
Amazon imposes limit on reviews - njade
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38130838
======
ruddct
Great, but doesn't come close to solving the actual problem: Amazon's retail
catalog is flooded with fakes, drop shippers, bots and low quality products
with fake reviews.

I almost entirely avoid using them for purchasing home goods at this point,
the risk is too great and the customer service is too poor. For things that
Amazon itself sells, the cost is often not competitive. For everything else, I
can get it cheaper by shopping locally, getting from big box stores or by
using Alibaba. "Prime" two day shipping is often inexplicably 3-5 day shipping
(and I live in a major US metro).

All this saddens me, a former Amazon employee who was a loyal user of their
products for a long time. But at this point it doesn't seem like Amazon is too
concerned about the quality of their retail catalog. My business will go
elsewhere.

~~~
patejam
I haven't had this experience at all. Prime ships in two days almost always.
Same day prime does was it says. I've had refunds without having to ship back
products, and when I did have to ship back a product (shoes) I got the refund
right away and free return shipping like they advertised. I'm also in a major
US metro area.

Prices don't seem too bad. My latest purchase was head and shoulders. Looked
up the price at Walmart and it was 10 cents more expensive than Amazon. This
is my experience for most home goods. For anything not home goods, they're
certainly cheaper than any in-person store that I can think of.

I'm not sure which of our experiences is the outlier. One thing that might be
different is that almost all my purchases are Prime shipping items.

~~~
dazc
In the UK Prime was supposed to be 'next day' but this seems to have slipped
back over the past year or so? My pet gripe is the 'preparing for dispatch'
black hole that generally (in my experience) means 'you're going to be waiting
a long, long time'.

Recently ordered a keyboard in UK to be delivered to Spain. Despite being in
stock it stayed in 'preparing to dispatch' for a week and I couldn't cancel.

In frustration I ordered another one thinking I could just refuse to accept
delivery of whichever didn't arrive first and get a refund.

Sure enough, that time I left the office for half an hour I returned to find
two packages on my desk waiting for me :)

~~~
pidg
The service you experience with Prime definitely depends on where in the UK
you live, or rather where the item is going.

I live in a city centre, within 50 miles of an Amazon distribution centre, and
it often offers me _same day_ delivery. Like, order at 3am, items arrive at
8pm.

But if I change it to my parents' address (more remote but still in
civilisation), it takes them 1-2 days to deliver.

------
malnourish
Contrary to a lot of comments I've seen lately I haven't had any issues with
Amazon (is this wrong to say?). Maybe I've just not been purchasing the right
(er, wrong) things but I've never had an issue with their customer service or
item quality. One time I received an item a day late, got a full refund and a
second item was shipped out to me next day.

I've been a prime member for the past 6 years or so and I think prime is just
getting better for my needs. I noticed my mouse wheel was making noise at 2 am
Saturday morning. I ordered a wireless G403 and a sleep mask and had both by
8pm that night for no shipping cost (other than what I pay for Prime).

I'm not too price conscious when it comes to small items, but the mouse was
$20 cheaper than at Microcenter.

On topic: I'm glad to see this review change. Personally I think they could go
even more strict on non-verified reviews. I am extremely skeptical of products
that provide reviews for a discount. But if it's an item that quality really
matters, I already know what I'm buying when I get to Amazon -- I've done my
research.

Interesting that this doesn't apply to books. Is that market just vastly
different?

~~~
strictnein
> "Interesting that this doesn't apply to books. Is that market just vastly
> different?"

Maybe people don't return books when they aren't happy with them?

They don't care about fake book reviews anyways. I noticed a "Top 100" book
reviewer was just writing the same exact review for every book they reviewed.
Reported that and just got their standard "We're sorry you didn't like the
review" response.

~~~
gdulli
I was really pissed once when I got a Steve Alten book, it was terrible, then
when I looked at the glowing 5-star reviews they were transparently written by
him or a delegate. I've never returned a book before, but that time I wanted
to do it out of principle.

~~~
tedmiston
I sort by Top Critical and read those reviews instead.

It seems to work pretty well to answer the question "Is this book _not_ worth
buying?" Or, if I'm not in a rush to read it, I just check out the book from
the library first instead, then buy it only if I really really like it.

------
xt00
I hope this cuts down on negative reviews from obvious competitors too. I've
seen that a lot on products where the product literally shows up on Amazon (a
product I am selling) then within 12 hours has like 3-4 1 star reviews from
non purchasing people. Obviously it hit some keyword they are searching for
and then they go in and spam it. This is one of the reasons people are so
crazy about trying to figure out how to get paid reviews and whatever because
you very very often get spammers who work for a competitor who are trying to
lower your rank to help themselves.

