
Some Amazon Reviews Are Too Good to Be Believed – They're Paid For - EnderWT
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/30/629800775/some-amazon-reviews-are-too-good-to-be-believed-theyre-paid-for
======
chrissnell
I've been burned multiple times by this; the worst was a pair of remote
control off-road trucks for my sons' Christmas presents. They had hundreds of
5-star reviews and both units worked for maybe 5 minutes each. Within days of
Christmas, the listing was flooded with 1-star reviews from other conned
parents with very similar stories.

The number of products impacted _must_ be far over the 1% claimed. There are
whole categories that have been ruined by Fake China and kids' toys is
probably the worst. Headphones, as mentioned by another commenter here, are
another.

This problem is quickly destroying Amazon's credibility with a lot of
customers. I went to a Best Buy for the first time in a decade to buy a pair
of iPhone headphones, just so I'd be assured a genuine product. I now buy my
kids' toys at Target, just so I can be assured that there's a reasonable
chance that they aren't crap.

~~~
Waterluvian
I can handle getting some crappy set of headphones but a big let down for a
child's Christmas is just so upsetting to a point that maybe I've got
unaddressed issues. I have a toddler and I think I'll gladly pay the premium
to buy Toys R Us stuff I can touch and play with in the store.

~~~
monocularvision
> Toys R Us

Um, I have some bad news for you.

~~~
Waterluvian
They seem to be strong here in Canada. I hope that lasts. Walmart is the only
other option and it's not really an enjoyable experience.

~~~
kurthr
Hilariously, ToysRUs are still big in China. Lots of kids and parents
shopping. How did the vultures only get the US stores?

~~~
Lio
They got the UK stores too. :(

------
ashelmire
"Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic"

Get the hell outta here. Look at literally any product and you'll see a
plethora of obviously fake reviews. The worst I've noticed? Check out
headphones. 500+ 5 star reviews for cheap Chinese products all over the place.
In fact, anything that's around 500 5 star reviews is probably mostly fake
reviews.

~~~
danjayh
Worse still, Amazon will delete authentic reviews that contain information
they don't like. For instance, I started working my way through all of the
batteries on Amazon (top review on this product, for instance:
[https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B009PPR5OU/](https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B009PPR5OU/)
), and Amazon deleted them from multiple products because of the table with
cost/battery data (which is extremely relevant when reviewing a commodity
product like Alkaline batteries). I got pissed off and quit reviewing stuff on
Amazon unless it sucked (or in rare cases where a chinagarbage product and/or
seller exceeded my expectations).

~~~
sdoering
Additionally they delete reviews of the same product if distinct people are
deemed to be somewhat connected or deemed to be in one household.

So if you and your spouse like to keep their own opinions and review
separately never connect your accounts in any way.

~~~
astura
Unless you both have different billing and shipping addreses, your accounts
are already "connected" in their system.

------
1024core
Anecdata, sample size 1.

I bought some toy for a toddler. Upon receiving it, I realized that the
description was misleading; many of the "pieces" they had listed boldly were
just cheap plastic pieces of crap that had no useful functionality.

So I returned it, and wrote a 1-star review.

A few weeks later, I got an email from them: they were offering $30 if I took
down the review. I ignored the email.

Several weeks later, another email: this time offering $40.

And so on.

Their latest email is offering me $70 to take down the review. I still
haven't.

I'd forward the email to Amazon if (a) I knew they'd do something, and, more
importantly, (b) I knew WHERE to send it!

Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not
being gamed. Since the email goes through Amazon servers, _they should be able
to at least make an attempt at catching such people!_

~~~
misja111
>> Basically, Amazon has no interest in making sure that the reviews are not
being gamed

I don't agree. First of all, these fake reviews are bad for Amazon's
reputation and thus for their business. Second, these frauds lead to people
returning their items to Amazon. I do not know how Amazon settles this with
the original seller but I'd imagine that in the end Amazon will not make any
profit on the whole transaction, or even a loss.

~~~
carlmr
I still haven't found a feedback mechanism where you can say "I suspect it is
fake".

I'm not buying on marketplace anymore, except if I can't find the product
anywhere else.

------
JohnTHaller
It's common knowledge among most techies that the majority of Amazon reviews
are fake and that counterfeit items are a big issue, but most of the general
population is completely unaware. I was searching for an inexpensive pair of
polarized sunglasses last week and the "Amazon Recommended" ones had an F on
FakeSpot with 70%+ fake reviews.

~~~
prolikewh0a
How legitimate is FakeSpot though? I find nearly everything has an F with a
high amount of fake reviews when I use it.

~~~
johndubchak
I checked your comment and it was an F with 83% fake on FakeSpot.

