
Amazon Dark Patterns - handpickednames
http://www.netinstructions.com/amazon-dark-patterns/
======
seren
Prompted by this post, I wanted to check what happened to the 1-star review I
have left 6 months ago. (Product worked for 3 days and then stopped, and after
a replacement, the same thing happened). Sure enough, I have 0 comment in my
profile, and I just checked, it has also disappeared from the product page.

This is shady as hell, because I am 100% sure I wrote this review. I even
wrote it twice, once on amazon.com and once translated on a local amazon site.
This is slightly infuriating.

~~~
SamuelAdams
Consider the other side of this argument: should reviews be timeless?

Many times a (good faith) vendor will make small, incremental changes to a
product that addresses concerns that low-star reviewers point out. However,
the product page remains the same - it does not distinguish between "Seattle
Coffee Beans - Batch A" and "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch C". It simply says
"Seattle Coffee Beans".

So if you leave a review for Batch A, but the product being sold is now Batch
C, should the review still be displayed?

~~~
iKevinShah
Sure they can, but what about some of the products on Amazon which are mostly
immutable like for example: Books.

A bad book is a bad book. Batch B of the said book is mostly a new "product"
listing on Amazon with its own set of reviews and ratings.

Also if Batch C is being sold or something similar (to batches), a better idea
would be (IMO) to have the product owner comment on the review, saying we have
fixed this in batch 2 or batch B or something

~~~
Splines
This is OT but books can vary in quality too - specifically the paper used and
the print quality. I was looking at "Physically Based Rendering"
([http://a.co/bL8bjUw](http://a.co/bL8bjUw)) after seeing the post here about
rendering a scene from Moana and was disappointed to see comments about bad
print quality. Hopefully this is fixed in a later print run.

------
jackewiehose
I once wrote a 1-star review on amazon for a top-selling product that had
almost only positive reviews. The review was published but they quietly
changed its contents. They replaced some words (I guess it was too strong
language like "crap" or something) but even worse they removed at least one
whole sentence and after that the review didn't make much sense anymore and it
looked like I wrote it like that.

Then I watched the statistics about how many people found this helpful. At
that time this was in two numbers: people who think its helpful and people who
don't. Over months that ratio kept the same. Started with 1 helpful, 3 not
helpful. Then 10 helpful, 30 not helpful. Then 30 helpful, 90 not helpful. I
found that highly suspicious.

Since then, amazon reviews are dead to me.

~~~
simias
Wait amazon edits your reviews? That's shaddy as hell, I can understand
removing a review for "strong language" but changing its content without
asking the author is borderline scammy.

I couldn't find similar stories online (although admittedly that's pretty hard
to search for). I'd think it would be a big deal if Amazon was caught doing
that, wouldn't it be?

~~~
closetohome
Obviously a retailer like Amazon wouldn't outright edit user reviews because
it would be incredibly easy to catch, and would be a massive scandal if true.

The guy you're replying to probably just forgot what he wrote.

~~~
alpha_squared
> Obviously a retailer like Amazon wouldn't outright edit user reviews because
> it would be incredibly easy to catch...

To be fair, you're also giving them the benefit of doubt on this, for which
the dark patterns don't seem to justify. It could just be a scandal that
hasn't broken, yet.

------
arrrg
An alternative explanation for this is that Amazon is struggling with
identifying fake reviews, which could explain both why there seem to be many
fake reviews and why one would get blocked from writing reviews (basically
falling victim to a false positive of their fake review detection).

Obviously there is also some bad UX thrown in for good measure (being able to
write a review without being able to send it), but we aren’t necessarily
looking at dark patterns here.

This could just be Amazon struggling with and failing at a task (avoiding fake
reviews).

Not all bad UX is a dark pattern, sometimes it’s just bad UX … (a dark pattern
is bad UX with a positive consequence for the person or company offering up
the UI or maybe just and intended positive consequence, even if the UI doesn’t
achieve that goal)

I think it’s a stretch to argue that Amazon is really benefiting from any of
this and long term this erosion of trust is not at all good for Amazon. I do
honestly think that if Amazon could snap with their fingers and remove all
fake reviews they would do it. (Which is not to say that Amazon does not
employ dark patterns elsewhere.)

~~~
mrtksn
If your maybes are valid it simply means that these Amazon guys are new in the
business and will figure out how to design user interface once they have the
resources.Lets give them a slack, aye?

Seriously though, I canceled my prime after I got a fake SD Card that was sold
by Amazon. There was no straightforward way of returning it, had to contact
customer support.

Later I looked closely and I noticed the reviews warning against fake SD Cards
but these were buried in enthusiastic 5 star comments celebrating their new SD
Cards and trying to tell the world what a good purchase that was.

Maybe it’s just due to the scale, maybe it’s in the business model but dealing
with fakes wasn’t working for me. If I wanted the eBay experience I would have
been buying my SD Cards from eBay.

