
Amazon Introduces Tougher Rules to Fight Fake Reviews - deegles
http://www.scribblrs.com/amazon-fake-reviews/
======
sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13055390](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13055390)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037024).

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pmoriarty
I really despise those _" I received this product at a discount for my honest
review"_ reviews. "Honest review" my ass. Anyone who gets any kind of
compensation for their review (even if only in the form of products or
discounts) can not be trusted.

To compound the problem, the seller can see the past reviews of prospective
reviewers, and pick those who've tended to give positive "honest reviews".
This skews the reviewing even further off.

I've never ever seen an "honest review" that the reviewer made of a product
they got at a discount that wasn't a positive review. Never.

Amazon's discount review program should be terminated. Only people who've paid
full price for their products and have received no compensation of any kind
should be allowed to do reviews.

~~~
twiceaday
> Anyone who gets any kind of compensation for their review (even if only in
> the form of products or discounts) can not be trusted.

A weaker statement that is still useful is that they can't be trusted
similarly to people who bought the product themselves. So it's fine to have
sponsored reviews but they should be segmented.

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charlieflowers
Seems to me that Consumer Reports should implement a new program whereby
customers that prove themselves to be trustworthy can submit a receipt and a
review for a product, and if it is voted helpful enough (by other shoppers),
that reviewer gets one free month of Consumer Reports subscription.

The result: verified, honest, reliable, helpful reviews. It would boost CR's
value and give the world something it badly needs.

I suppose Amazon could do this with gift certificates or a month of free Prime
or something.

~~~
i__believe
I don't think that's why people buy consumer reports. At least for me it's
about getting a professional review in the context of the product as well as
against others in the same category from a source whose only interest is
keeping the customer (me) informed. I'll admit that limits the selection of
the products reviewed, but I'm OK with that trade off.

I think what you're describing could work well for Angie's List though (also a
customer of theirs).

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daxorid
Obvious solution: only accept reviews from customers who actually purchased
the product.

~~~
dmoy
That is an obvious solution for extremely expensive items that do not sell
much. It doesn't work if the seller can just pay people to buy the thing and
then write a review, no?

~~~
mc32
I think they should be able to tell apart from people's purchasing history if
they are "organic" buyers [normal people's consumption patterns of goods] or
something organized to curry favorable reviews.

Sure someone could get paid to review an item and also be an avid consumer of
a product, but in that case it would seem they believe in the item.

Imagine someone buys eneloop over and over, never offer a review, then
purchases a no-name brand, gives rave reviews and goes back to buying eneloop
again.

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lutorm
I pretty much just look at what the 1-star amazon reviews say. That's where
you find the low-end tail...

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TrevorJ
Amazon is a completely dishonest company. Go look at the Xfinity internet
reviews on their site. fully _eightfive percent_ of them are a single star.
And YET... Xfinity has 4 stars overall. The problem isn't users creating fake
reviews it's Amazon itself.

~~~
Dylan16807
54 verified 5 star reviews

16 verified 1 star reviews

The reason it's 4 stars overall is _because_ of the attempt to filter out fake
reviews.

~~~
TrevorJ
I don't think you are looking at the same thing I am.

[https://www.amazon.com/XFINITY-High-Speed-Internet-
Exclusive...](https://www.amazon.com/XFINITY-High-Speed-Internet-Exclusive-
Customer/dp/B01B6ZI3SS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1480739748&sr=1-1#customerReviews)

There are over 900 reviews.

~~~
function_seven
Yeah, but if you look at just the verified ones, they break out like the
parent commenter wrote.

~~~
TrevorJ
There are over 100 verified reviews, it doesn't seem like we re seeing the
same thing.

~~~
Dylan16807
It shows me exactly 100 verified reviews.

    
    
      5: 54
      4: 13
      3: 9
      2: 8
      1: 16
    

Average: 3.81 stars