 __Edit: I was paid for writing this review.

~~~
dunpeal
I checked FakeSpot with FakeSpotFakeSpot, a website to check the authenticity
of fake-review spotting websites, and it received an A with 99% authenticity.

------
jameslk
There will always be a desire to pay for reviews, since 70%-80% of shoppers
check reviews before buying[0][1] (and growing[2]).

Amazon could help fix this problem by creating "sponsored" reviews. This way a
company can pay for reviews in a non-scummy way, a reviewer (and Amazon) gets
paid, and a customer can tell whether the review was paid for or not.

Or just pass laws to regulate reviews.

0\. [http://www.peopleclaim.com/blog/index.php/the-review-of-
rati...](http://www.peopleclaim.com/blog/index.php/the-review-of-ratings/)

1\. [https://www.chainstoreage.com/news/study-81-research-
online-...](https://www.chainstoreage.com/news/study-81-research-online-
making-big-purchases/)

2\. [https://deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/2016/11/01/media-device-
habits-...](https://deloitte.wsj.com/cmo/2016/11/01/media-device-habits-of-
the-modern-consumer/)

~~~
chaostheory
Amazon has done this for years now. It's call Amazon Vine. Select Amazon
customers with high review ratings are given free* products for which they
have to give unbiased reviews. It's both sponsored by Amazon as well as
various manufacturers.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help](https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help)

It has mixed results. Amazon is upfront about Vine reviewers getting free
product and resulting reviews have a Vine tag on top. Customers tend to not
like Vine reviews vs verified purchase reviews. While there are negative Vine
reviews, most are positive. It may be due to a psychological quid pro quo,
since you tend to get more products from the same manufacturer if you offer
positive reviews vs negative ones. It's just really hard to be unbiased when
you keep getting "free" stuff from one of your favorite companies.

*It's taxable according to Amazon's cost in most cases so you get to figure out Amazon's margins for a lot of products. If it's manufacturer sponsored, then the item isn't taxable as income. Food and similar products are also not considered taxable.

~~~
dkonofalski
Why would companies know who's getting their products to review and why would
reviewers know which products they're getting? I feel like an easy fix for
this is to have the company send the product to Amazon first and then have
Amazon handle the distribution to reviewers. There's no "quid pro quo" if
there's no incentive to review a product favorably.

That's why Consumer Reports was so successful in the past. Their reviews were
completely unbiased because the draw was in people paying to get thorough,
objective reviews of products.

Now that revenue comes from ads and manufacturers all over the internet, it's
hard to find reviews that aren't paid ads.

~~~
ghaff
While product-for-reviews have a certain conflict of interest, I know quite a
few people (including myself) who write reviews of both products we receive
for free and products we pay for who give honest opinions. If I agree to let
you send me a product, I'll write a review but you won't like my review if I
don't like your product.

~~~
james-skemp
When I first joined Vine a long time ago I think you had to have passed a
certain threshold for number and quality (based upon helpful votes) before you
were offered a place. That definitely changed over the last couple of years.

Once it opened up to people that had never left reviews, naturally the quality
is going to drop by some amount.

------
netinstructions
And I've had issues trying to leave less than perfect reviews - seems like
only _after_ I spend time typing up the review (and sometimes uploading
photos) does Amazon come back and say, sorry can't publish this.

Seems like a dark pattern to encourage only positive reviews.

[http://www.netinstructions.com/amazon-dark-
patterns/](http://www.netinstructions.com/amazon-dark-patterns/)

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
YES! I have this happen to and notice the same patterns. I honestly think
there is grounds for a lawsuit here. Whether or not that would be a successful
lawsuit is another question, but the threat of one could get Amazon to change
its tune.

------
makecheck
“Reviews”, in general, are absurdly misleading on any site; Amazon is just
prominent.

I’ve given real reviews on Yelp of businesses that had real problems. These
negative ratings were shuffled off into their special bucket of maybe-less-
reliable reviews, well under pages of HIGHLY questionable 5-star reviews. I
also have a friend with a business who was plainly told that he needs to pay
to ensure good reviews. Yelp is a scam, and wins by being a virtual monopoly
(as Amazon reviews do).

It is also _amazingly_ hard to get reviews on the App Store from real users,
for instance. I imagine you pretty much have to ask 60 friends to “help” you,
or pay somebody, either of which creates a pool of fake reviews. It really
changes your perspective on any other “ratings” you see.

In the end, I think society will learn that this is another example of buyer
beware, and you get out of it what you put into it. Since looking over
“reviews” for 30 seconds is low-effort, it is low-value. If you want _good_
results, you need to spend a good amount of time and effort researching
products.

------
EnderWT
This topic keeps coming up in the news, and I've altered my shopping habits
because of it. The competition has gotten tougher with Google Express, Walmart
delivery and pickup, Target pickup, etc. When I order from one of them or make
a trip to the store, I can at least verify the item I'm purchasing is from the
manufacturer.

When looking at the reviews on Amazon, countless times I've seen reviewers
mention to not buy the item from a particular seller because it was not
genuine or was defective. If I'm not sure about the brand, I'll search it to
see if its legitimate and if there are reviews/complaints on other sites. I'll
also use buying guides when determining what to buy instead of Amazon reviews.