~~~
fouc
What? They make returns very easy to do. There's a form that pops up and many
choices for reasons.

~~~
mrtksn
There was no return option on the SD Card, it was marked as "not eligible for
return" so I had to deal with the customer support.

I actually went ahead and dug out the conversation for you.

This is my refund request:
[https://imgur.com/bthMMoN](https://imgur.com/bthMMoN) This is the response
from Amazon: [https://imgur.com/xWK8FVH](https://imgur.com/xWK8FVH)

Yeah, they refunded me without a fuss but I prefer an experience where the
items arrive in expected quality and I keep them.

I think I actually kept the Prime membership for a while but I found myself
disillusioned and felt uneasy when shopping at Amazon and later canceled as I
was no longer buying stuff from Amazon.

~~~
closetohome
So all it took was an email, they didn't even require you to return the
product before refunding you, and you're unhappy with that for some reason?

~~~
CydeWeys
Absofuckinglutely. Anytime you end up with a fraudulent counterfeit it's a
hugely unhappy situation for a number of reasons. The biggest for me would be:
What if I hadn't caught it? Maybe I'm using some inferior counterfeits right
now that I don't know about that Amazon ripped me off on, that might fail
catastrophically. And also, there's plenty of times where you need a product
by a specific time, and not having it at that time because you wasted a whole
shipping cycle on a counterfeit is painful.

When you end up with a counterfeit, you are being _defrauded_. How could
anyone be happy in that situation just because your money was refunded? I just
wanted what I was trying to buy. I didn't want free junk that wastes my time.

------
virtualritz
I was looking for a 2nd USB C charger for my new MacBook and found one[1]. It
had 378 5 star, 'verified purchase' reviews. All filed on July the 12th, 2018!

I reported this to Amazon via Twitter on July the 18th [2] (Sorry, German).

I checked yesterday and despite Amazon promising to look into this, all
reviews where still there. So I tweeted to them again and, at last, they're
deleted today.

But why is this not detected automatically? 378 verified 'customers' that all
review the product, with five stars, on the same day?? What are the chances?

And the language of the reviews was also so similar that even a Markov model
could be used to detect they must be from the same person (or bot). No machine
learning needed.

[1] [https://www.amazon.de/MAOFINE-MacBook-Adapter-Charger-
Replac...](https://www.amazon.de/MAOFINE-MacBook-Adapter-Charger-Replacement-
white/dp/B07DKC7XS6) [2]
[https://twitter.com/virtualritz/status/1019741791422173185](https://twitter.com/virtualritz/status/1019741791422173185)

~~~
Sir_Substance
>378 verified 'customers' that all review the product, with five stars, on the
same day?? What are the chances?

Depends on the product. For a highly anticipated release like a video game or
an iphone, pretty high.

I would say that this sort of thing should raise an automatic ticket in a
moderation queue, but I wouldn't autodelete the reviews.

------
rkachowski
An interesting dark pattern (albeit unrelated to the review flow) is during
the standard checkout process. on the last screen before the purchase, the
Amazon logo image / header no longer links back to the Amazon homepage like
the rest of the site.

I guess keeping the user captive leads to more sales

~~~
ritinkar
Recently I wanted to purchase something from prime now, I added the product
and during checkout where I put in the OTP ( 2FA is mandatory in India ), I
changed my mind about purchasing and quit the app, knowing the purchase would
fail. Amazon then quietly changed the order from prepaid to cash on delivery
without asking me and went through with the order.

I thought that was a shady way of closing a sale.

~~~
ahakki
> 2FA is mandatory in India

Well you did just show that it's not :)

~~~
ritinkar
mandatory for card transactions.

Unless you were joking, in which case, whoosh me.

