"I received this product at a discounted price in return for my unbiased review."

[gorcorps]

Companies got sued for selling reviews, so they turned around and did just what Amazon was doing through their Vine program - free product for an "honest" review. Now Amazon is left holding their nutbag and the reliability of their reviews have gone to the birds.

I always :thumbsdown: any review with such disclaimers.

Why? Just because somebody found the item via a deal site doesn't mean the review itself is BS. All that should speak to is the item itself... because they had to give a discount to get people to buy their stuff.

 

[Miramonti]

Why? Just because somebody found the item via a deal site doesn't mean the review itself is BS. All that should speak to is the item itself... because they had to give a discount to get people to buy their stuff.

I think you're missing the whole racket part, which doesn't involve 'discounts' at all unless you're including '100% discount'.

 

[thesmokingman]

Why? Just because somebody found the item via a deal site doesn't mean the review itself is BS. All that should speak to is the item itself... because they had to give a discount to get people to buy their stuff.

Your reply doesn't seem to have much to do with the quoted post?

The review is biased, it was essentially paid for by the free product. If you leave a bad review you will no longer receive free product. This is universal. Look at gpu reviews, shill sites tend to be the ones who get their gear for free and go for the pandering. lol, remember when [H] complained that they didn't get a Nano? They were vindictive about it lol and they went totally anti AMD. Granted that's an extreme example...

 

[preCRT]

How does one get on the list to get crap for free?

 

[Naer]

bought diet pills from amazon cause of the 5 star rating. they never worked at all

 

[Miramonti]

How does one get on the list to get crap for free?

Google

This is a random grab, but there are quite a few sites with similar offers/business models.

 

[Pantoot]

How does one get on the list to get crap for free?

If crap is what you are after, here are a few:

http://www.uberzonclub.com/
https://amzrc.com/buyer-registration/
http://allstarreviewers.com/

They probably will hound you pretty hard to leave a review after you "buy".

 

[gorcorps]

I think you're missing the whole racket part, which doesn't involve 'discounts' at all unless you're including '100% discount'.

Yeah, it does involve discounts. I've used sites like this and plenty of stuff is just discounted. Only really cheap stuff is free.

 

[Miramonti]

Yeah, it does involve discounts. I've used sites like this and plenty of stuff is just discounted. Only really cheap stuff is free.

Fair enough, a scam that comes in different flavors.

 

[gorcorps]

Your reply doesn't seem to have much to do with the quoted post?

The review is biased, it was essentially paid for by the free product. If you leave a bad review you will no longer receive free product. This is universal. Look at gpu reviews, shill sites tend to be the ones who get their gear for free and go for the pandering. lol, remember when [H] complained that they didn't get a Nano? They were vindictive about it lol and they went totally anti AMD. Granted that's an extreme example...

I was responding to the last sentence, the "I thumbs down every one of these reviews".

It's possible that people would be biased, but you certainly don't get kicked off the site for leaving bad reviews which is why my argument was that the review itself doesn't have to be called into question. They get so many reviews on their product they're not sifting through each and every one.

 

[Miramonti]

...It's possible that people would be biased

You think?

 

[gorcorps]

Fair enough, a scam that comes in different flavors.

*shrugs*

I got the same phone case I was planning on buying anyway for half price, and left a less than stellar review after using it a while. There are no repercussions from it, thus no incentive to give positive reviews for the hell of it.

Some of these small companies just need a way to generate sales in certain markets that are so saturated it's hard to get a foothold. It's no different than any other product going on sale to increase business, except they'd like you to leave a review too. I'm not saying that there aren't shady sites that let companies pay for fake reviews, but there's plenty of places that merely give discounts to give you a reason to pick their product over a more popular product to generate some interest. I don't see anything wrong with that, it just seems shady doing it digitally vs. seeing it on sale in a B&M store.

I found a Pyrex dish set on sale at Walmart so I bought it vs. the competition based on that price. If I do the same thing through one of these other discount shops people get shitty. I don't get it

 

[Thump553]

I got a (clearly) counterfeit toner cartridge from an Amazon marketplace seller last month and left a review saying as much. Amazon refused to publish it, citing their standards. Near as i could tell their standards say you have to review the product, not the seller. So I then posted a review of the seller saying they sold counterfeit goods. That seller review vanished in a day or so, with no cause given.

Amazon was also absolutely no help whatsoever in getting my money back from the seller (which I eventually did). I don't know if Amazon is changing or what, but my confidence in what used to be superlative customer service has gone way down.

OTOH I occasionally get discounted goods or free ones (freebies usually ebooks) and mention that and leave honest reviews. Look to the value of the goods involved-if it is a hundred dollar item given for free I'd discount that review, not so for a $5 ebook.

 

[Miramonti]

They get so many reviews on their product they're not sifting through each and every one.

For example, according to the random site I linked, product sellers choose reviewers. Bad reviews will affect product sellers from choosing those reviewers...thus "iced out."

You're really not redefining the scam here, only decorating it.

 

[gorcorps]

For example, according to the random site I linked, product sellers choose reviewers. Bad reviews will affect product sellers from choosing those reviewers...thus "iced out."

You're really not redefining the scam here, only decorating it.

All I can tell you is my experience. Yes, it's a single person's experience, but it's direct experience compared to just assumptions. I've bought ~10 goods on discount (mostly kitchen stuff like knives, all under $50 retail). Only 1 of those items got a 5 star review, and a couple weren't even worth the discounted price... and I said that in the review. I haven't seen any negative effects from those poor reviews. From what I can see the only thing the businesses can see are a users number of reviews in the past 1-3 months, and the average word count of those reviews. So businesses are encouraged to select people that will reliably leave reviews, and will also leave detailed reviews. I don't see any way they can filter by negative reviews or anything like that.