~~~
NTARelix
Makes me wonder how many of those guides have been paid for, or at least what
level of influence advertisers have on them. Nevertheless, I agree that a
quality guide is well appreciated, however hard to come by.

~~~
EnderWT
Many "guides" just end up being affiliate marketing link aggregators. I
appreciate The Wirecutter's About[1] page where they tell how they review
products.

[1][https://thewirecutter.com/about/](https://thewirecutter.com/about/)

------
nfoz
I'm not really sure why there are any _real_ reviews on sites like Amazon,
Yelp etc. Why do people leave reviews; what's in it for them? Is it some
strange form of altruism where they're helping their fellow anonymous shopper
while also helping out one of the world's most successful megacorporations?

Writing this comment has made me re-think why I'm writing this comment.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I tend to leave a review when something is better than expected or if I'm
disappointed enough to do so. I'll also occasionally leave a review of
something if I'm prompted, but that more depends on whim. I also am likely to
leave a review on products that are occasional purchases - small kitchen
appliances. This is because I personally find these helpful when sourced from
multiple places.

I rarely leave a review for average products. There is rarely a good way to
communicate to folks that the product simply met expectations. For example, if
I buy a bag of coffee that I've purchased before and I get said coffee, there
isn't much I can say. "I bought this because I find this coffee good enough to
buy a second time. It isn't my favorite, but it is good and my average quality
of coffee. Package was undamaged and contained the expected coffee".

That isn't exactly a 5 star review, yet if I give 3 or 4 it seems to be a ding
on the company. I'd rather not, thank you.

~~~
thirdsun
> I tend to leave a review when something is better than expected or if I'm
> disappointed enough to do so.

And that's the problem with user reviews. They emphasize the extreme ends of
the spectrum. There's little incentive to leave a review for the potentially
silent majority of moderate users that are simply satisfied with the product.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
It is, and it is something that could be solved simply by asking the right
questions instead of the overall review on a number (or star) scale. I hardly
think simple satisfaction warrants a 5-star review, but I think if I just put
3-star, it might hurt the company... or waitress, or whatever. It isn't _sane_
, and I'd almost argue that there is a disincentive to leave a moderate
review. It is the same for store satisfaction surveys and many more - I know
folks get penalized for not having overly good results.

But if they simply asked if it was what I was expecting and had reasonable
options - along with not punishing folks for simply delivering what I expect -
I'd answer yes.

------
riazrizvi
I've been using [https://www.fakespot.com](https://www.fakespot.com) to flag
bullshit reviews for a few months now. After many happy purchases informed by
its review analysis, I believe it works.

~~~
drewr
How can we believe you?

~~~
riazrizvi
: )

Well don't take it on trust, validate it works. And keep validating it still
works, because one day it won't. Everyone seems to sell out in the end.

~~~
endorphone
It's impossible to validate. Further for all we know Fakespot (which curiously
has been mentioned multiple times) might itself be a fake that undermines
products that are sponsored, etc. It probably isn't, I'm just saying.

~~~
lainga
But how can I trust what you're saying? What if you've been paid off by
Fakespot?

~~~
philwelch
That's why I'm launching my new website, SpotFakeFakeSpot, which helps spot
fake fake review spotting sites. I got the idea from my time as a sales rep
selling radar detector detectors to police departments.

~~~
nasredin
Thanks.

I had no idea there's a full scale electronic war on the streets of my city.

~~~
philwelch
You have no idea, man. Radar detectors these days even have radar detector
detector detectors built in.

------
richjdsmith
Hmm, I had (apparently wrongly) assumed this had become common knowledge.

Now I am beginning to wonder what percentage of people are aware of this
issue.

On a different note, I saw elsewhere (Axiom perhaps? I cannot remember) that
amazon claimed it was only roughly 1% of all reviews that were paid for. Which
based on my past experience in E-Commerce, seems significantly lower than
would be estimates.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> Hmm, I had (apparently wrongly) assumed this had become common knowledge.

me too. maybe NPR is behind the times. also: Amazon is a sponsor of NPR (just
sayin')

> amazon claimed it was only roughly 1% of all reviews that were paid for.

yes. that's right. the 1% figure also appears in the NPR article:

"Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic,"
says Sharon Chiarella, vice president of community shopping at Amazon.

