I have heard numerous times over the past few years that fake reviews are a problem on Amazon.
I have recently seen just how bad things have gotten. There are several things that have been bugging me, leading to poorer Amazon browsing and shopping experience.
Something like 95% or more of the products in the Today’s Deals category are generic everyday products by no-name companies. That’s making it harder to find genuine deals on Amazon.
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Searching for tools have started to turn up lots and lots of no-name products.
But here’s the big problem – I’m coming across lots of products that have loads of positive reviews, but when you look at the timing, they’re all quite recent.
Lots of the reviewers have disclaimers about having received the product for free or for a discount.
As an aside, I’ve been meaning to write about another side of this. Every week a couple of different companies reach out to offer me free products in exchange for Amazon reviews, or review consideration.
Some of them seem to have genuine products, others seem to be slapped together.
What helped prompt for this post? A distance measurer that is advertised as being FDA approved. Huh? For what? In what way would the Food and Drug Administration approve a laser distance measuring tool?
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So there are tons of no-name products hitting Amazon’s front page and search results. Some reviewers disclose that they received the products for free, or at a discount. But when you look at a lot of reviewers’ profiles, they’ve never reviewed anything before. So what’s going on here?
Then there are the more active reviewers. I looked at the profile of a “top 500” reviewer. What did I see? 5 star reviews. All of them, 5 stars each.
And then when I looked at the post dates, I saw a dozen or two reviews posted – each day for the past few days.
How do you review 10 products a day? 20?! Everything from shoes to makeup to tools?
It just seems to be that Amazon is turning into more of a flea market or junk show than a marketplace. It’s like a butcher shop that has agreed to so many 3rd party products that you can hardly make your way to the meat counter.
And it’s not just tools and workshop supplies, I’ve noticed the same has happened to baby gear, workout equipment, and other types of products.
It’s not just that there are a lot of questionable reviews, it’s the seemingly fake popularity of such products. And then it’s not just 1 or 2, but a flood of similar listings.
Other sites have other review issues, such as how Home Depot pulls in reviews from other sites and products, sometimes the wrong ones! But I shop at Amazon the most, and this new issue seems to have popped up overnight.
It’s taking longer for me to search for anything on Amazon, and if I can’t find what I need or want quickly enough, I’m going to start looking elsewhere.
Am I late in noticing all this, or am I right that it’s a more recent issue?
Tony Wilson
FWIW, the FDA does approve laser tools (http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/HomeBusinessandEntertainment/LaserProductsandInstruments/ucm116362.htm)
… but you’re right about the frustration of fake Amazon reviews. When I’m buying tools, I read the reviews for clues that someone has actually used the products, and then I search woodworking/contractors/DIY forums for user comments. That said, I usually stick with major brands.
John Blair
My company makes wireless presentation products in Mexico and China and sell them in the United States. Our products are sometimes stopped by customs for FDA review.
While the FDA regulates lasers, it is a self documenting process by category. Actual FDA approval is required for items that make medical claims (regrows hair, etc.). But since so few people know the bureaucracy behind these products, if a review includes mention of FDA approved, I would assume its a shill.
Jim Premo
And why doesn’t your company sell their products in China and Mexico?
It would not bother me if the FDA refused to let your products into this country. We can make these products ourselves just fine. Using our technology anyway, aren’t you?
Off subject , I know.
Brandon
Probably because at the price point required if those products were made in the US, no one would buy them. They would instead buy the cheaper ones made in Mexico and China.
Companies don’t manufacture their products in other countries just for sh*ts and giggles.
Luke Skywarner
So. Tired. Of. This.
The “I only buy Murican” thing drives me nuts. It shows such a lack of knowledge about basic economics.
Ben
Germany and Japan manufacture locally and seem to be doing ok. Make good products.
BonPacific
They have different focuses. American culture prizes innovation and the “Next Big Thing” to a massive degree, while German industrial culture prizes refinement and niche markets. Both are equally valid, with their own benefits and drawbacks.
https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/manufacturing-processing/how-does-germany-do-it
Jim Premo
American manufacturing was king until recently, on a historical scale. You state that wanting to manufacture our own products is ridiculous and due to a lack of understanding basic economics. You would do well to aquire a basic understanding of history. Say as little as 30 years ago.
