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Amazon's top UK reviewers appear to profit from fake 5-star posts:
Amazon is investigating the most prolific reviewers on its UK website after a Financial Times investigation found evidence that they were profiting from posting thousands of five-star ratings.
Justin Fryer, the number one-ranked reviewer on Amazon.co.uk, reviewed £15,000 worth of products in August alone, from smartphones to electric scooters to gym equipment, giving his five-star approval on average once every four hours.
[...] Overwhelmingly, those products were from little-known Chinese brands, who often offer to send reviewers products for free in return for positive posts. Mr. Fryer then appears to have sold many of the goods on eBay, making nearly £20,000 since June.
When contacted by the FT, Mr. Fryer denied posting paid-for reviews—before deleting his review history from Amazon's website. Mr. Fryer said the eBay listings, which described products as "unused" and "unopened," were for duplicates.
At least two other top 10-ranked Amazon UK reviewers removed their history after Mr. Fryer. Another prominent reviewer, outside of the top 10, removed his name and reviews and changed his profile picture to display the words "please go away."
[...] "The scale of this fraud is amazing," said Saoud Khalifah, Fakespot's chief executive. "And Amazon UK has a much higher percentage of fake reviews than the other platforms."
[...] Since February, Mr. Fryer's reviews from China-based brands have included three gazebos, more than a dozen vacuum cleaners, and 10 laptops—as well as everything from dolls houses to selfie lights to a "fat removal" machine.
His contributions typically contained a video of the product taken out of its packaging but delicately handled, with comments mostly about the exterior features and the quality of the box it came in. Many of the same products were then listed as "unopened" and "unused" on an eBay account registered under Mr. Fryer's name and address.
[...] When contacted this week, Mr. Fryer said the items on his eBay listings were duplicates, and that the accusation he was receiving free products in return for positive reviews was "false." He said he had paid for the "large majority" of goods, but could not say how much he had spent "off the top of his head."
"I have relationships with and I know some of the sellers," he said. "My partner's Chinese and I know a lot of the businesses over there . . . and I just review."
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday September 08 2020, @01:37PM (6 children)
Isn't it kind of naive to assume that all the reviews, by common folk/users or professionals, are going to be honest? It's still very subjective. It's not like any of them are neutral in anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @02:21PM
Fraud. They were being paid to give 5* reviews. That the payment was in the form of free, saleable merchandise rather than directly in cash does not change this.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 08 2020, @08:11PM (4 children)
Amazon could certainly do more to vet and weight their reviews.
They do, sometimes, flag if a review is from a verified purchaser.
They could, but don't, provide a quick histogram or other indication of a reviewer's distribution of ratings given, number of reviews performed, etc.
They could, but never will, allow shoppers to create their own review filter profiles. For instance: I am not interested in reviews from users who have posted less than 5 reviews, or more than 1000. I am not interested in reviews from users who give 90% or greater 5 star reviews. Calculate my personal product ratings based on those criteria, and only show me products which have a total of 100 or more qualified reviews.
If everybody got to choose their own review filter profiles, it would make it more challenging for reviewers to game the system. Unfortunately for buyers, it would seem to be in Amazon's best interests to let fraudulently inflated product ratings run rampant on the site, particularly since they have so little competition in most markets.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @08:53PM (1 child)
I don't know what my personal filter would be. It would certainly knock off anyone who averages a high number of reviews per unit time (where I expect that would take some experimenting to figure out what that number should be). I would probably want "verified purchaser" too, and I'd want to regex the post for some version of the "I was sent one to provide my honest review" to exclude those as well. But then I think about the reviews I have written, which are less than a dozen over all these years. I'm not at that point where I am bored enough to write a bunch of reviews, so of the ones I've written, they are all 4 or 5-star reviews because it hasn't been worth my time to write a "meh" review, so I would certainly not make your cuts even though I feel I provided good information (I'm also not interested in writing a "me too" review if dozens of people have already made the same post). With nothing else to go on, I would inherently trust the account that only had a few reviews over the one with a few thousand, mainly because I would project myself and see the only a few poster as being someone like me.
