Amazon acknowledged reality: It has a problem with bogus reviews.

[tomjasz]

NYTIMES.The trouble is that Amazon pointed blame at almost everyone involved in untrustworthy ratings, and not nearly enough at the company itself. Amazon criticized Facebook, but it didn’t recognize that the two companies share an underlying problem that risks eroding people’s confidence in their services: an inability to effectively police their sprawling websites.​

Learning from the masses is a promise of the digital age that hasn’t panned out. It can be wonderful to evaluate others’ feedback before we buy a product, book a hotel or see a doctor. But it’s so common and lucrative for companies and services to pay for or otherwise manipulate ratings on all sorts of websites that it’s hard to trust anything we see.​

The persistence of bogus reviews raises two big questions for Amazon: How much attention does it really devote to stopping bogus customer feedback? And would shoppers be better off if Amazon re-evaluated its essence as an (almost) anything-goes online bazaar?​

Amazon’s rules prohibit companies from offering people money or other incentives for reviews. Amazon says that it catches most bogus ratings and works to stay ahead of rule breakers. Still, the global industry of review fraud operates actively on Amazon and everyone knows i​

 

[m@Robertson]

For Amazon reviews, just doing stuff on my own purchases I became rated a 'Top Contributor' in the Cycling area. I get offers all the freaking time for free product in exchange for an 'honest review'. I never bother but seeing that statement that Amazon prohibits the offering of money or incentives is just totally bogus.

 

[Elkman]

Amazon has eliminated user reviews for many of the items sold on its website and instead has ratings which are not tied to anyone actually having bought the product.
For anything important or expensive I use reviews posted on multiple sources and seldom rely on Amazon reviews.

 

[Marcela]

I see amazon manipulating deliveries more and more. I.E. buying something with delivery date, then oops, going to be a day late.

 

[Art Deco]

There was a whole bunch of people on webmaster websites selling LIKEs and 5 star reviews a decade ago when I paid attention to that stuff. And they sold them for X dollars per 100 posts, positive or negative. As soon as one site disappeared, two more popped up. I doubt that has changed.

 

[BlackHand]

There was a whole bunch of people on webmaster websites selling LIKEs and 5 star reviews a decade ago when I paid attention to that stuff. And they sold them for X dollars per 100 posts, positive or negative. As soon as one site disappeared, two more popped up. I doubt that has changed.

The first like is free. After this I'll just bill you

 

[Elkman]

A related problem is that Amazon decides what you see with a search (as does Google) so there are so many responses that unless one has a few days to search through thousands of items from the search they will more likely go with one of the sponsored products where the business has had to pay an additional fee on top of the 17% cut that Amazon takes on both sales and shipping costs. Amazon makes more money by effectively forcing sellers to pay additional sponsor fees.

The worst part is that Amazon and its sellers increase prices by more than 100% for PPE and for food items during the pandemic and continues to do so.

 

[Handlebars]

A related problem is that Amazon decides what you see with a search (as does Google) so there are so many responses that unless one has a few days to search through thousands of items from the search they will more likely go with one of the sponsored products where the business has had to pay an additional fee on top of the 17% cut that Amazon takes on both sales and shipping costs. Amazon makes more money by effectively forcing sellers to pay additional sponsor fees.

The worst part is that Amazon and its sellers increase prices by more than 100% for PPE and for food items during the pandemic and continues to do so.

The ordinary KMC chain I bought less than 1 year ago doubled in price.
As to reviews, I still find them quite helpful, but I read as many as I can, and between different sellers of same product. The star rating system doesn't help much without the explanations and pics, because people give stars for delivery times and customer relations as well as for quality of product.