Jim Felt
Your “thirty years ago” timeline works well with the mostly GOP Congressional tax incentives to help plants move overseas that significantly de-industrialize the heartland to the benefit of corporate leaders and later raiders. Remember Chainsaw Al and the Eighties? Germany requires union and government seats on their corporate boards. And Japan is simply more insular. “We”, on the other hand, mostly only pay attention when the horse has long ago left the barn.
Ben
It’s hard to be a king at anything if you stop practicing it. It’s a perishable skill.
Cody
I agree that Amazon needs to find a way to fix this and I have received numerous things in exchange for a review. It’s become a homework assignment, I get something free for sitting down and typing up a review for something that I’ve just taken out of the box. I don’t like it but getting free things is cool.
Toolfreak
Which legit company actually does that? All the ones I’ve seen and lots I’ve signed up for never turn out to actually send you anything for free to review, just scams desiged to gather your info to sell off.
Cody
There is actually a website that tries to weed out fake reviews on Amazon.
http://fakespot.com/
Brian
Thanks for the link!
Ed
Fakespot is great! They have pretty much solved the fake review problem for me. They have a chrome add-on that’s very handy as well. As the other commenter mentioned below, camelcamelcamel is another must-have tool for anyone that uses amazon regularly. Their price alerts have scored me several great deals.
David
Fakespot has a way to check authenticity of reviews on Amazon. I am not sure if there are others but I know this one works. It is now way more of a problem than it used to be which is disappointing to say the least but at least people are being honest about how they got the product so I can immediately ignore their review…
BonPacific
I don’t have any stats to back it up, but I’ve definitely noticed the same things as you. If feels like in general Amazon has been on a downward turn the last year or so.
Shipping has gotten a lot worse, with One-Day or Same Day deliveries taking 3 or more days to get to me. I’ve had two products damaged on shipment due to improper packaging from Amazon, within the last 6 months, after a decade of never having seen this.
I’d say it isn’t surprising that Amazon isn’t doing anything about the bad reviews. They’ve never been particularly good at algorithms like this. The fabled recommendation of similar products is done by Mechanical Turk rather than machine learning.
Memories
“Lots of the reviewers have disclaimers about having received the product for free or for a discount.”
These really annoy me. More than likely you are not going to get a fully-honest review because you’ve taken out a big element of the sale. I would be much more positive about a product if it is free versus if I had to pay retail price. I don’t know what the solution is on Amazon’s side, but on our side you can go to fakespot(dot)com and see how many reviews seem bogus.
Also, another site not everyone knows about is camelcamelcamel(dot)com to price check Amazon against itself.
MichaelHammer
I’m so glad you brought up price checking Amazon against itself. It’s the weirdest thing. Change the search parameters, get the same results with different prices. Sometimes the prices can vary greatly. Thanks for the link!
Christopher Luce
Vote with your wallet. When you see an obviously fake review, don’t buy the product, leave a negative review stating you won’t purchase because of the obvious fake reviews.
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to jump on the Amazon-bashing bandwagon here. Amazon has revolutionized online shopping and offers incredible value. I recognize fake review can be a negative, as well as sometimes hyper-inflated prices, but that’s just part of caveat emptor.
Marvin L McConoughey
I take your advice, plus read all the negative reviews, other source reviews, the specifications when available, and my own well-honed common sense. With a bit of effort, the results are generally excellent. Sometimes, with cheap tools from China I am pleasantly surprised as with the stainless steel drill stops that arrived yesterday. The very cheap small gouges I also recently ordered were very poor. With very low price I am more willing to take a chance.
Doug Moushey
You’re right, it’s becoming an increasing problem. A new site that’s been trending lately, reviewmeta.com, posted a massive analysis the other day showing how bad the problem has become lately. Here’s the post:
http://reviewmeta.com/blog/analysis-of-7-million-amazon-reviews-customers-who-receive-free-or-discounted-item-much-more-likely-to-write-positive-review/
Of note, a particular statistic: 2 years ago, incentivized reviews accounted for less than 2% of all reviews. As of February of this year, they now make up more than HALF of reviews.