~~~
toss1
Even if we make the (dubious, imo) assumption that the low 1% figure is
accurate, it can still be a huge problem.

There are 480 million products on Amazon, many in somewhat obscure categories.
Seems that if the fake reviews are simply concentrated in a popular 1% slice,
we've got almost 5 million popular products with ~~100% fake reviews.

Obviously oversimplified, but the likelihood is that the reviews are
sufficiently concentrated to be a problem using their own figures, and the
real figures are likely higher

~~~
canes123456
I would not assume that. The impact of a paid review decreases as the number
of reviews increases. ie it probably better to pay for reviews for a low
volume or new product

------
snegu
Last night I finally abandoned a book that was absolute trash, but had 83%
5-star reviews on Amazon. Looking at the reviews now, I see that most of them
are written by people who only write 5-star reviews (it has an F-rating on
Fakespot). Feeling like kind of a dummy right now.

~~~
whitepoplar
Name and shame!

~~~
13of40
The Art of the Deal has an F, with 57% low quality reviews.

"Our engine has profiled the reviewer patterns and has determined that there
is high deception involved."

~~~
13of40
Hmmm...can't edit, but: I just looked at this again, and it's interesting to
note that the Kindle version has an A rating and the print version has an F
rating, even though they appear to share the same set of reviews.

Scroll down to see the first two entries in the product list here:
[https://www.fakespot.com/company/donald-j-
trump](https://www.fakespot.com/company/donald-j-trump)

------
caseydm
One of the many reasons I let my Amazon Prime subscription expire last month.

Amazon is selling convenience. But it's not convenient to:

1\. Filter out products full of Vine program reviews, which I believe are
completely skewed due to the reviewers receiving the products for free

2\. Read between the lines to filter out paid/bias reviews that are NOT part
of the Vine program

3\. Research to ensure the product itself is not fake or counterfeit

Feel like I'm shopping at the shadiest flea market in town.

------
tananaev
I usually just ignore 5-star and 1-star reviews. Many of five stars are either
fake or people who just bought the product and are too excited to leave an
unbiased review. Many of one stars are from people who are not satisfied with
the purchase process (slow delivery / fake reviews / broken item), so they
leave bad review that doesn't really reflect product quality itself.

~~~
lucb1e
I rarely leave reviews, but there has been a case where I had to threaten to
sue a company before they'd hold up their end of an agreement. And
'threatening' is not just mentioning "I'll sue you!" but actually researching
applicable law, what prerequisites I needed to be able to sue (e.g. I needed
to hire a debt collector first, which would have cost me money as well),
applicable court, what the bailiff would cost, court fees, etc. Some fourty
phone calls and a few emails and letters later, spread out over half a year, I
finally got the money back on the day before I would have had grounds to sue
them. That was more than half a year of stress and them having both the
product and my money. To be honest it was kind of disappointing that they paid
up in the end, as I was finally well-prepared and wanted them to have to pay
the fees that debt collection etc. would have incurred.

You bet that after it was all over and done, I wrote that one-star review.
While writing it, I noticed that other people had the same issue. One person
also had to cite court fees before they paid up, and some others didn't know
enough about applicable law or had amounts that were just too low to go to
court over (like $50-$250). I usually don't put much stock in such reviews,
but it turns out I should have read and considered them.

There are definitely legitimate cases for one-star reviews.

------
ilamont
_According to outside auditors like Fakespot and ReviewMeta, more than half
the reviews for certain popular products are questionable. Amazon disputes
those estimates.

"Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic,"
says Sharon Chiarella, vice president of community shopping at Amazon. She
adds that "sometimes individual products have more suspicious activity."_

The disparity in what outside services observe and users experience vs. what
Amazon claims, and the increasing press coverage and online discussion of the
problem, will force Amazon to take increasingly drastic measures to crack down
on bogus reviews.

There is also the issue of increasing levels of returns for 5-star crap. But,
while Amazon can absorb the costs of returns, Bezos truly hates negative
press, and the Amazon PR machine will go to great lengths to get high-profile
news orgs repeating the official Amazon line.

If they can't tamp down negative coverage, the best hope for generating
positive press is to announce action - a crackdown, lawsuits against fake
reviewers, or other evidence that they are "doing something" about the issue.
Unfortunately for Amazon, they've done this in the past (1, 2) and the problem
appears to have gotten worse.

1\. October 2015: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/18/amazon-
su...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/18/amazon-
sues-1000-fake-reviewers)

2\. April 2016: [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-sues-
all...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-sues-alleged-
providers-of-fake-reviews/)

~~~
Terretta
> _Bezos truly hates negative press_

I'm not sure that's true. I think they pride themselves on not worrying about
being understood, in other words, not pandering to the press or Wall Street.