Google has this problem, as does every platform that allows public reviews. I was looking for companies that do garage doors, and Google maps turned up a number of places in my area. I pick one and go to the reviews and there are a number of them with a label that suggests they are from my area "local expert" or "local reviewer" or something like that. It is a wonderfully glowing review of the company, their kind and friendly staff, etc., etc., and just how perfect they were. So I click on the reviewer account to see what other reviews they have written because, well, they're from my area and must have some great suggestions for other things, right? It turns out that this person had wonderful 5-star experiences with having a dishwasher installed in Arizona, a garbage disposal in Seattle, a Mexican restaurant in Ohio, etc., all in the last year. My guy certainly gets around! If they were all restaurants, then you can say hey, maybe he travels a lot, but my guy was sure big on major appliance installations all over the country. I checked a few other of my "local experts" and they too seemed to travel around the country quite a bit.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:13AM
And that certainly is a pattern that a review system that cares could flag and filter as suspicious.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Wednesday September 09 2020, @09:48AM (1 child)
Here's what I've found useful:
https://www.fakespot.com/ [fakespot.com]
They even have a plug-in you can add to your browser. You enable it on amazon, Walmart etc and it will give you a review of the review quality based on a number of heuristics.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 09 2020, @12:09PM
At least they're trying... I wonder how much Amazon, WalMart, etc. helps or hinders their efforts.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Interesting) by WeekendMonkey on Tuesday September 08 2020, @01:56PM (5 children)
I was offered money to remove a negative Amazon review of some food storage containers - the seller claimed that they had been improved. I suggested they send me an improved version and I would amend my review if it was better, but they didn't want to do that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday September 08 2020, @06:38PM
Heh, this happened to me a few years back. Offered me a $15 amz egift card to remove bad review - and actually sent it before I replied to them. I instead used that gift card and added their bribe email to the review. Scammas be scammin'.
I actually completely stopped using amazon a while ago. Most of the same sellers are on walmart - even same seller name and same price. Walmart actually actively looks for and removes sellers selling fake stuff. Amazon participates themselves. I don't mean co-mingling inventory so you get fake lotion. I mean amazon the seller sells fake chinese crap.
Ordered an rca fridge - sold by Amazon. Compressor broke 10 months later. No problem - right - 1 year manufacturer's warranty. Except RCA never made this model, and after reading the manuar it came with - it's crearry the output of googre transrate.
After bitching at amazon for an hour, they promised me a full refund, and gave me a shipping label. By my refund was 15% less... So I bitched for an hour again. They charged me a restocking fee. Knowing they sold a fake rca product that doesn't exist, they are going to resell it and scam someone else. And that listing, 10 months later? It's the exact same fridge, now with some other major company's logo. Still sold by amazon.
Walmart's better. Sort by price without results disappearing, almost zero fake products, and 2 day shipping is standard for shipped by walmart items.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rcamera on Tuesday September 08 2020, @07:59PM
my negative reviews are always discounted because "this item was fulfilled by amazon, and we take responsibility for this fulfillment experience". basically, the seller mismarks items so you pay for dark-roast, but get med-roast. when you say "hey - i paid for the dark roast, but got the cheaper med-roast", the review is negated. you'd think joy of coffee [amazon.com] is a great seller, based on the feedback that counts. because anything not 3+ is marked as "fulfilled by amazon". of course, "we take responsibility for this fulfillment experience" is a giant fuck you, because there's no refund, no recourse, no penalty, etc.
seriously - look through 2-3 weeks of their feedback. it's kind of terrifying. all 4-5 start are single-word, and anything negative is stricken.
/* no comment */
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 08 2020, @10:58PM (2 children)
It was good, significantly better than the first bottle I'd had.
So I did the up-rating, with a note that the bottle was free from the brewer, and handed them out to friends, and I considered the matter not just corrected, but corrected in an open manner, with nothing underhand going on. ( https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/aldaris-rietumu-eils/331211/ )
In all honesty, the brewer did kinda know me personally, as I'd met him a few times historically on my travels.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2020, @01:32AM (1 child)
Right. That's the last time I buy beer. Bastard liars.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Wednesday September 09 2020, @02:41AM
Exactly! Only free beer from now on! No more buying!
