Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
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The metrics driven approach at Amazon isn’t always at all frugal. Employees end up focused on the metrics that they are compensated based on (and/or the ones that will keep the boss off their back). If the metric of the month is to reduce the number of items marked as “missing” (aren’t in the bin the computer thinks, for whatever reason), the way to do that which will best impact the bottom line is for everyone to be more careful when picking/stowing. The easier, but much less efficient, way is to take time to find another of the same item on a nearby shelf, or maybe on a far away shelf where you remember seeing one. This ends up being way less efficient than simply marking items as “missing” and moving on, since the computer will typically route you to another location where you can find the item, much more efficiently than you’d find it on your own. It also creates the vicious cycle where now the computer’s inventory of that other bin is also inaccurate, leading to a missing item in that bin sometime later. But the bosses might end the month saying “wow, you guys really did a great job reducing missing items”. Meanwhile, ignoring that picking efficiency went through the floor.
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I can look through the reviews and use fakespot to see another perspective and know its BS. And the wrong reviews for a product or the lumping together the reviews of different products in the same review pile is resolvable.
I bought an item last week (bluetooth headset) with the great 4.8* reviews, when they stank and I went back, I saw the majority of reviews were for an over the ear headset, not what I bought. That after winnowing turned out to be ~10 bad reviews for what I actually bought.
So amazon could fix this, they just don't want to.
Why? Follow the money. People buy based on reviews, so let the sellers lump things up so they look good.
How do I resolve this? Buy away and let amazon pay to send a UPS guy to my door to pick up the POS I bought with the great reviews that didn't apply to it.
Seller reviews are also faked. Bought a pre-built PC that ended up showing up with used parts in it. Seller said they weren't. I had photos of dates made and a disk utility showing the disk had been used for 5 years and had 'refurbished 2014' sticker on it.
Amazon not only didn't make him take it back on his own dime, they refused any a-z refund and on reading the seller reviews, he got 15+ a day with "Five star" as the title and "five star", "good", "like" and so forth. He's a guy selling PC's out of his garage. And NOT selling 15+ a day.
So 80% of his seller reviews are fake.
Buy from amazon shipped (not seller shipped) and if it stinks, make amazon take it back at the highest cost possible.
I bought an item last week (bluetooth headset) with the great 4.8* reviews, when they stank and I went back, I saw the majority of reviews were for an over the ear headset, not what I bought. That after winnowing turned out to be ~10 bad reviews for what I actually bought.
So amazon could fix this, they just don't want to.
Why? Follow the money. People buy based on reviews, so let the sellers lump things up so they look good.
How do I resolve this? Buy away and let amazon pay to send a UPS guy to my door to pick up the POS I bought with the great reviews that didn't apply to it.
Seller reviews are also faked. Bought a pre-built PC that ended up showing up with used parts in it. Seller said they weren't. I had photos of dates made and a disk utility showing the disk had been used for 5 years and had 'refurbished 2014' sticker on it.
Amazon not only didn't make him take it back on his own dime, they refused any a-z refund and on reading the seller reviews, he got 15+ a day with "Five star" as the title and "five star", "good", "like" and so forth. He's a guy selling PC's out of his garage. And NOT selling 15+ a day.
So 80% of his seller reviews are fake.
Buy from amazon shipped (not seller shipped) and if it stinks, make amazon take it back at the highest cost possible.
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Reminds me of 12 tasks for Asterix and invisible rope.
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Quick question: Is this just USA Amazon or does it affect European subsidiaries?
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There's quite a mix of comments, per normal, and per normal, I hear from them a resounding "take care of me!" or "protect me!" We're adults. We take care of ourselves. We have responsibility to protect ourselves. We build relationships and levels of trust. We learn to trust there is honesty or that there is deceit given from an individual or an entity. From there it is our responsibility to put forth required effort of choosing how and to what degree we will interact. To forgo that responsibility and put it in the hands of another is to forfeit personal freedom and to invite socialism.