------
davidmurdoch
My own anecdote hints that it's even worse than just fake reviews... I
actually just wrote a detailed multi paragraph 1-star review of auto parts I
received from Amazon, with several photos, too.

They, Amazon, would not post it because they claim it doesn't "adhere to the
guidelines".

The review was exactly as follows:

These are "SURTRACK/TRAKMOTIVE" brand axles, part numbers BM-8040 and BM-8041.
I only installed the left side but since it didn't fit properly on my 2006 BMW
530xi I'm returning them. The OE part number is: 31607570275 and MFG part
number is: BM-8041.

The problem was that the inner boot fits improperly and deforms/creases from
being stretched when installed (see images).

Looking at the product images for this product on Amazon, as well as elsewhere
online, you can tell the boot is very different from the product I received.

/end

Can anyone find anything that goes against their review guidelines in above?

------
laurex
There was a great Planet Money podcast on the genesis of ReviewMeta which I've
been using on Amazon reviews since.
[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=623988370)

~~~
throwaway287391
Since listening to that podcast a few weeks ago I've also started checking
both ReviewMeta and FakeSpot for every Amazon listing I think about buying.

It's really made shopping on Amazon a frustrating experience -- well over half
the products I've checked (in a couple specific product categories) have had F
or D ratings according to both sites. I've wondered if some of these are false
positives (i.e. ReviewMeta flags a product's reviews as fake but they're
actually legitimate), but when you look at their reasoning in the breakdown
they give, it's usually pretty convincing that many/most of the reviews are
indeed fake.

I feel like this might be a case where ignorance is (mostly) bliss ... when I
naively thought the vast majority of reviews on Amazon were genuine, shopping
was much faster and simpler, and I _mostly_ had good experiences buying well-
reviewed products despite that many of those reviews were probably fake.

~~~
Jach
Consider that if you go buy an equivalent item at a box store, there aren't
any reviews, the company (sometimes companies) with products on offer just
happens to have enough money to get the stores to stock them over any
potential competition. Similarly with fake and paid reviews, those companies
happen to have money to do it (and do it better than competition, they can't
all be using the same github script). A company with money to do things like
that surely has some amount of money in the product itself, so what you get
will probably work out as well as what you'd get from the store...

The bigger problem for Amazon I think is fake products and inventory co-
mingling, rather than fake reviews per se. But while others are complaining
about the 5-star system not being very good (there's a fancy Bayesian system
I've seen before that's better..), at least Amazon shows you the distribution,
reviewers can upload photos, and it lets you filter by star count to get a
sense of the things said for various ratings.

I'll have to start trying out the fake review spotting tools. But I don't
think my current behavior will change that much...

~~~
throwaway287391
> Consider that if you go buy an equivalent item at a box store, there aren't
> any reviews, the company (sometimes companies) with products on offer just
> happens to have enough money to get the stores to stock them over any
> potential competition.

Well, I know that there aren't any reviews in a B&M store, but (1) I've been
checking online reviews (usually Amazon) for non-trivial purchases at B&M
stores for a while now (either before I go or at the store on my phone), and
(2) B&M stores do usually have at least one human employee in the loop signing
off on a product going onto the shelves, and at the very least the "big name"
ones (almost) never sell blatantly bogus/fraudulent products (fake Apple-
branded MacBook chargers, etc.). Amazon has pretty much been the Wild West
ever since they started allowing third party sellers, which I used to be fine
with, back when I was under the impression that the reviews were generally
pretty reliable, and sure that something that said "Shipped from and sold by
Amazon" (or whatever) was a safe bet.

------
jvz
Reviews on sites like Amazon or Yelp are a monoculture: everyone sees the same
set of reviews and the same ratings. This creates leverage that makes it
worthwhile for shills to spend large amounts of effort "infecting" those sites
with bad information, since once they find effective ways of doing so it
affects everyone.

So the solution must be a review system that works like Twitter, where each
user has a unique "view" composed of sources they've selected, directly or
indirectly. This diversity would make infection much more difficult and less
rewarding for shills and other attackers.

I'm still trying to figure out the best design for such a system. The
requirements and usage patterns would be quite different from Twitter's, and
I'm not aware of any existing attempts that I can learn from.

~~~
Toenex
Yes, tie the review more personally to the reviewer. I guess this is more like
the influencer culture we see a on Instagram and YouTube.

------
barbegal
Star ratings in general are just poor. In a 1 to 5 star rating, 3 is average
but most people would perceive 3 stars to be above average. People tend to
leave reviews only when they are displeased with the product, really pleased
with the product or get something in return for making the review, in this
case free products.