~~~
ahakki
I must have misunderstood your comment. I was under the impression that 2FA
was mandatory for all purchases, not just card transactions.

So I thought you had figured out a way around that.

------
TorKlingberg
This rant is not well written. The first issue looks like a bug on Amazon's
side. I'm not going to assume malice without something pointing in that
direction. The author writes "What would have happend if I had left a more
positive review? Would that be allowed?" Well, would it? I see no indication
it would.

Those reviews are indeed suspicious, and Amazon should do a better job of
detecting fake review accounts.

The third issue is the author complaining about the shipping in a product
review. An understandable mistake, but Amazon is right not to publish it. When
trying to learn about a product it's annoying to scroll past shipping reviews
like "Arrived quickly, five stars!"

In total, I see no dark pattern at all.

~~~
ashelmire
I can actually verify and tell you why. Amazon will not allow you to criticize
Amazon or their platform in a review (they said as much). Only the product.
They probably do automatic sentiment detection for negative phrases containing
Amazon and don’t allow them to be posted.

The platform and shipping are relevant in a product review.

~~~
carlmr
To a certain degree. There really should be two ratings. Shipment rating and
product rating.

I don't want to get a TV that gets shipped badly, sure. But if the only
problem with shipping is that it is slow, maybe I'm still interested in the
product because I don't get it anywhere else and I can wait. In that case I'm
mostly interested in the product review.

~~~
ashelmire
Which is why you, as a human, can read the review and ignore the part where a
reviewer says “the shipping was slow”.

I recently ordered a poster through Amazon. They sent me the wrong item _3
times_. I gave up. And I can’t post a negative review despite it clearly being
Amazons fault (not the shipper). I tried. Couldn’t. At least they have
excellent customer service, they didn’t jerk me around and each resolved the
issue as best they could.

~~~
MadWombat
> you, as a human, can read the review

Yes, you can, if you ever get to the review page. The ratings on reviews
average out into the product rating. If there is a zillion one star "shipping
is slow and Amazon customer service sucks" reviews, the product (which might
be of very high quality otherwise) will have a one start rating. So you are
not likely to see the product, since it will not make it into any sort of
rating based list and even if you do see it you are likely to ignore it based
on its one star rating.

~~~
ashelmire
It sounds like you think there are more products hidden by one star reviews on
shipping than boosted by fake 5 star reviews. The former is not presently a
problem on amazon (because they block shipping comments). The latter is a real
problem that you will face every time you search for any product where there
is any competition.

------
2T1Qka0rEiPr
Having recently unsubscribed from Prime, I can say their dark patterns don't
stop there. About 5 pages to complete the process, in which the CTA to confirm
bumps around the page, gets less prominent, and is given such lousy loss-
aversion labels as "Give up my prime benefits".

~~~
iuguy
Strangely it wasn't so bad for me, I live in the UK. I wonder if EU rules are
different?

I have to say for all the people complaining but still staying with Amazon,
there's a simple solution that will force their hand if enough people act:

Stop buying from them.

Personally I cancelled my Prime subscription because no service is worth
enough to me to force other human beings to pee in bottles to avoid work
breaks for fear of being sanctioned.

~~~
y4mi
I'm from germany, cancelled two days ago and can confirm that the process was
bafflingly bad.

[cancel prime membership]

...

"do you want to terminate your membership?"

[ask me later][keep me signed up][terminate]

...

"you'll lose [x], do you want to terminate?"

[ask me later][terminate][keep me signed up]

...

"but even shipping will cost!"

[keep me signed up][ask me later][terminate]

...

you're now unsubscribed

[sign me back on][ok]

------
simias
The dumbbells being damaged during delivery reminds me of an other annoyance
with amazon reviews: they won't let you distinguish between actual issues with
the products and issues with the delivery/Amazon after-sale services etc...

I can't count the number of low-star reviews where it says something like "the
guy tried to deliver at the wrong time" or "I bought the wrong product by
mistake and Amazon wouldn't take it back" or whatever. That doesn't help me at
all.

~~~
dingo_bat
You can't blame the users though. If I have a bad delivery experience, I'm
going to leave a bad review. It's Amazon's problem that they don't let you
differentiate between product issues and delivery issues.

~~~
simias
Oh yeah, I'm definitely blaming Amazon, they should let the user categorize
their complaints.

------
k__
I also had to implement this pattern for app reviews.

Show a custom review dialog, if the user gives 4-5 stars send them to the app
store for the real review, if not just say "thank you" and close the dialog.
Repeat until one day they'll give you a good review.