It is a sad or disheartening realization such exists especially in those in whom we've previously trusted benevolence, but it the mature and healthy responsible course of action to become that active advocate for our own safety and our loved ones.
It is a sad or disheartening realization such exists especially in those in whom we've previously trusted benevolence, but it the mature and healthy responsible course of action to become that active advocate for our own safety and our loved ones.
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Might as well add to the Amazon dissatisfaction thread. I've been a customer since 1997 and it sure has gone down hill. Depending on the item I'll check walmart.com or B&H Photo and get a better price over all. For astronomy related items, Agena Astro, Astronomics, Highpoint Scientific, usually the item costs enough that they give you free shipping and they know about the product.
The reviews stink. My sister finally is earning enough that she could afford vdsl so she needed a router. I read some reviews, I didn't notice that it was for half the Netgear brand of routers. Well, the lower end one I bought from Walmart.com is working fine. Amazon was out of stock. Some of the reviewers clearly knew nothing about networks. For electronics I look for reviews where the item died in short order which means they got it work in the first place.
Today, I want to add a shoe horn to my accumulating Amazon order. I see items not related in the review, reviews of extended length shoe horns. Some claim the product has changed, easily bent, ect. I can't get even get useful reviews on a curved piece of stamped metal.
I've bought a fair amount of hobby electronics components from Amazon, a few months ago I needed something more specific. Mouser was a joy to work with and overall cost was quite acceptable.
I'll do a lot less business with Amazon once covid is over.
I'll be keeping Prime as I watch a few videos each month. I had Netflix, now I have Prime with better shipping and streaming.
Filtering, an internet company using the web for two decades doesn't have decent filtering. Has to be because they want to shove crap they want me to look at rather than the stuff I want to look at. Think of this as a form of forced advertising.
I want to go back to the days when things were sold by Amazon and fulfilled by Amazon.
The reviews stink. My sister finally is earning enough that she could afford vdsl so she needed a router. I read some reviews, I didn't notice that it was for half the Netgear brand of routers. Well, the lower end one I bought from Walmart.com is working fine. Amazon was out of stock. Some of the reviewers clearly knew nothing about networks. For electronics I look for reviews where the item died in short order which means they got it work in the first place.
Today, I want to add a shoe horn to my accumulating Amazon order. I see items not related in the review, reviews of extended length shoe horns. Some claim the product has changed, easily bent, ect. I can't get even get useful reviews on a curved piece of stamped metal.
I've bought a fair amount of hobby electronics components from Amazon, a few months ago I needed something more specific. Mouser was a joy to work with and overall cost was quite acceptable.
I'll do a lot less business with Amazon once covid is over.
I'll be keeping Prime as I watch a few videos each month. I had Netflix, now I have Prime with better shipping and streaming.
Filtering, an internet company using the web for two decades doesn't have decent filtering. Has to be because they want to shove crap they want me to look at rather than the stuff I want to look at. Think of this as a form of forced advertising.
I want to go back to the days when things were sold by Amazon and fulfilled by Amazon.
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Glad to see Ars is covering this. If only the fakes were so obvious!
It's worth pointing out that there are commodity categories that are less infested. They tend to be items made by well-known companies and in a higher price range, e.g. power tools. There you can often get excellent comparisons, much better than anything you would have been able to get from b&m staff and as good as you can find if you trudge your way through user forums.
It's worth pointing out that there are commodity categories that are less infested. They tend to be items made by well-known companies and in a higher price range, e.g. power tools. There you can often get excellent comparisons, much better than anything you would have been able to get from b&m staff and as good as you can find if you trudge your way through user forums.
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The creed of the conman: "It's the victim's fault for falling for it."