I tend to just filter on reviews that are 2 or 3 stars and use those to work
out the cons of the product. These reviews are the most likely to be honest
and can often give you the information that other reviewers forget to mention.
Unfortunately, 2 and 3 star reviews are the least likely to be posted so you
can only find them on products that have been reviewed hundreds of times.

~~~
fireattack
Really? I think most people perceive anything less than 4 stars (or even 4.5
stars for some) as "bad". I for one won't buy anything that are "merely"
3-stars.

~~~
themodelplumber
True, I gave a tech book 3 stars once and the author contacted me to request
that I reconsider, explaining that anything less than 5 stars could doom a
brand new tech book on Amazon. He offered personal support and training in
return for raising the score. It didn't work, but it also convinced me that he
has a good point regarding the score: Reviews are difficult ground due to
their subjective nature, and a lot of reviewers are simply qualitatively bad
at writing reviews. If an author just sits back and does nothing, they are
risking their brand on the individuals who take the time to write reviews, and
that set of individuals could be--even randomly--pretty bad.

For example: I've seen many, many 1-star "product was damaged in shipping" and
similar e.g. "received wrong product" one-reviews for products that were
absolutely stellar. Getting into even more tricky ground, I've seen 1-star
"product is unscientific" reviews left on books containing information that is
mainly intractable to science, like studies in history.

~~~
Ensorceled
So, when you were giving the book 3 stars, how did you judge the book? Did
that match what you then learned (3 stars dooms a book). Did you intend to
doom the book or feel it should be doomed?

~~~
themodelplumber
Upon reconsideration I felt that for some readers it should be doomed, while
for others it was probably a worthwhile purchase, and I made that clear in my
review. Book recommendation is not as straightforward as people think.

~~~
Ensorceled
Agreed. I have no problems with books being doomed by reviews, I want to avoid
dreck as much as the next reader.

------
dawhizkid
I'm glad the media seems to finally be paying attention to a problem most
people know/have suspected for a long time, though I wonder if Amazon will
ever be held accountable in the same way FB has with Cambridge
Analytica...seems like it will take a major crisis (someone dying or getting
seriously injured buying a fake product on Amazon) for something to actually
happen.

------
chx
The trick on Amazon is to read the two star reviews. The one star can be
PEBKAC, competitor stuffing and a lot of nonsense. The real deal very often is
in the two star reviews.

------
redgetan
I've actually very interested in finding a solution to this problem as well. I
think the issue is that regular users who are more likely to give honest
reviews currently don't have an incentive to write one as there's nothing to
gain, but potentially something to lose. If everyone is rewarded instead of
just the ones who give positive reviews (i.e ones who receive free stuff,
getting paid for etc,), then the ratio of fake/legit reviews might balance
out. And we just need a better UI to show the most relevant + recent reviews
for each star rating. For example, in
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNTWTKH#customerReviews](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNTWTKH#customerReviews)
someone mentioned "All the reviews are non verified!! 5 starts with 100+
reviews...... something is fishy!!". It also shows that 54 people found it
helpful. So think that's a neat feature.

I think blockchain might be a good use case for this. Cencorship resistant,
decentralized review, not controlled by a single company, and anyone can
contribute, and see the reviews (i.e via browser extension). And everyone is
rewarded by currency when they provide a review. Just not sure how to prevent
spam, and deal with people gaming the system. Perhaps a staking system could
be introduced wherein a user would lose their stake if the review proved to be
inauthentic (proving it comes with its own problems). Anyway, these are just
some of things I've been pondering about before.

~~~
tim333
Not sure about blockchain but contacting the odd person who has the buying
pattern of a regular customer and asking them what they think might work.

------
jwilk
Text-only version:

[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629800775](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629800775)

------
Eleopteryx
I've found that it's more useful to sort by negative reviews. It's reasonable
to assume that the product is what it appears to be at face value, but
customers tend to speak up if they feel like they got cheated.

On the other hand, I believe I read that some fake reviews are actually
negative, as a means to funnel users to competing products. So who knows?

Can't trust anything I read on the internet concerning a product or service.

~~~
lucb1e
> some fake reviews are actually negative, as a means to funnel users to
> competing products

Oh, right. I often look for a few positive ones (to find what people thought
was positive enough about this product to mention it) as well as the negative
ones (to see if they complain about defect units and other one-off issues, or
if there are actually real issues with a product), sorted by newest in the
hopes that I don't happen to be looking right after a batch of paid reviews
were added. But you're right, there is a reason why negative ones would be
fake as well. Seems to be less common, though, but still.

------
TangoTrotFox
I think this issue is most interesting to look at from the other side. Imagine
your goal was to create fake reviews for a product you created. How difficult
do you think it would be to achieve given you expect a substantial economic
reward for success?

This is why I find it difficult to blame Amazon for things like this - though
that is not to say they shouldn't try, but I don't think anybody is saying
they're not. It's just that this is something you might call a game of cat and
mouse, but I think it may be borderline impossible to detect fake reviews if
done well. Imagine I somehow get 500 confederates from geographically diverse
regions, and pay them each a substantial amount of money to purchase a product
and give a positive review. How do you prove those reviews are fake?

------
chha
I generally avoid looking at good reviews when shopping due to this. Instead I
assume that whatever doohickey I want to buy works as advertised, and look for
reasons not to buy. Bad reviews are much more helpful in this regard, as they
pinpoint weaknesses or other issues.