~~~
Sharlin
I hope you at least anonymously reported that behavior to appropriate
authorities. And started searching for a new job.

~~~
akuji1993
You don't always have the choice of just up and go. I developed a system for
an american startup that gathered everything it could get its hands on through
their Gmail accounts. Did I think that's unethical? Yes, but just quitting
wasn't an option and it was perfectly legal. I switched to a new company when
I could afford it and am now much happier. But suggesting to just quit the
moment your company behaves unethical is a little optimistic.

~~~
CydeWeys
It's not perfectly legal if you ever do it to an EU user, now. This is why
GDPR has some upsides -- it changes what was formerly just unethical into
being illegal, which means that we as software engineers can push back against
it more strongly.

~~~
akuji1993
We actually developed a GDPR module for about three weeks to catch that case.
So we are legal again, since we provide all the tools you need to delete your
data.

------
techaddict009
I Was recently purchasing Macbook Battery from Amazon.in it was Rs.3100 and
when I checked out and reached payment it showed 4199!

I said WTH did it happen? I cancelled payment and found that Prime Membership
Renewal was added to the cart without my permission.

When I didnt want to renew it why did Amazon add it on its own?

One more similar experience with AWS:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652134)

~~~
dingo_bat
This is better than what Google play music does. It just auto renews. Fuck 2
factor auth. At least Amazon gives you that chance.

~~~
JFFalcon
Why wouldn't you expect a subscription to auto-renew?

~~~
dingo_bat
I just don't like the loss of control. At least in this case, my approach
seems to be beneficial. I didn't have to deal with the hassle mentioned here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17651882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17651882)

------
stared
I have a trick - looking at 4 star reviews. They are overally positive, but at
the same time - talk about shortcomings (some of them may effect my decision,
while others are not an issue). Typically, these are balanced. And totally
unlikely to be faked.

For the same reason I avoid 1 star reviews on some services (especially
recommending books or movies). They are often related to a strong, emotional
reponse, rather than a balanced option that can be reused.

In general people use maximal, and minimal, score in a diffrent way that all
other options. For a stricking example, see:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

~~~
Aissen
A company I know was aware of this tactic, and bought their own items (through
proxies) ~20 times, and two of those had to use 4-star reviews.

------
sbjs
At first I thought the only way to genuinely avoid these kind of bots is to
have reviewers posting videos, maybe hosted on YouTube to save costs. Videos
are the only thing that can't be faked as easily (but they can with 'deep
fakes'). But this won't actually solve the problem. These reviews may be fake
but they're probably real people being paid to write them, and those real
people can just as easily make real review videos.

I don't think there is an _automated_ solution to "liars will lie for money".
I think the only _real_ solution is brand trust. We have to go back! Back to a
time when you knew something was good because it proved that it was good, and
word of mouth spread to let you know it was good. Don't trust anonymous word
of mouth either.

~~~
coryfklein
Or only allow paying Prime members to leave reviews. That would cut out the
fraud pretty darn quickly.

~~~
sbjs
No, a scammer can say to 10 people "here's $10 to buy get an account, now
leave 100 reviews and I'll pay you $1 for each" and that guy himself gets paid
$10 per review directly from the seller. The people each made $100, and he
spent $110 on each of them, losing $1,100 total, but he made $1,000 of each,
so $10,000 total. At the end of the day he made $8,900 by acting as a middle
man.

~~~
fastball
You're not factoring in the fact that if a Prime member participated in this,
Amazon could suspend their account without any reimbursement. For most people,
chump change is not worth nuking your $99 Prime account.

Also, the idea that sellers would pay $10 each for a 5-star review is
laughable.

It's easy to make something economically viable when you're numbers are
complete drivel.

------
afpx
I also see this very often with Apple’s App Store. About 30% of the time, my
negative reviews are deleted. Even when I re-submit the reviews, they’re often
deleted. This doesn’t happen to any of my positive reviews.

I opened up several helpdesk tickets about this and got no answers. In fact,
they had the audacity to tell me that it’s impossible to remove reviews and
that it was probably user error.

~~~
remir
I may be mistaken, but I heard reviews are deleted when the dev pushes an
update to their app.