The site also has a system for some of the major shopping pages to drop the URL into their system, and they can help parse out the questionable reviews vs. the more genuine ones. The differences sometimes don’t matter, but sometimes they do a shocking amount. Hope this helps you separate the wheat from the chaff in the future.
Benjamen
You talk about Home Depot pulling in the wrong reviews for a product, I constantly see Amazon reviews for the wrong product model. I’ve even seen reviews for the wrong product entirely. Sometimes that might not be the reviewers fault though, I’ve seen 100s of reviews saying this wasn’t the product that was advertised. It’s happened to me a few times.
It’s also annoying when there are several near identical listings (even the same company listed) and one has 500 reviews and the other listing have zero. I’m not sure if that’s Amazon’s fault or the “store” that’s selling on Amazon.
All in all I still think the review system is better than trusting the advice of a salesperson in a brick and mortar store, I’ve been steered wrong by a clueless HD employee far more times than I’ve been burned at Amazon.
Jim Felt
Wow. I’ve certainly seen these dopey (or worse) reviews but I’m so used to filtering poor instore “help” I guess I’m immune. With near full employment I understand the brick and mortar problem of good help but Amazon itself pays very fairly and better in any non shipping
capacity. So there’s no damn excuse. Except of course do to that full employment issue. Who’s left to work? Obviously I’m physically near Amazon to make some of these statements.
And the old adage “buyer beware” still holds. And I’m not shy about returning stuff that ain’t quite right…
Oh. You’ll all note Amazon at least on this iPhone app actually asked you how fast you want your delivery. Every time. And I’ve been a Prime member since month one.
Jim Felt
Oh. And as a side bar I’m loving Zoro’s 30 and 25% off deals on name items. And much rarer shop related items as well. And always free shipping at the dollar level of their very spur of the moment discount times. And Chicagoland to the west coast seems to average two or three days.
Just a thought.
JD
Yeah, Zoro is great. Also Harry Epstein’s is good for tools and also Cripe Distributing. I am not a big fan of Amazon’s. Overrated, IMHO, and I prefer to give business to smaller co’s. Too many people automatically just order from Amazon when they could get the stuff cheaper at local stores.
Hilton
All very well if you live in the States but I’m 8000 miles away and I rely on the reviews and free shipping on Amazon.
BikerDad
Zoro? You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Sorry, but any outfit that has common tools at HIGHER than MSRP isn’t going to get my business. And don’t get me started on their horrid search engine and craptacular site organization….
Jim Felt
I’ve only bought brand name products. Everything from Knipex to SpeedRail and never saw the price markup you’ve noted.
HOWEVER,I agree they do have the lousiest search interface I’ve seen anywhere in 15 years.
So there is that. ;-)~
RKA
It goes with the territory. I’ll usually sort through the reviews looking for those with clear in depth knowledge of the item and alternatives. There are a few really helpful reviews that lay it all out. I’ll also glance at the 1-2 star reviews to see which issues are reported and decide whether I care. That helps me zero in on the most useful information and get around the noise.
Diplomatic Immunity
“Lots of the reviewers have disclaimers about having received the product for free or for a discount.”
If it’s a lot of reviews for the product that have that then I won’t buy the product even if the reviewer is truthful in that they like the product. If you want to see this in full effect go search for cheap kitchen scales. Tons of those reviewers got their scale for free.
And yeah the amount of 3rd party crap has increased at a faster pace. It’s like Amazon thought it would be great to add Fasttech, Alibaba, DHgate, Chinese warehouse companies into their own inventory.
I always figured they would have had this all polished out by now including their search capabilities. But then again the Google Play store sucks and from what I hear the iTunes store isn’t good either. So maybe none of them just give a damn.
fred
I used to think that I could read between the lines of many Amazon reviews – but I have been changing my opinion – now giving most of them short shrift. Stuart has pointed out that one difficulty – even with honest reviewers/reviews is that it is hard to know the context in which the review was conducted. I suspect that many reviews are just first impressions about the tool – probably not based on any long-term use. If there are enough reviews posted – you might see some negative ones based on “infant mortality” of the sample – but know nothing about what the “bathtub curve” of tool reliability looks like over time. More problematical – only a few reviewers give you any hint (e.g. they might say: “I am a professional trim carpenter) about how (or even if) they have put the tool to use. Reading Amazon reviews may still be better than buying blind – but as others point out – they may “take us down the garden path” if we forget caveat emptor.