~~~
fireflash38
It's also much easier to filter the bad reviews. There's fewer reviews to sort
through, and you can dismiss the PEBKAC or DOA (except as a data point to see
if there's a whole bunch of DOAs).

------
Lio
Just bought a rotating bike wheel light from Amazon Marketplace. It's a
novelty item that draws images as a bike wheel rotates using persistence of
vision.

I don't think anyone has every heard of the "brand" but it was sent from "the
UK" allegedly.

It came with a US plug (I'm in the UK) and software on an 80mm mini-cd. That
software is riddled with malware. It also has one of those comedy auto-
translated user manuals.

Some of these trade offs I can forgive for the price. I can't forgive the
malware at any price.

------
saturdaysaint
This is why I am starting to do almost all of my shopping by googling
"Wirecutter [product category]". Or CNET for electronics. Amazon's reviews
have become so useless and corrupted that I question why anyone would even
bother with a genuine review. Luckily, Wirecutter gives fantastic, detailed
guidance in just about any category you can think of. I'm finding them so
valuable that I believe this would be a great space for more sites to compete
in.

------
msikora
ReviewMeta has a great Chrome plugin that shows the "real" score (after
removing all even slightly suspicious reviews) right in the toolbar
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reviewmetacom-
revi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reviewmetacom-review-
anal/fjifglfkcaipnmhngbigdebkoikioend?hl=en)

~~~
y-c-o-m-b
The funny thing is I think Chrome plugins suffer from a similar problem and
quite dangerous too because they can steal your information. I reported a fake
clone of Privacy Badger a while back - positive reviews with the only
difference being the fake one had a very low number of reviews/downloads. I'm
very conservative with the extensions I use now

~~~
r00fus
I only use chrome extensions in a containerized fashion (i.e. on an instance
where chrome is used for nothing else)

------
markdown
News from Australia today: Australia's largest apartment developer Meriton
fined $3 million for misleading consumers on TripAdvisor by preventing guests
Meriton suspected would give negative reviews from receiving TripAdvisor’s
‘Review Express’ prompt email.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17649912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17649912)

------
oceanghost
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the Amazon Vine program which sends
products to well-standing reviewers in order to seed reviews.

------
Regardsyjc
On a positive note, Amazon has been wiping out thousands of reviews this
month. Whether blatant manipulations or legitimate reviews, dozens of sellers
have lost their reviews. Amazon has been cracking down hard this month, and
erring on the better safe than sorry side as usual with their wide nets. The
only problem is that Amazon can't keep up with China.

------
fapjacks
Jeez, I don't think it's possible for this writer (Ryan Kailath) to be any
more milquetoast if he tried. Amazon's reviews are completely bullshit. I
never buy _anything_ from Amazon (or Yelp, or...) without running the product
page through Fakespot.com to check for fake reviews.

------
CodeCube
I'm honestly starting to believe that the "wisdom of the crowds" that so many
startups and businesses rely on to reach "internet scale", is exactly the
wrong approach. Between recommendation algorithms that can be gamed, content
that can be paid for, and social media sentiment that can prove to be entirely
manufactured, we need to come up with a new paradigm for our products (where
"our" is the tech industry at large).

The days of allowing what are essentially anonymous sources to dictate what we
do, where we go, what we buy, and how we think are coming to an end.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Interesting to ponder that half of the population is of below average
intelligence, and that the other half is generally too busy to be writing
reviews.

------
greggman
I hate it too but rather than just complain is it a solvable problem?

Reply All had an resent episode about it

[https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124#episode-
player](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124#episode-player)

first they had fake reviews. Amazobn required actual purchases so companies
would pay people to purchase and return. you can't ban returns otherwise there
would be no negative reviews.

how can this be solved? some kind of reputation system? how would you lose
rep?

I love to hear your ideas?

~~~
ralfd
Tag the review with the info if the item was returned.

------
BadassFractal
How does one protect oneself from these? Are there secure / private browser
extensions that might cross-reference those reviews to other sites? Is
everything fake news now?

------
awinder
"We have built a lot of technology to assess whether or not we think a review
is authentic”

Really now? Has amazon considered firing those teams? Because that tech is
beyond broken.

------
sasaf5
I find that even books are plagued with this issue. Some obscure technical
books selling for more than 80$ will come in a very poor quality print, like
they had been printed from a scan. Clearly the book has ran out of original
prints, and somewhere they print it cheaply just to make the sell.