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When you have the president lying every day, you expect Amazon to stop its lying? You complain about a $24.00 dollar item yet 50% still vote for the lying president. Advertisers have always lied and always will. Republicans cry about too many regulations and accept outright lies. The problem is with consumers in general. You can't expect a cheap toy to last. If your kids are that destructive buy them a solid granit pet rock. You would probably cry about them being able to draw blood with it when they smack each other with it.
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My recent experience has led me to scores of products filled up with reviews for other products.
I've been looking for an outdoor radiant heater for my deck. Once I realized the reviews switcheroo was going on, I paid attention, and I looked at maybe 40 or 50 products - radiant electric heaters that were freestanding.
EVERY listing had either puloined reviews or no reviews. I finally found three products with actual reviews (or apparently actual reviews), but none were freestanding units.
I'm doing some other home improvements and I'm finding the same pattern with a number of other products.
But today I found another problem I wasn't ready for. I wanted to order some packing tape, found the name brand I'm used to and wanted to buy, and was offered a variety of sellers. Satisfaction rates with the sellers (which I've only relatively recently started to monitor) ranged from 34 to 60%! WTH? I would think Amazon should suspend or penalize sellers who can't even satisfy half of their customers. (There was one seller with just a few ratings with the 90% rating.)
In the past I have found average satisfaction rates of 80% or higher for most of the sellers of products I was considering.
Can Amazon continue to prosper his mightily as it has if these kind of practices are rampant?
The financial reports would seem to indicate so. So I'm not sure of how they can be pressured to fix these things.
I've been looking for an outdoor radiant heater for my deck. Once I realized the reviews switcheroo was going on, I paid attention, and I looked at maybe 40 or 50 products - radiant electric heaters that were freestanding.
EVERY listing had either puloined reviews or no reviews. I finally found three products with actual reviews (or apparently actual reviews), but none were freestanding units.
I'm doing some other home improvements and I'm finding the same pattern with a number of other products.
But today I found another problem I wasn't ready for. I wanted to order some packing tape, found the name brand I'm used to and wanted to buy, and was offered a variety of sellers. Satisfaction rates with the sellers (which I've only relatively recently started to monitor) ranged from 34 to 60%! WTH? I would think Amazon should suspend or penalize sellers who can't even satisfy half of their customers. (There was one seller with just a few ratings with the 90% rating.)
In the past I have found average satisfaction rates of 80% or higher for most of the sellers of products I was considering.
Can Amazon continue to prosper his mightily as it has if these kind of practices are rampant?
The financial reports would seem to indicate so. So I'm not sure of how they can be pressured to fix these things.
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I suppose Amazon's philosophy here (besides "profit = good" which, to be fair, is why any business exists) is that the mystical forces of free market competition will drive bad sellers out of business. And yet... there they are, propped up by the sort of buyers who online shop based on price and zero other factors. And soever this continues to occur, Amazon has absolutely no incentive to do any kind of enforcement against or penalisation of sellers with poor ratings.
The only practical thing one can really do about it is to vote with the wallet and not purchase via a company that perpetuates such shady practices. It'll make zero difference to their bottom line of course, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you're not participating in a ruse that screws a lot of people over.
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Mashed-together listings are a problem even with books, which you think Amazon would have plenty of experience with. These often aren't fraudulent. Just plain bad.
If a book goes through several publishers, or has markedly different releases for different geographical regions, the reviews are all slammed together. You may get a review reporting "poor quality binding", only to find it's for a different release and edition of the book. Reviews criticising the quality of the Kindle maps show up for the hardcover edition. And so on.
It's even worse when you're looking at classics. Often, every translation, every edition, every regional release gets rolled into one. Which makes no sense whatsoever. There's no need to combine multiple translations into one listing. Nobody is looking for Amazon reader opinion on whether Homer was any good or whether Cicero's rhetoric was up to standard. They want to know whether a particular translation is decent and what kind of supporting materials are included in a particular edition. Seeing a review saying "extensive maps, essays and appendices", only to find that the edition you're actually being shown is a bare-bones release without any of that additional content, is misleading at best.