JeffD
I recently came across this website that uses data scientists to correct the paid/free reviews: http://reviewmeta.com/blog/how-it-works/
Scott K
This is definitely a problem- which is why I rely so heavily on your reviews and comment threads! It’s very frustrating to search for something and have “top rated” product results that look like junk, which they sometimes turn out to be.
Andrew
Is there a way to filter through the deals so it just show amazon.com items only? that would be useful but so far I haven’t been able to pull it off.
Pete
Meh, these garbage reviews and paid reviews have been around forever. What i hate is when someone reviews something just by looking at it on amazon(i know part of what you were talking about).
Amazon is one of those things that you have to be smart and pay close attention to detail to get what you want or find it on amazon deals (returns). I tell my wife she cant order on amazon because she pays zero attention to details- who is selling it, if its prime, if we have to pay for shipping, how long it will take etc… i tell her to just add it to the cart and i will place the order once i inspect it.
In short- its always been hit or miss getting the perfect product on amazon, attention to details is always required.
RC Ward
If you just noticed this than you are way late. The internet and Amazon are crooked as No Politics! and it is getting worse everyday, have to take all of the “Reviews” with a grain of salt to say the least. Sad commentary but just the way it is. I am very leery of even buying anything online anymore. I only deal with companies that have been around for along time and something I have seen or read a review of. Sucks
Stuart
A lot of the suspect listings and reviews popped up only in recent months.
If you look around, you’ll see that there seems to have been a surge of these types of products over the summer.
And around the same time, email offers for me to receive and review these random straight-from-China-to-Amazon products went from maybe once a month to several times a week.
Also, no politics, please.
Jim Premo
I’ve always had good experiences buying tools with Amazon. Mostly buy at HD though.
Frank D
I get equally frustrated about the countless “reviews” where some serial reviewer “received the item for free” … but has no actual use time longer than 1 day to a week, nor real knowledge to compare it with other products, or misses some important aspects and then gives an “objective” 5 star rating.
So, when Amazon asks whether the review is helpful? I will rate honest real owner reviews more easily with helpful, than the other “free” reviews which I hold to a very high standard.
Mike
I find it irritating that most reviews come from people that get the product, then review it immediately. I’m sorry but a 5 start review of a blender you got yesterday is mostly useless. I want to know what its like after 6 months or so. That’s how I do my amazon reviews.
Hilton
It would be great if next to the ‘verified purchase’ was the actual purchase date.
I also think that the review should list the actual supplier (for reference) as many items are sold be a multitude of sellers and some are fake.
fred
Those immediate reviews are only useful if the product failed to perform or was in some other way defective right out of the box.
KL
True, or I like the reviews immediately after installation (usually auto parts in my case) to let you know how the part fit, tips & tricks etc.
Stu, Daniel? did a podcast on this very subject a couple months ago, ie incentivized reviews on Amazon
ajg
As an Amazon seller for 5 years now I see how the reviews have changed from something great to being nearly worthless. For those of you not on the inside of the Amazon seller list let me try to explain where the system breaks down.
This is the short version, with your permission. If you offer to review items you will be sent a list of Amazon sellers for discounted or free items to be reviewed. You will be able to choose who to gift or discount your items too. You will be able to see what reviews those buyers have left for other items. Go ahead, send your items to someone with all 5 star reviews or send it to someone with honest 2 or 3 star reviews, what will you choose?
One can not be compensated for positive reviews, but this is a pay it forward type of situation. So those who give out 5 stars reviews like candy are much more likely to be chosen for reviews by sellers. The compensation comes as a future reward for positive reviews. Does that make sense?
Amazon has been a terrific outlet for my items. But these sort of problems threaten to harm Amazon in the long run if integrity of product has any real value.
Unfortunately in our buy it cheap as possible and deal with the results attitude may mean that what Amazon could have been, will never be.