------
5555624
It does not address my latest issue with reviews -- the reviews don't apply to
the actual item in question. Looking for a copy of "Don Quixote," the first
5-star review discussed two different translators -- neither of which was the
translator for the edition in question. Most of he reviews were for other
translations of the book.

This is not limited to books, either, as every now and then I see a review for
a different model number of a piece of equipment I am looking at.

~~~
ben1040
That or customers write reviews for things like the way the product was
packed, or the shipping method that brought the product to their door.

Not only does it not have to do with the product, but same SKU is often sold
by multiple sellers. So your packing/shipping experience will differ depending
upon whether you bought it "sold by Amazon," "sold by $COMPANY and fulfilled
by Amazon," or "sold and shipped by $COMPANY."

A rating for a book shouldn't be affected by the fact that one buyer ended up
buying it from some rando third party retailer who fulfilled the order by
packing it poorly and sending it media mail.

~~~
FireBeyond
Right, I really wish when you clicked "Write a review" Amazon would explicitly
ask: "Is this review about the product or its packaging / delivery to you?"
and that the latter would then leave the review with the seller, not the
product.

------
brilliantcode
I have no complaints about prime's two day shipping but having worked at one
of these Amazon Fulfilment centers, I'd personally not buy clothing or furry
toys, even non perishable food.

The experience up to opening your package is great but it's seeing boxes
crumpled up or package nearly destroyed with item inside it intact that really
pisses me off but having been a picker before _it 's really hard to give a
shit when you are paid a capped hourly wage walking for 10 hours in steel toe
shoe and actively timed against your peers where failing to keep up means
termination_

I never want to work for Amazon ever again. Not even their software or tech or
HQ, it totally ruined it for me. I don't give a shit, it's built on human
misery and our escapism through materialism. We are voting with our "things"
everytime we shop on Amazon to structurally oppress low-income bracket folks.

But I feel hopeless. I'm chained by their consistent 2-day free shipping and
overall an okay experience in helping me procure "things", "stuff".

In fact as I'm writing this I get PTSD thinking about Amazon Fulfilment and
the only remedy as pathetic as it is, is indulging in Amazon's Cyber Monday
sales extravaganza palooza, contradicting my own gripes about Amazon but
unable to overcome the general comfort of buying things on it. It's almost as
if buying on Amazon on my Kindle Fire is now an entertainment of some sort :/
which shocks me to write it.

------
tedmiston
> In a bid to put a stop to false feedback, people can now write only five
> reviews a week of items not bought via the online store.

> Users can still review as many items as they like if the goods are purchased
> via the website.

"High end" fake reviewers also get reimbursed for buying the product via
Amazon so that they are considered a verified purchase.

------
sesteel
IMO, Amazon should consider hiring a team of professional reviewers to
generate curated reviews for select products. I understand they
couldn't/wouldn't review everything, but given the stakes of public
perception, it appears it might be a good investment.

~~~
gdulli
That's a big conflict of interests and Amazon can't be trusted with it. The
last thing I want is Amazon reviewing Hachette books instead of real readers.
There are likely few categories where Amazon couldn't find a way to "optimize"
profit based on the success or failure of certain products.

------
ryanmarsh
If someone started faking Amazon Basics products I find it hard to believe
Amazon would allow themselves to suffer the same fate others manufacturers
have.

You know a platform has reached sufficient lock-in status when its "killer
app" (reviews) can go to shit without hurting the business

------
tedmiston
Speaking of verified reviews, does anyone happen to be an Amazon Vine [1]
reviewer? That program appears unchanged by the new limitation.

[1]:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help](https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help)

------
sctb
Related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037024).

------
mrfusion
Good start but it should be zero right?

~~~
jotato
Why? I bought a book direct from the author, and I liked it enough that I
wanted to leave a review. The only place I could think of was Amazon. That was
an "unverified purchase", but it was still legit.

~~~
freyr
Because letting you post your one legitimate review opens the door to spam
reviewers who each post five fake reviews a day.

If Amazon can get a sufficient number of verified purchase reviewers, why do
we need your review, especially if it opens the doors to abuse?

~~~
jotato
I'm not saying you should be able to post unlimited numbers of them, but
saying zero is very limiting to consumers and creators.

Even 5/mo is probably enough for most legit use cases