~~~
Aaronn
Yes this is correct. Apple added the option last year so developers can choose
to reset all reviews when they release a new version or keep the old reviews.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/ios-app-developers-will-
be...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/ios-app-developers-will-be-able-to-
keep-app-store-ratings-when-releasing-an-update/)

~~~
distances
Sometimes this may make sense. I know of an app that decided to start from
scratch due to the amassed bad reviews. Too bad for those who already paid for
the buggy version, no updates now.

------
tk75x
Whenever I see one- or two-star reviews on Amazon (or Newegg) I make sure to
read as many of them as possible to gauge what the problems with the item
might be. This allows me to judge whether the people reviewing the items are
overreacting or if there is a legitimate defect common to all the reviewers.
The fact that Amazon is removing or not posting critical reviews in the first
place is a red flag for me personally.

~~~
TheCapn
I'm the same way. a 5-star review saying the item works like you expect is
almost useless but a 2 star review pointing out that some product uses non-
standard dimensions, or uses non-replaceable batteries with a terrible
lifespan is massively helpful.

I always tell people who ask me for store/product recommendations that I can't
really give an honest opinion of something until they've fucked up some how.
Its pretty easy for a business to look good when everything goes well, but
when something goes wrong it is extremely telling about how they respect their
customers by how they work to remedy the situation.

\- Company shipped the wrong item? Keep it and we'll ship you the correct one!
--> Great!

\- Company shipped my product with the wrong service (when I paid a premium)?
Here's your refund! --> Also good!

\- Company failed to send half my order (or it got lost during shipping)?
"You're a liar, get bent" _hangup_ \--> Avoid avoid avoid!

------
ramblerman
> Note that I only got this message AFTER trying to leave a 2 star review.
> What would have happend if I had left a more positive review? Would that be
> allowed?

This is highly speculative, and without evidence it's pretty shady to suggest
it, imo.

------
thinkythought
This skips/avoids another really important but bs thing they do: Reviews that
mention counterfeits ALWAYS get pulled. Seemingly by some automated system,
even. It's like a forbidden review topic or phrase.

Yea, that's not shady at all

------
windexh8er
This seems to be BAU with Amazon these days and why I no longer trust their
reviews en masse. You can still field high fidelity reviews, but unless it is
for a large purchase it seems to be a waste of time. Amazon bolsters cheap
(cost and quality) products. I wrote a 1 star for a set of poorly constructed
LED bulbs where one exploded and created a fire hazard. This review was
accepted, however a review of a product I purchased that came with the wrong
model product (mistake or deception?) in the box was removed and it didn't
matter what I tried Amazon would not give me a reason why.

Amazon is a machine running off of too many fake reviews and so I've been
significantly cutting back supporting them by purchasing from. I'm sure,
eventually, my return requests will be revoked due to a low review or when
their algorithm shows my purchase cadence declining. At that point I'll be
done.

------
calewis
I work at a sleep company and reviews are super important for our ecommerce
site. We use: [https://reviewmeta.com](https://reviewmeta.com) to ensure that
we remove fake reviews. Just paste in the Amazon link and it will check all
the reviews and give you loads of stats.

------
Animats
Amazon's big dark pattern: _" No, I don't want to save $25.72."_ You get that
every time you order and don't pay for Prime. Also, the non-Prime "Free
Shipping" option requires you to back up and click shipping type to get it.
The default path makes you pay for shipping.

------
alanfranzoni
One thing where they are right is your review of your weights. What has the
seller/packaging to do with the product itself? You weren't reviewing the
item, but the seller (which isn't allowed when the seller is Amazon itself).
Unless you think that the neoprene was bad quality.

------
ryanlol
This guy is having some truly strange experiences with amazon.