Which is too bad, Amazon could open the doors for so many.
I have talked to many Amazon workers, they really do mean well.
I believe Bezos does too.
My bet is that like a lot of other internet things, it’s *complicated and changing every day.
Complicated? Lets now discuss Asian currency manipulation and
foreign production and sales of counterfeit items….
ajg
Hang Fire
Amazon removed the ability for average users to report mistakes in listings just a few years ago. The problem is it involved too much manual review, and too many people were reporting mistakes. So of course the mistakes are not the real problem to Amazon, the reporters are. You see, everything in Amazon-land MUST be automated, or they cannot keep up with their own growth. This from several ex-Amazon employees that I have worked with.
Except in a few old listings, to report a problem with an item, you have to be a seller, usually a seller of that item. Sellers (that I know personally) report constant problems, like Amazon selling below their allowed floor price, or new/foreign vendors messing up the listing to cross-sell similar items, and then Amazon not allowing them to fix the listing. So, honest sellers have to pull out of a formerly good listing and create a duplicate, making for very messy search results.
For sellers and buyers both, not all is well in Amazon-land. In every case, they are a victim of their own success, but they are too busy to fix anything.
BonPacific
Sounds like Amazon is at least paying lip-service to fighting counterfeit goods. Though there’s plenty of problems with no-name products and paid reviews still.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/amazons-plan-to-fight-counterfeiters-will-cost-legit-sellers-a-ton.html
I can’t find a link, but I believe I heard something about Amazon changing their seller registration policy/system at the end of last year, which allowed a lot more cheap sellers onto the platform, who brought low-quality goods and shaky sales practices with them.
BonPacific
Here’s an interesting article on the matter. Nothing groundbreaking, but a decent piece anyways.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-problem-is-getting-worse.html
Hilton
Recently I bought three items from different sellers only for the goods not to arrive. They all gave false shipping and tracking numbers and never responded to emails.
Apparently it’s a new trend of Chinese bots polluting the Amazon market place.
Amazon to their credit, sorted out every issue and refunded me accordingly.
Stercorarius
Amazon just announced their filling lawsuits against fake reviewers. Awesome.
Adam
if you search Google for Amazon suing false reviews, they have (un) fortunately been doing this for the last couple years. With apparently little effect
Stercorarius
You are right. Just looked it up. That’s crappy.
Old as dirt
I buy from Amazon and the thing that annoys the hell out of me is anyone can sell on Amazon. You have no idea about the backround of the company you deal with.Amazon had a company that had over 300 complaints about not receiving the merchandise ordered,theft of credit card information and receipt of wrong merchandise .
John A
I have had issue with things being sold under one name , then when there are too many negative reviews, the sell same product (in this case a dog correction collar) under a different name.
Recently, rotors I ordered for my car sat at a Fed ex location in Newark. N.j. for 2 weeks do to the table coming off and the 2 rotors being separated.
Bait and switch, and we are falling for it while local ma & pa shops, that we used to support, where we can actually see and feel the item, are shutting down.
I have found many items at other stores for the same prices of even cheaper, recently my son’s calculator was $20 cheaper at Walmart than Amazon.
I fel bad for millennials.
Toolfreak
Ebay keeps getting flooded with more and more sellers direct from China and U.S. sellers who deal in junk and knockoff items, including tools, but ebay sales overall have been tanking for the past few years, so a great deal of the market for sellers without their own site shifted to Amazon. Since sales on Amazon are pretty review-driven, this is the kind of stuff you get. Shill reviews, fake reviews, people who copied and pasted something or who were going so fast to meet a review quota they don’t even bother to check if what they’re writing has anything to do what the item.
I rarely buy anything off Amazon that isn’t sold or fufilled by Amazon itself, with the possible exception or major-player third party sellers, that either have their own site but just sell for less on Amazon, or where the product is from a particular seller and all the reviews make it clear what they are selling is worth buying from them.
At some point, Amazon is going to need to do something about this, not just the reviews, but the massive amount of crap on the site.
Bill Lutonsky
I’m a Amazon Prime member and have been for at least 5 years. I’m kinda pissed, no one has given me anything for a review of their product and I have given quite a few.