 

[Pantoot]

I don't see any way they can filter by negative reviews or anything like that.

Many of the more focused sites will require your amazon profile at signup to vet you as a reviewer. From there they can, and certainly will watch the reviews you leave and boot you if you don't perform as expected.

 

[Ferzerp]

I got a (clearly) counterfeit toner cartridge from an Amazon marketplace seller last month and left a review saying as much. Amazon refused to publish it, citing their standards. Near as i could tell their standards say you have to review the product, not the seller. So I then posted a review of the seller saying they sold counterfeit goods. That seller review vanished in a day or so, with no cause given.

Yes, because the reviews are for the product. If you buy, say, a pack of duracell batteries from a third party and review them as 1 star because you got counterfeit batteries, that review is going to be sitting there for that product regardless of seller (it would be there for amazon's listing too). It doesn't make any sense for them to allow that.

A lot of complaint reviews for third party listings that are marked up for low supply items end up getting through and mucking up some products though. If I'm buying a new monitor, I really don't need to see a bunch of 1 star reviews because once it was in low supply, and some vendor was selling it for a 50% markup and people's decided the proper place to whine about it was the reviews of the item itself.

 

[Miramonti]

All I can tell you is my experience. Yes, it's a single person's experience, but it's direct experience compared to just assumptions. I've bought ~10 goods on discount (mostly kitchen stuff like knives, all under $50 retail). Only 1 of those items got a 5 star review, and a couple weren't even worth the discounted price... and I said that in the review. I haven't seen any negative effects from those poor reviews. From what I can see the only thing the businesses can see are a users number of reviews in the past 1-3 months, and the average word count of those reviews. So businesses are encouraged to select people that will reliably leave reviews, and will also leave detailed reviews. I don't see any way they can filter by negative reviews or anything like that.

Fair enough.

Here's a Consumerist.com article on the problem, and some spot research they did on some products. While your experience is real, so is the inundation of the overall scam:

We looked at the list of reviews since Jan. 1 for each of these users and found that they averaged more than 400 reviews each in just those few weeks. The fewest was around 100 reviews since Jan. 1, while one user managed to somehow crank out approximately 950 reviews in a single month.

 

[gorcorps]

Fair enough.

Here's a Consumerist.com article on the problem, and some spot research they did on some products. While your experience is real, so is the inundation of the overall scam:

Gotcha, that's definitely some shady stuff going on. The one site I've used is pretty clear that you're supposed to use the product before reviewing, and I believe they even limit you to a certain amount of items per month. Obviously it's still a system that can be abused which isn't good, but after using it myself I feel more confident that there are legitimate reasons for things like this to exist.

But you give some people an inch and they'll take a mile, as the saying goes. Can't trust people anymore :\

 

[FeuerFrei]

I got a (clearly) counterfeit toner cartridge from an Amazon marketplace seller last month and left a review saying as much. Amazon refused to publish it, citing their standards. Near as i could tell their standards say you have to review the product, not the seller. So I then posted a review of the seller saying they sold counterfeit goods. That seller review vanished in a day or so, with no cause given.

...

That is a serious problem with Amazon. Sellers need their feet held to the fire if they are sending out counterfeits, pale imitations, or ... say, watered-down cologne. However describing product in a seller review is grounds for suppression. I've had seller feedback suppressed before. Strange how they suppress the bad ratings that discuss product, but allow stellar ratings that discuss the product. Just browse seller feedback and you'll see a high percentage rating a product instead of the seller, feedback that needs to be deleted but isn't because, hey, it's 4 or 5 stars.

I say revealing your Seller is a vital component of any product review. It's crucial info for any buyer deciding which seller to order from. In fact, I emailed Amazon this suggestion, recommending they auto tag every review with the seller name, or at LEAST prompt reviewers to include the seller when composing reviews.

It would be awesome if you could group all product reviews by seller, no? :awe:

 

[smitbret]

I usually skip right to the 1 and 2 star reviews.

This. Then if most of the poor reviews are DOA or the customer just didn't have proper expectations then I feel pretty confident I can buy.

 

[Thump553]

I usually skip right to the 1 and 2 star reviews.

Similarly, I read the first review (voted most helpful), maybe the first couple, then search for the most negative ones. Amazon now also lists the most helpful negative review. I skip over the DOA, slow shipping, etc. ones but very often I have found something out in the negative reviews that makes my decision for me.

 

[PokerGuy]

I don't know when it started, it might be something that's been going on for a long time and I simply wasn't aware of it.

Every time I start looking at product reviews on amazon these days, I find scores of reviews that end with "I got this product for free in return for my honest review" or some other BS. For me that automatically makes the review worthless, and it heavily skews the overall review (star) rating towards the higher end for the product.

Amazon would be much better off not allowing such reviews, it would make their reviews a good source of information again IMO.

Am I the only one seeing a lot more of this recently?

Merged threads - Anandtech Moderator DAPUNISHER

 

[gorcorps]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2468593&highlight=amazon+reviews

We just had this discussion

Come on man, get your shit together =P

 

[purbeast0]

yeah i see it a lot more now than i used to, and i too discard those reviews. the problem is it always seems like the order that amazon defaults to has those ones at the top. and it seems like the majority of those reviews make up the total reviews. i've also yet to see one negative review that says "i was given this product free of charge for my honest review". they are always positive reviews.