The default option should be to not combine reviews at all. It does more harm than good.
If a book goes through several publishers, or has markedly different releases for different geographical regions, the reviews are all slammed together. You may get a review reporting "poor quality binding", only to find it's for a different release and edition of the book. Reviews criticising the quality of the Kindle maps show up for the hardcover edition. And so on.
It's even worse when you're looking at classics. Often, every translation, every edition, every regional release gets rolled into one. Which makes no sense whatsoever. There's no need to combine multiple translations into one listing. Nobody is looking for Amazon reader opinion on whether Homer was any good or whether Cicero's rhetoric was up to standard. They want to know whether a particular translation is decent and what kind of supporting materials are included in a particular edition. Seeing a review saying "extensive maps, essays and appendices", only to find that the edition you're actually being shown is a bare-bones release without any of that additional content, is misleading at best.
The default option should be to not combine reviews at all. It does more harm than good.
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You said slot cars! No takebacks!
Kidding aside, if there had been swiffer pads back when I was a kid, I would likely have had much less frustration with my slot car set-up.
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Interesting, it seems that Amazon.de might not have such problems... (no idea why 
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Steam has two different review categories: recent reviews and average review. It's super helpful. Average low but recent high? Developer probably fixed something or added content and now the value is good. Average high but recent low? Wait on that purchase until the dev fixes whatever they broke or check the reviews to see if it's abandoned.
That would totally work for this.
Looks like Amazon just had to look across the lake to Bellevue for the answer.
And while they are at it, they should have the default set to "reviews for the product currently being viewed" even if that means you only see the one review for this color choice and style. Then you can press a button to get average reviews for the product. Anything that looks to be circumventing this system should get flagged and taken down until it can be reviewed.
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What about the companies that will send you a $40 gift card for a 5 star review of a product that costs $25? And when you review it to warn people that the company is doing this, the review will not be approved to post?
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I've been lucky enough to avoid fake SD cards on Amazon so far. Each time I've gotten one though, I have put it through its paces on arrival. First, formatting it with the SD Association's formatter, then filling it to capacity and spot-checking some of the files.
Lately I've been pondering alternatives for Amazon. I used to order electronics and computer parts from NewEgg way back when, but it seems like they've gone the third-party seller route too, Microcenter's delivery costs might be a tough pill to swallow, and I pretty much despise Best Buy. For other stuff, Walmart's pretty much the brick version of Amazon. Maybe Overstock? Eh.
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There's another phenomenon going on, actually probably many, but here's one more:
I find some of the verified reviews of actual products to be more contradictory than seems plausible, and my hypothesis is that 1) competitors buy the product on Amazon - under individual names - so that they become verified purchasers and then slam it.
And/or 2) they have employees or family members buy their own products, making them verified purchasers, and praise them to the skies.
I find some of the verified reviews of actual products to be more contradictory than seems plausible, and my hypothesis is that 1) competitors buy the product on Amazon - under individual names - so that they become verified purchasers and then slam it.
And/or 2) they have employees or family members buy their own products, making them verified purchasers, and praise them to the skies.
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Well... In this order:
Local bookstores or shops. (Bought quite a bit from the websites of a couple of them this summer.)
Specialty websites. (Niche comic books, etc.)
Regional/National chains. (ie. Barnes and Noble, etc. in the US.)
Links from publisher's website. (But not to Amazon.)
Random websites that show up in a duckduckgo (not Google! Too much SEO aimed at Google) search. (Really, this works out pretty good for a lot of things. it lets me avoid...)
Amazon as an absolute last resort. (...and we even have Prime in this family, because of a TV show.)
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I'm still buying stuff from Newegg. I just make sure to check the sold and/or shipped by Newegg buttons, and look for name-brand like ASUS or Corsair, Razr, etc. I bought a tablet in 2019, and a laptop last november, they're working fine.