Why would he have to ship the damaged weights back? Amazon essentially _never_
insists on that.

~~~
thinkythought
This one seems to be random. I've had them insist i ship a fucking _mattress_
back

------
exgamedev
I wonder if amazon is struggling with fake reviews and would rather have false
positives on the negative side of the spectrum. To a seller there's no diff
btwn their product getting a positive review and all their competitors getting
negative reviews. A bot can just as easily do one or the other. But forcing
the bots to be positive review bots benefits amazon in two ways. It makes all
the products on their site look purchase-worthy and it contains all a
product's review-warfare onto the product page itself, so they can clean it up
later if they want.

------
ekianjo
No need to look so far for dark patterns, the whole trick to get you to click
to become a member for Amazon Prime, constantly, using all the dirty tricks in
the book, should deserve a whole page in itself.

------
kthejoker2
I see similar behavior on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, even Netflix - not
necessarily review gaming, but just unfriendly user patterns and opaque
algorithmic behavior.

To me the core issue is poor communication. They could easily explain all of
the processes, ML models, logic, and human interactions that are in place for
review posters and readers. Then it'd be trivial to compare that with (for
example) OP's experience and identify possible improvements.

But the fact that they don't at all is very telling. Clearly not impeding
growth or revenue.

------
nebulous1
Although they should have let him write the review, I don't think people
should leave reviews for damaged/broken items before they've tried to remedy
the situation with the supplier.

~~~
tmalsburg2
Why? When I receive a damaged product, this causes me substantial hassle
(communicate with customer support, send item back, order replacement, ...).
It seems very natural to write a review that reflects the poor quality of the
product in this situation, and this review would be a useful signal to others.

~~~
nebulous1
My take is that damaged and broken items happen, particularly when items are
new. I'm not saying that this information is irrelevant, but as a review of
the product it isn't valid (as it's a review of a damaged product) and as a
review of the supplier it isn't that helpful either (as I'm more interested in
how the supplier responds to this situation: any supplier can send you what
they have in stock, the true test is what happens when things go wrong). So,
as per my original comment, I think you should seek remedy before reviewing,
not after.

~~~
Magnets
If a product is poorly packaged from the manufacturer or (more likely) poorly
packaged by Amazon and that leads to a lot of people receiving a damaged
product, then it is clearly beneficial to see that in the reviews before you
purchase.

Or maybe the product just has poor QC, again, it should be allowed to show up
in reviews.

If it's just a one-ff then it will be watered down by all of the other
reviewers anyway

~~~
nebulous1
I haven't said otherwise. You haven't explained why you're writing a review
before dealing with support rather than after.

Also, perhaps a higher percentage of people with bad experiences will write
bad reviews than people with good experiences writing good reviews, so the
watered down argument isn't perfect. I would have left out the word 'perhaps'
but I don't actually have any hard evidence.

------
mnm1
And if you return too many of these garbage products, they close your account.
The ultimate dark pattern.

------
superasn
Same happened with me. Brought this shity fitness tracker called goqii from
Amazon. Tried to leave a 2 star review and got the exact same message even
though Amazon knows it is an amazon purchase. Similar to this article the same
thing has more than 22k positive reviews which is unbelievable considering the
extremely unlikely considering the quality. Also forgot to mention Amazon was
also running a lightning deal on the same.

------
arendtio
Maybe we should build an independent, decentralized review page, where you can
trust (PGP style) your friends and family and they can do so too.

When suspicious reviews appear, everybody can track down the accounts which
abuse our trust (and let the bots in). That way we could provide blacklists
for accounts that are untrustworthy and everybody can decide who (or which
blacklist) he wants to trust.

~~~
ttoinou
This. I always have thought of something like this. Only trust person your
know IRL and friends of friends... That way we could compute a "trustworthy"
coefficients.

Needs a good business model though

------
crankylinuxuser
I no longer consider Amazon. Too many issues to note, but here's a few of
them...

    
    
      1. Counterfeits mixed in with legit supply
      2. Fraud everywhere
      3. Fake prices ($.99 with $30 shipping)
      4. Fraudulent reviews
      5. the article - Dark patterns everywhere
      6. Not competitive with other e-retailers
      7. Scammy and fraudulent pricing (raises prices by 10% to have a 10% off sale.. Prime Day)
    

I've migrated to the following for my stuff:

walmart online (order and pick up at store for no shipping cost) eBay for
random assortments aliexpress for a direct pipeline of electronic chinese
stuff mcmaster carr for hardware that lowes and menards doesn't have Misumi
for aluminum extrusion IRC topic groups (like freenode #reprap) for 3d
printing specific stuffs from individuals Craigslist, but this is obviously
realllly spotty

Amazon is unreliable, obfuscated, and scammy. I can't even guarantee that what
I order is what I'll get. It's just not worth the effort or time.

------
at-fates-hands
I recently bought some new wireless headphones. After seeing a minimal amount
of bad reviews, I bought them. When they arrived, I opened the package to find
a note which said if I gave them a five star review, I could use this code for
a 40% discount on any of their products.