James C
The NYT recently had a piece on Amazon moving away from list prices (no “original” and sale price, just one price). They want you to assume it’s a good deal, and coupled with the convenience of Prime shipping, not think twice about buying it (with “one-click” checkout, of course).
The casual tool user, or holiday gift-giver, may not care so much about brands and instead be more motivated by price (and nudged along by inflated performance claims by unscrupulous brands).
I expect more of what Stuart blogged about here. Amazon’s practices are likely not realized or appreciated by the uninformed buyer, and they are likely the majority. I think Amazon will continue to be laughing all the way to the bank.
Someone here said let your wallet do the talking if you don’t like this situation. Unfortunately, people seem to be more than happy to keep encouraging Amazon’s current direction.
Ken C
Worse than that is that GD search engine. First search is OK but then
sort by price (low to high) and there is no telling what will come up.
I recently did a search for some low priced 8×10 picture frames. The
original gave 23,404 hits, most seemed relevant but the sort by price,
(low to high) and you get all sort of crazy stuff, “Animal Coin Purse”,
Butterfly Room Decor Decal, on an on with completely non-related
junk.
It has gotten so bad that when I want to search for something I go to
eBay and use that search, and when I get a name go back to Amazon.
I have contacted them numerous times and they just play dumb. The
only thing that saves them is “Prime”, if not for that they would get
about 1/2 as much business from me.
Hang Fire
This just in: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/03/amazon-bans-incentivized-reviews-tied-to-free-or-discounted-products/
Thanks to Stuey?
Toolfreak
The Verge has a piece on it as well: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/3/13155578/amazon-incentivized-reviews-ban-vine-program-product-bias
Thanks to the complaints piling up, I’d guess.
Jim Felt
All for the better! Except Amazon does say they’ll leave the conforming to some standard of truth previous incentivized Ratings up for now.
But all in all they are making (Amazon) integrity great again.
Sorry…
Gustavo
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/amazon-bans-writing-reviews-in-exchange-for-free-stuff-215534298.html
About damn time…
Diplomatic Immunity
Yeah just saw it on the news this morning on tv. Also… I’m guessing they must have gotten a lot of complaints.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/04/amazon-bans-reviews-posted-in-exchange-for-free-products/
CoolToolsEnthusiast
This is a great article and some of the comments are very useful.
One thing you didn’t mention is how Amazon lumps together reviews of different models of the same product and the same product from different sources. This is ridiculous since you get reviews complaining about an individual store or an individual model that is different from the ones listed.
I read a while ago, in several articles that I can no longer find, that the statistically ideal Amazon review histogram has a more or less “C” shape distribution. Approximately equal numbers of 5 and 1 star reviews, with a ‘concave’ 3-2 star shape in the middle. A “T” shape is the worst because there is a preponderance of 4 and 5 star reviews and almost no negative ones. I just assume that 4 and 5 star reviews, which are often just one-liners with absolutely no details or negatives, are either by paid shills, or naive, uncritical buyers who fawn over their shiny new purchase without having spent any time with it. I don’t bother reading them. I always read only the ‘most helpful’ critical reviews, with a judicial eye for sorting out the crank, stupid, and troll-like competitors’ reviews from the genuine ones. If there is not a statistically significant sample, say, 50+ reviews, I don’t bother at all. If I’m still interested, I go and seek elsewhere, often eBay, to buy the product at a cheaper price. 😉
BTW, thanks to two posts in this thread, I have discovered ReviewMeta.com – Helping you decide which reviews to trust. It analyzes the validity of the reviews on an Amazon product page and gives an incredibly detailed report. And just a few days ago this site published an article Amazon Bans Incentivized Reviews, for which they don’t take credit, despite a viral video they published before this happened–Data Proves Amazon Reviews with "Free or Discounted Disclaimer" are Extremely Biased – YouTube.
I tried the site on a somewhat random Amazon product and I was disgusted by the results:
Amazon Echo Amazon Review Analysis: ReviewMeta.com.
The review score was a FAIL with only an astonishing 10,065 out of 38,432 Reviews considered valid. And this on Amazon’s OWN product. Disgraceful.