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Tuesday September 08 2020, @02:12PM
Fakespot can make dealing with fake reviews a little easier. It isn't perfect but it helps.
(Score: 2) by bmimatt on Tuesday September 08 2020, @02:20PM (1 child)
Jeff Amazon cannot review all his products by himself. He does try them all personally though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @10:48PM
Which penis enlarger worked best for him?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday September 08 2020, @02:24PM (19 children)
Because there are still naive people who believe there's are things on the commercial internet that's aren't designed to mislead, misinform or otherwise profit from them. If no-one believed reviews on for-profit sites, no-one would bother faking them. But as long as there are suckers...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @02:28PM (8 children)
I mean, I am open to suggestions for a better system.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday September 08 2020, @02:53PM (1 child)
I'm not saying there's a better system. What I'm saying is, like in real life, there are plenty of actors on the internet working hard to take money away from the pockets of suckers. But for some reason, there seems to be a lot more suckers on the internet than there are in real life. Many people who can smell astroturfing from a mile away in a brick and mortar seem quite content to believe whatever they read on Amazon...
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 08 2020, @03:06PM
The barrier to entry for a brick and mortar presence is higher so it cuts down on the small time players. The internet has lowered that bar to almost nothing and what is left can be automated to a button click or two. The closest thing I can think of IRL are the vendors selling cheap crap out of storage bins at your local flea market.
The other difference is the ability to lay your hands on a physical product prior to purchase at a brick and mortar store. When you can feel the weight, see the fit and finish, push the buttons and see how well the hinges work it makes a big difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @03:59PM (1 child)
The better system is called;
DON'T BE A SUCKER!
Maybe the president will issue a certificate
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Tuesday September 08 2020, @08:54PM
do you qualify for the sticker by re-electing him?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 08 2020, @04:23PM (3 children)
The best model I've ever seen in action is Consumer Reports [consumerreports.org]. The key rules are:
1. The reviews are done by professionals, who get paid the same amount regardless of their findings.
2. They acquire the products they're testing the same way you would, namely ordering online (without giving away who they are), or buying them off a store shelf. No donations from manufacturers.
3. Funding is from donations from people who benefit from the reviews (pre-Internet, this was mostly subscriptions to their magazine filled with review results). As with all non-profits, the books have to be open to anybody who wants to look at them.
4. They choose which products to review based on them being widely available products in a particular market, e.g. the 30 most popular food processors.
Another model that's in place for a lot of things in a lot of places is government testing to ensure that whatever they're selling isn't unusually dangerous for the job it's doing, and in stricter countries they also ensure that it isn't going to turn into a worthless piece of junk in short order. That's obviously not going to help you decide which of your 5 choices is best for you, but it will at least give you some confidence that none of them will be a completely unworkable choice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 08 2020, @08:17PM
Your models work well for the precious few products which can get such reviews.
In today's hyper-diverse marketplace, it's impossible to fund reviews of even a small sampling of a small minority of the types of products available using the Consumer Reports style of reviewing. As such, Consumer Reports dramatically skews the marketplace by which products they choose to review. The reviews themselves may be impartial, but whether or not Consumer Reports chooses to review your product can be a tremendous asset, or detriment depending on their review.
I'd prefer something more akin to a reputation score for reviewers. It wouldn't be perfect, but it is certainly better than what we have today which is virtually zero vetting of review information - making reviews ridiculously easy fraud targets.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday September 09 2020, @09:38PM (1 child)
Trouble with professional reviews is that they are generally about things in their new state, A professional reviewer of toasters is not going to use one daily for two years (say) before he writes a review to say that after 23 months it started burning everything. He tests it for a week, or for a day, or for two minutes, and then writes a review and moves on to the next one.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 10 2020, @01:04PM
The reviewers who work for Consumer Reports generally do include some stress-testing of the items for durability. So, to use your toaster example, once they've evaluated the features and energy usage and such, they'll try some tests like:
- Drop it on the floor a few times, and see if it's still working.
- Send it some power surges, and see if it's still toasting normally after the dust settles.