Pissed, I wrote a one star review and how this was explicitly against Amazon's
rules. It was up for a few weeks, then it just disappeared. I figured it would
at least generate an apology via email, or something from Amazon about doing a
better job of taking care of companies who do stuff like this. Never heard
anything from either the company or Amazon.

I guess it was easier to just take down the bad reviews or keep a few negative
reviews so it doesn't look completely nefarious. Seeing as how both companies
and Amazon has a vested interest in keeping companies on board, I can only
assume they're passively allowing this to happen.

------
whichdan
Speaking of bad reviews, trying to buy any kind of computer hardware off of
Amazon is infuriating - all of the reviews for every version of an item are
mixed together, so you'll have several motherboards treated as if they're the
same, and monitors with different resolutions all lumped together.

------
victor106
At this point Amazon is a monopoly. And this is exactly why monopolies don't
work. Self-regulation does not work.

"With great power comes great responsibility" \--> We humans only like the
power part.

Every monopoly that ever existed abuses its monopolistic power for its own
benefit.

------
xster
I loved the interest-specific Reverb.com (for selling new and used musical
gear) and made a point to buy stuff there to support the community even if it
was more expensive or slower than a 'corporate' alternative. All the sellers'
reviews were spectacular and I just thought people would be nicer on this
platform because everyone just loved music and it's one big happy family but
then I received some crap recently and just realized that they do the same
thing and prevent negative reviews buy externalizing the (time and emotional)
cost of forcing self-mediation when things go wrong.

Talk about a broken heart.

------
aethertron
There's an obvious conflict of interest within Amazon here. The tasks of
selling products, and collecting and publishing useful criticisms and reviews
of products should be performed by separate entities.

------
iron0013
Sorry to be pedantic (although this IS Hacker News, after all), but shouldn't
the web page's title be "Censoring Unhappy Customers" rather than "Censuring
Unhappy Customers"?

------
googlemyfomato
This kind of doesn't surprise me.

I know I tend to buy what has the best price/star ratio. Whether or not Amazon
is directly involved, I don't know. But given how quickly marketing got
attached to social media, I imagine gaming reviews is just another part of an
online presence package, along with controlling search results, and getting
something popular into social outlets (a meme is highly desired).

Irony being people are starting to adapt and most of these social media and
reviews will just be bots commenting on each other.

------
nautilus12
Ive been saying the reviews on amazon are generated for years. Someone should
do an expose on this and make a big stink. I dont think we should let them get
away with this.

------
PerilousD
Hmm - seems like Amazon is now borrowing from the EBAY playbook. My EBAY usage
is maybe one or two items in a year and rarely anything high-ticket. EBAY
clearly favored sellers over buyers and after one or two run-ins with (a)
leaving negative reviews for poor sellers and (b) fighting their policy where
you had to wait a month before even filing for a refund - I left for Amazon
prime. I'm probably going to drop Amazon prime at the end of this year.

------
ccarse
It's gotten to the point that I no longer even pay attention to the overall
score and instead I look at the reviews and ignore any review that is a 5 star
review. I figure people aren't going to pay for reviews that aren't 5 star. If
the only other reviews are 1 or 2 stars I know it's probably a crap product.
But, if there are a decent number of 4 star reviews I know it's probably a
decent product.

------
SuperGent
If I think that reviews could be suspect I use ReviewMeta[0]. The process
usually indicates if the reviews are legit or not. although for this product,
it claims that it passes. Might be that 99 reviews have been deleted though,
and Amazon is attempting to fix those reviews.
[0][https://reviewmeta.com/](https://reviewmeta.com/)

------
vincnetas
Is it time to start writing 5 star reviews with negative content? Lets say
start review with (CAPS LOCKED):

"ACTUAL RATING 1 STAR".

Let's see them handle this :)

------
amai
Please people use and support
[https://reviewmeta.com/](https://reviewmeta.com/) .

------
androtheos
This has pissed me off in the past. My reviews getting rejected. The problem
ultimately is that Amazon NOW has separate functions for reviewing a product
and a seller. The product reviews are public, the seller reviews are not. If
your review of a product is just bagging on the seller, it will be rejected.
Like the one your wrote for the weights.