~~~
fapjacks
Actually these books are likely counterfeit, being produced overseas and sold
on Amazon as the real deal. It's easy because neither the publisher nor Amazon
(nor the customer for that matter) can know that someone listing a product is
shipping a fraud.

~~~
sasaf5
What would be the right way to check that? Perhaps sending a mail to the
publisher?

~~~
fapjacks
That sounds reasonable, sure. You might also try contacting the author
directly. Authors tend to know way more about their books than the person
answering your email at the publisher, and certainly would have a good idea
what their print editions are supposed to look like. I've actually found
emailing book authors about their books in niche fields to be usually really
easy and interesting in its own right.

------
paul7986
Simple hack to this problem is forget about buying stuff online.. go to the
store and get it right away.

The Internet can not believed for much and is easily manipulated for the
better of those smart or immoral enough (however you view it) to use it to
line their pockets.

------
netrap
What if you just removed the stars and only had text? Makes buying based on
"reviews" harder...

Could also do something like upvotes but then that just ends up with the same
problems as stars.

------
trophycase
Always always always, read the negative reviews, NOT the positive reviews. If
the worst you find is "shipped broken" or something, it's probably ok. If
you're reading negative product reviews instead, stay away.

------
Biba89
As a marketer I'm already familiar with fake/paid reviews. It's the way to
manipulate and it will be used whenever there is an opportunity for that. On
the other hand review.network works on solution for fake reviews

------
minimaxir
Similar discussion about the fake Amazon review economy a few months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022215)

------
Bedon292
I have found [https://reviewmeta.com/](https://reviewmeta.com/) to be an
interesting place to look at the reviews and get a bit more insight into them.

------
dspillett
[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629800775](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=629800775)
\- plain text article (sans tracking etc.)

------
jfrumar
Fakespot.com is your friend. I'm fast finding their service indispensable.
Also their iOS app is super convenient - you just share a link in the Amazon
app with it, and you unmask all the fake reviews.

------
Zelphyr
There was a great Reply All podcast on this topic. Between it and this NPR
article, and recent personal experience, I'm seriously questioning whether I
want to continue my Prime account.

------
singularity2001
Amazon really lost me when they shadow banned me for writing a (very) negative
review.

They sell me crap and I can't even complain about it?

------
andreygrehov
Google SEO, Amazon Reviews, AppStore Reviews, Facebook News. Fakes are
everywhere. Fake it till you make it [0]. If you really think about it,
everything around us has a grain of fake. Ads, startup pitch desks, TV, people
relationships, politics. Everything! I almost feel like we're fighting the
wrong problem.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it)

------
Giho
Why don't they make a review system where the products with fewest bad reviews
gets rated the best.

If the reviews have to go through Amazon's system it should be hard enough to
fake. The "true" customers will make bad reviews if they didn't like the
product. The "fake" reviewer can't rate their own products to make them get a
better review, an they have to buy the competitors product x times to give x
bad reviews.

~~~
Giho
And to further secure it, the amount of buys can be compared to amount of
negative reviews. Because who will in their right mind buy a product with a
lot of negative reviews, to later give a negative review?

------
amorphous
Providing authenticity, in whatever form, is a huge business opportunity, and
it's only going to grow.

~~~
bastijn
That is what VeChain is aiming at [0]. One of the better blockchain incentives
around if you ask me.

[0] [https://www.vechain.org/](https://www.vechain.org/)

------
aj7
Always look for that extra gratituitous detail, a common trait in fabricated
stories.

------
uptown
Try to get a valid review on a forehead thermometer on Amazon. It can’t be
done.

------
plainOldText
I use fakespot for analyzing Amazon reviews. It’s better than nothing.

------
rednerrus
Amazon should buy Fakespot and integrate into their reviews.

------
johnmarcus
Shocking! Next they are going to tell me the sky is blue!

------
jackdh
"Some"

------
ngoel36
[http://www.thewirecuttter.com](http://www.thewirecuttter.com)

~~~
neilprosser
Be careful clicking the above link. Note the three 't' characters.

------
bob_theslob646
How are there not laws that enforce companies to verify there reviews. I
understand it is a complex problem, but first it was our elections were
manipulated via spam advertising and now, most of the products that we buy are
going to be.

~~~
Nasrudith
Well such moderation requirements would be massively impractical and run afoul
of safe harbor. Not to mention being defacto prior restraint. Besides even if
money was no object it isn't possible to always and definitively prove truth
or falsehood. Even if someone posts a five star review of chalky dry chocolate
they may just have crappy taste.

~~~
tim333
Don't worry. The EU will probably mandate something massively impractical
anyway.