- Toast 1000 slices of bread in rapid succession to see whether slice 1000 is still approximately as good as slice 1.
That's not identical to years of usage, but it's a decent simulation of what kinds of problems the unit is likely to run into.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by nostyle on Tuesday September 08 2020, @03:04PM (5 children)
If you believe Webster, the word "shill" was only introduced into English around 1914, so the activity is not yet well understood by the average Joe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @03:40PM (4 children)
If you believe Goog's Ngram viewer, "shill" appeared in more books in the early 1800s than it has more recently.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?smoothing=3&corpus=26&year_end=2019&year_start=1800&content=shill&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cshill%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Cshill%3B%2Cc0 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @05:46PM (2 children)
What does the OED say?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @06:55PM
"Subscribe"
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday September 08 2020, @08:58PM
OED (the proper way): get correct volume from shelf, open to appropriate page, read.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @06:12PM
I wonder how many of Ngram stats are matching the word "shilling" (as in the coin)?
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by legont on Tuesday September 08 2020, @03:19PM
It's way wider than most people realize and it is everywhere. I know people, for example, who write articles. The prices are very low, say a buck for a page, but with some experience one can generate faster than plain blind typing. There is a large market for it mostly in 3rd word, but getting to the US as well. If one needs to push a certain opinion be it consumer product or political goal, for just a few grand a serious impact can be created.
Information on the net is mostly fake at this point.
It's not on the net either, but in real life. For example, it was funny to watch how "demonstrators" in Belarus were screaming slogans developed for Moskow's Navalny operation. I guess the handlers did not have enough time to produce a customized version.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Tuesday September 08 2020, @03:47PM (2 children)
Yea, this. It is basically impossible to find good information about any product, service, or company these days. In any search engine the first few pages will be company web sites that just contain useless buzzword bullshit surrounded by pictures of fake happy people. The next few will contain obviously fake reviews or discussion made from cookie cutter templates. And finally the word salad sites.
It is like not a single human on the internet has ever once mentioned the product.
Even when a real person makes a review, communications has been so dumbed down (less than 140 characters) these days it usually amounts to "this product is great!" or "this product suucks!", which is not helpful at all. The best reviews give me details and experiences about the product that I can consider for myself, regardless if the review is positive or negative.
Once in a rare while I'll find a post, usually in the off topic section of some totally unrelated forum that mentions the item and gives actual information.
Back in the old days, search engines would usually pop up dozens of tech sites with detailed information, FTP sites stuffed full of product information, and forums of actual people talking about things. What a fucked up world.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday September 08 2020, @04:58PM (1 child)
And if you think it's bad now, wait for the AI unleashed on the net.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @05:50PM
I would think at a minimum it would have to admit that it has no evidence for the existence of "god" before we could consider it intelligent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @07:41PM (1 child)
The general public is too slow to catch on. And all media is jow in pockets of corporations, so they do not investigate stuff like this. This has been a problem for over 4 years, along with dozen other scams.
Ultimately, a single marketplace will suffer from ever growing problem of information manipulation, funnel, and capture. It is unfeasible and unsolvable problem. Humans have only finite capacity to procesa information, before succumbing to fatigue.
This is why I prefer to outsource my product selection to COSTCO. For a small few fee I get to pick out of prescreened and preselected inventory of products, which is quite easy to do, with no mental stress. If Costco doean't have it I either dont really need it or I can get it a differnt time. I dont have to worry about weather I am getting ripped off because if something is more wxpensive it is always of greatee quality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2020, @10:53PM
And then one day they fuck you in the arse. It's the classic fairy tale.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 08 2020, @11:13PM
So three of the top 10 disappeared the moment that the Financial Times started nosing around. What that tells me is that "Mr. Fryer" is probably an operation that involves many accounts, probably including all four that disappeared. After all, why didn't they try to tough it out, if the Mr. Fryer account was their bread and butter? Answer: because they have a lot more already active accounts to replace the exposed ones. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the entire reviewer market is controlled by one or two players with armies of fake reviewers, all handing out five star ratings like candy and selling piles of goods on Ebay.