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Newegg jumped the shark? That makes me sad, given I am in the early stages of planning ym next build.
Sigh.
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Fry's used to be a good option, especially if you lived near one of their stores and could pick stuff up (so you could make sure it was supplied in the OEM's sealed packaging). But their reputation for unlabeled "refurb" devices has kind of caught up with them, and even the online shelves are getting bare (store shelves have been since well before Covid-19). A search for "Ryzen" brings up only Ryzen 1 & some 2 CPUs.
Parts Express?
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Depends on what kind of books you're after.
I've had much better luck with B&N in the last year or so than with Amazon for availability and shipping. Plus, B&N still has some brick & mortar boxes where you can pick books up (and be sure that what you're getting is what you thought you were going to get). Goes for both books and movies/TV shows (Amazon is riddled with fake copies of the latter).
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Almost bought a HAKKO FX-8801 soldering iron for my soldering station and realized that I was looking at a fake. Should be a disclaimer that it isn't OEM.
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With due respect, I call bullshit. I have quite literally hundreds of books on my shelves purchased from Amazon. I have never received a title specified, by a specific author, that was not the book I wanted. For that matter, I also have several hundred movies and TV episodes on my shelves. Two I had to return because they were defective discs, but none appeared in any way to be inauthentic. Several of the books I purchased thusly have been happily signed by their authors with no qualms.
We have a large B&N a few miles away. Their selection is decent, and I do not discount the inner satisfaction of physically browsing books. To imply it is comparable to what one can find on Amazon, though, is simply silly, as it is to suggest that shopping at B&N--particularly online--supports local bookstores.
Our anecdotes have now cancelled each other out.
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Feature photo: "Our $24 drone. You can see the missing propeller on the right." - uh, no I can't, it's missing! ...with a gazillion sellers, how can they possibly 'police' them all, so they don't even bother...
...with a gazillion sellers, how can they possibly 'police' them all, so they don't even bother...
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I stop at Fry's when I am in the Bay Area. The last few visits (spread over a couple of years) I was surprised at how bare the store shelves were. Hard to see how Fry's can afford these huge megastores if they are largely empty.
I recall when a WoW expansion came out and people were lined up outside the store waiting for release. The store was well-stocked in those days.
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So having posted an off the cuff observation, and my first ever 'first post' on an Ars article (and my most up-voted comment ever lol - brevity is good!), and lastly having made a reasonable attempt to read the entirety of the comments thread thus far;
Amazon doesn't give two fucks about the (end-user) consumer. You're not their fucking business focus, the sellers are. It costs more to care than it does to sell disposable e-waste..
That's it. There's no 'wider' angle to this.
I have never bought from Amazon, used Uber, or participated in any other way (knowingly) in the absolute fucking over of the system by IC tech-douche bro's.
You can choose not to participate in the race to the bottom.
It will cost you some $.
What you buy is the satisfaction of not being a cunt to your fellow humans, and contributing to the potential survival of many other life forms....
In the end that's all that counts to me, results may vary...
Just my opinion.
Amazon doesn't give two fucks about the (end-user) consumer. You're not their fucking business focus, the sellers are. It costs more to care than it does to sell disposable e-waste..
That's it. There's no 'wider' angle to this.
I have never bought from Amazon, used Uber, or participated in any other way (knowingly) in the absolute fucking over of the system by IC tech-douche bro's.
You can choose not to participate in the race to the bottom.
It will cost you some $.
What you buy is the satisfaction of not being a cunt to your fellow humans, and contributing to the potential survival of many other life forms....
In the end that's all that counts to me, results may vary...
Just my opinion.
