One woman stumbled into a side hustle that’s resulted in hundreds of free Amazon products worth tens of thousands of dollars.

www.buzzfeednews.com

 

[jokiin]

They are not recruiting testers. They are recruiting people to give 5 star reviews in exchange for a free product. This is a very common practice which has been happening for years on Amazon and is well documented. This article from 2 years ago shows how 1 person is getting thousands of dollars worth of free products. Not much income but lots of free stuff.

Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake.

One woman stumbled into a side hustle that’s resulted in hundreds of free Amazon products worth tens of thousands of dollars.

www.buzzfeednews.com

The free product gets on sold as well so they profit from the sale of things they haven't paid for

Amazon just had an app pulled from the app store that exposes fake reviews, citing a breach of terms and conditions, make of that what you will

Amazon just got Fakespot booted off Apple’s iOS App Store

The fake review spotting app’s founder says it was abrupt.

www.theverge.com

 

[HonestReview]

They are not recruiting testers. They are recruiting people to give 5 star reviews in exchange for a free product. This is a very common practice which has been happening for years on Amazon and is well documented. This article from 2 years ago shows how 1 person is getting thousands of dollars worth of free products. Not much income but lots of free stuff.

Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake.

One woman stumbled into a side hustle that’s resulted in hundreds of free Amazon products worth tens of thousands of dollars.

www.buzzfeednews.com

Let me rephrase that a bit. I was aware people faked amazon reviews, and that "verified purchasers" could be refunded. I was 100% unaware there were websites dedicated to this scheme. Guess "Jessica" in the article gets mounds of junk for her 5 star reviews. Considering a lot of those products are literal junk, not sure the incentive.

After all, if a company is wanting fake 5 star reviews, the product can't be all that great. Since companies with a solid product would be able to stand on their own two feet through the merit of what they sell.

 

[HonestReview]

The free product gets on sold as well so they profit from the sale of things they haven't paid for

Amazon just had an app pulled from the app store that exposes fake reviews, citing a breach of terms and conditions, make of that what you will

Amazon just got Fakespot booted off Apple’s iOS App Store

The fake review spotting app’s founder says it was abrupt.

www.theverge.com

It's quite clear Amazon has remained mum and complicit from day one. Amazon cares more about moving product than ensuring the products being sold live up to expectation.

What I do wonder though is how these "refund for review companies" make money. If you're giving away 1000s of products to buy reviews, that's quite a loss. Even if the items are cheap crappy knockoffs. There's still a production cost involved. And you need enough foolish people to see those reviews to recoup the money "spent" giving away those items.

 

[jokiin]

It's quite clear Amazon has remained mum and complicit from day one. Amazon cares more about moving product than ensuring the products being sold live up to expectation.

What I do wonder though is how these "refund for review companies" make money. If you're giving away 1000s of products to buy reviews, that's quite a loss. Even if the items are cheap crappy knockoffs. There's still a production cost involved. And you need enough foolish people to see those reviews to recoup the money "spent" giving away those items.

The difference in sales volume for any seller that is number one in their category is dramatically larger than even the second place seller, it's a numbers game

 

[Kremmen]

How much does the average person buy from Amazon. They could easily limit reviews to a sensible amount to help stop these mass reviewers.

 

[Lothar]

It's quite clear Amazon has remained mum and complicit from day one. Amazon cares more about moving product than ensuring the products being sold live up to expectation.

What I do wonder though is how these "refund for review companies" make money. If you're giving away 1000s of products to buy reviews, that's quite a loss. Even if the items are cheap crappy knockoffs. There's still a production cost involved. And you need enough foolish people to see those reviews to recoup the money "spent" giving away those items.

If it was not profitable, they would not be doing it.
Where there's smoke, there's fire.

If they're giving away 1,000 products and selling 10,000; they're making a profit.
It's all about maintaining the eyeballs (maintaining top "3" or top "whatever" in your item category) by gaming the review system using incentivized reviews and PayPal.
There's a reason why Aukey, Vava, and Apeman were always on top of the Amazon list when searching for dashcams and not companies like Viofo or Street Guardian.

Just like with Google Search, it's all about the page rankings.
People are more likely to click on links on the first page, than the second page.
People are more likely to click on the first 3 links on the first page than on the 8th, 9th, or 10th link on the same page.

 

[HonestReview]

If it was not profitable, they would not be doing it.
Where there's smoke, there's fire.

If they're giving away 1,000 products and selling 10,000; they're making a profit.
It's all about maintaining the eyeballs (maintaining top "3" or top "whatever" in your item category) by gaming the review system using incentivized reviews and PayPal.
There's a reason why Aukey, Vava, and Apeman were always on top of the Amazon list when searching for dashcams and not companies like Viofo or Street Guardian.

Just like with Google Search, it's all about the page rankings.
People are more likely to click on links on the first page, than the second page.
People are more likely to click on the first 3 links on the first page than on the 8th, 9th, or 10th link on the same page.

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.

 

[EGS]

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.

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