------
JustSomeNobody
> Or, maybe it's a low effort scam that Amazon could easily detect, prevent,
> or clean up!

Companies like Amazon like to pound interviewees with algorithm and data
structure questions, so you'd think they'd be hiring the right people to solve
this. So, no, they don't really want to.

------
jglauche
I tried to comment on a product about that I highly dislike it now as they
changed ingredients a month ago. "Sorry, commenting to this product has been
disabled because we're currently receiving too many reviews" .

------
koboll
Someone should build a News-Genius-type overlay extension with a parallel
review system that's better-maintained and more difficult to game. The only
way out of Amazon's shit review scheme is eschewing it entirely.

------
kapad
I've also had a review rejected under very similar circumstances. Like the OP,
I too was leaving a bad review on a product that I had purchased a few months
back. I had purchased the item in a lightning sale though.

------
o_____________o
Or how they intentionally obfuscate the unit pricing of items in the same
category? One says $xx per oz, the other $xx per lb, the other $xx per kg...
I've been wanting to make a userscript to fix that for a while.

------
merb
well one review on the blog is stupid. if an item did arrive broken, it might
not only be amazon's fault, so I dislike reviews that actually review the
shipment process.

besides that, yeah it sucks if this is really happening.

------
metal
Amazon reviews have been shady for years. To combat this I never buy without
running the item link through fakespot.com. The other day I also discovered
reviewmeta.com t haven't tried it yet.

------
mathgenius
I wonder if this is a job for activist investors: buy a bunch of shady stuff
on amazon with 5-star reviews, write a lengthy report about how bad all the
product is, short AMZN... ?

------
moravak1984
I had a similar experience with booking.com reviews. My less than 3 star
reviews somehow don't make it, while 4-star reviews go straight to the list.
Coincidence?

------
modzu
there was a large area of forest in my town that was privately owned but part
of the forest itself was protected so that it could not be developed. well a
developer went ahead and bulldozed the ancient trees and put up a condo anyway
-- just paid the fines. similarly with amazon, nobody is going to go to jail
even though the website props itself up utterly fraudulently and criminally.
someone should.

------
jxdxbx
“Arrived damaged” could be borderline as it sounds like a review of the
shipping process and not the product.

Not sure what’s going on with that first one though.

~~~
numbsafari
How is he supposed to know if this is a problem with “shipping” or with the
warehouse, the manufacturing, or the design of the product? What if it left
the warehouse in that condition? Or the factory? I previously have avoided
products with a large number of “arrived damaged” reviews, because it’s a sign
of something other than a “shipping problem”.

~~~
tk75x
Personal experience: When shopping for budget 3D printers, some models that
had been available for several months or years had earlier reviews mention
poor packing/shipping. The newer reviews mentioned that the situation has
improved.

~~~
numbsafari
This is a problem generally, and not limited to "shipping" issues. I was
looking at a telescope recently that had a lot of early bad reviews because of
an issue with the eyepiece that had, apparently, been resolved.

Reviews should either "age out" or there should be a way for the seller to
indicate that a revision has been made. Granted, they would probably game
both.

------
Semaphor
Is this a US only thing? My reviews count as "verified purchase" on amazon.de,
including my now 5 months old 1-star-review.

------
nodesocket
I actualky have those same LED lights. They have been working great for me for
over fours months. No complaints.

------
dreadpiratemiky
What are some good alternative sites to Amazon?

------
t0astbread
Yup, Amazon is the most unlikable tech giant

------
mrcactu5
if you are Amazon you don't have time to read all the reviews carefully. How
do you detect such artificial "gaming" behavior? It's natural behavior for the
sellers to try to boost their reviews (at the consumers expense).

~~~
JustSomeNobody
You hire developers to write code to look for patterns exactly like what was
shown in the article for starters.

------
Your_Creator
scuffed.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Author doesn't know what dark patterns means.

~~~
amelius
Here's a good site explaining it.

[https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-
pattern](https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern)

Their homepage video starts with a bunch of examples from Amazon:

[https://darkpatterns.org](https://darkpatterns.org)

~~~
prolikewh0a
Google has one built into mobile Youtube with Chromecast. When you open a
video and go to click the cast button, the "visit advertiser" button
immediately shifts right into the place of the cast button, causing you to
click into an advertiser website.

~~~
tk75x
That gets me at least once per viewing session.