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This is supposed to be against Amazon policy but that policy is only winked at....maybe. I've encountered similar issues when I've tried to post 1 star reviews pointing out that incentivized reviews violate Amazon policy, but Amazon deems those kinds of reviews not suitable to post. I've sent complaints directly to Amazon as well, even including the email I was sent to get a free bottle with a positive review, but it goes nowhere. Meanwhile honest sellers like me, who pay n fees over 45% of my selling price to Amazon, live in fear of Amazon's capricious selective enforcement of their own policies.
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I'd be happy if Amazon finally got around to preventing scammers from selling obviously fake super cheap 2TB usb sticks
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2tb+usb+stic ... -do-p_1_10
Not only are they fake (you'd be lucky to get a stick with 16GB storage and USB2 speed which self-reports as holding 2TB to the OS) - right now when I look at the listing, the top two products are "sponsored" and suffer from the same fake review problem as the drones in this Ars article (e.g. the top one I see right now has tons of 5 star reviews for a screen protector)...
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2tb+usb+stic ... -do-p_1_10
Not only are they fake (you'd be lucky to get a stick with 16GB storage and USB2 speed which self-reports as holding 2TB to the OS) - right now when I look at the listing, the top two products are "sponsored" and suffer from the same fake review problem as the drones in this Ars article (e.g. the top one I see right now has tons of 5 star reviews for a screen protector)...
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This is a very big problem on Amazon with books, too. If you're purchasing a book that is out of copyright, many createspace reprints are lumped together with vetted publisher's reprints(like Dover). While a search using the terms "Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain" pulls up the individual titles, for a while, using an ISBN for the correct printing, would pull up a combined mess with the createspace copy as the top one.
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It seems unlikely to me that a seller of a $25 drone that falls apart in days also sells 5 star honey? I assume they're somehow hijacking old listing - or perhaps there's a black market?
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There are various strategies dodgy sellers use for takeovers of legitimate Amazon listings (hijacking, ASIN piggybacking, etc). It’s likely that the sellers of these products are finding dormant listings, hijacking them, then finding a means to “update” the original listing to an entirely new product.
This is all possible because Amazon dislikes having multiple listings for the same product (unlike, say, eBay), so aggressively collapses them together. This has long posed a problem where counterfeit products are collapsed into genuine listings. The latest scams are just taking it one step further.
Frankly, to fix it, Amazon Marketplace should have a distinct UI from the store proper, with greater prominence given to the individual sellers and their reviews. Right now, the seller info is almost hidden.
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I wasn't buying much on Amazon anyways, but I've managed to cut back even on that. Nowadays, price comparisons on Ebay usually yield close enough, if not better deals. Also, it's typically not that much more expensive to buy directly from a company or business' website, and these days, Amazon Prime's one-day shipping isn't all that. TBH, if it weren't for Prime Video, I would've cancelled my subscription long ago.
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I've had a related issue with some purchases - cash for positive reviews.
Comes in the form of a small card in your delivery, offering you a voucher if you leave a good review and email them a screenshot of it along with your order number.
Can also take the form of offering you another of their products for free.
There is relatively little incentive for most customers to report this practice to Amazon, because:
1. They already have the product and presumably it works otherwise they would complain.
2. If they report it they are turning down the cash offer.
Occasionally I've seen someone reporting it happening within the reviews and down scoring the product because of this - but it's rare.
It probably isn't as bad as bait and switch - but it does enable smaller companies to power up the search results - and could well be a precursor for something similar to the Bait and Switch process once they have the high ranking.
Comes in the form of a small card in your delivery, offering you a voucher if you leave a good review and email them a screenshot of it along with your order number.
Can also take the form of offering you another of their products for free.
There is relatively little incentive for most customers to report this practice to Amazon, because:
1. They already have the product and presumably it works otherwise they would complain.
2. If they report it they are turning down the cash offer.
Occasionally I've seen someone reporting it happening within the reviews and down scoring the product because of this - but it's rare.
It probably isn't as bad as bait and switch - but it does enable smaller companies to power up the search results - and could well be a precursor for something similar to the Bait and Switch process once they have the high ranking.
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