One-Star Amazon Reviews Are Worth Fighting For

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I think we can all agree that fake 5-star reviews suck ass.

Amazon’s ongoing crackdown of fake reviews on its site is a big deal for a couple of reasons. The tech giant is suing more than 1,100 John Does—online reviewers whose identities aren’t necessarily known—for promising to publish 5-star reviews for products in exchange for payment.
 
Just a big ass publicity stunt. That many fake reviews can be on one single product. The problem with paid reviews is so rampant that it is hard to find a REAL review.
 
Amazon sellers also compensate for reviews.

I purchased a set of soapstone cubes and, packed nicely in the box was a note that let me know that I would receive additional cubes if I left a review, and even more if the review was positive. Aaaah, the power of free shit.
 
I assume that the Amazon Vine program where free items are given in exchange for a "fair and balanced" (© 2007 Fox News Corp) is not included in this?
 
I come across loads of highly suspect reviews, some have been reported.
I avoid products that have a high amount of clearly bullshit reviews.
Ebay mkII backfire lol.
 
Amazon sellers also compensate for reviews.

I purchased a set of soapstone cubes and, packed nicely in the box was a note that let me know that I would receive additional cubes if I left a review, and even more if the review was positive. Aaaah, the power of free shit.

Well to be fair, if the soapstones sucked, you would leave a crappy review as you wouldn't want anymore. If they were awesome and you left a positive review, Win Win.
 
I assume that the Amazon Vine program where free items are given in exchange for a "fair and balanced" (© 2007 Fox News Corp) is not included in this?

Well, those are labeled as such and therefore can be easily ignored.
 
I had a dash cam practically melt hanging from my windshield, so I gave it a one star review. They kept emailing me, offering a replacement, but I never responded. (Why would I want another one when it would just do the same thing?) Finally, they sent me an email offering a gift card for the amount I spent on the camera for Amazon is exchange for taking down my 1 star review, but if I didn't take it, they would go to Amazon and claim that my review was a fraud. I capitulated, and after they sent me the gift card, for 40% of what I spent on the dashcam, I put up a 2 star review detailing the whole thing and how they didn't follow through on the gift card. They haven't emailed me since.
 
Well to be fair, if the soapstones sucked, you would leave a crappy review as you wouldn't want anymore. If they were awesome and you left a positive review, Win Win.


People go weird from the word FREE.

Our department had donuts for free on fridays as a volunteer effort, The lineups got 3-4 times the number of people in our dept. They started charging 25 cents and the lines went down to about 1/3. I'm pretty sure 5 cents would have done the same job. Everyone is at least almost 2x minimum wage, most are far better than that.

Basically if a 25 cent donut that is not good enough at that price suddenly becomes good enough at 0 cents.

People will get free stuff to just throw it out.
 
Well to be fair, if the soapstones sucked, you would leave a crappy review as you wouldn't want anymore. If they were awesome and you left a positive review, Win Win.
I wish the average Joe was even half that smart. Hell, my mother-in-law goes apeshit crazy when she sees the words "free" or "buy-one get-one." Don't even try the "you'll never use it" argument with her- She is convinced that everything is better off collecting dust in her garage or attracting roaches to her pantry.

She has six 40,000 BTU propane patio heaters, still sealed in the box, sitting in the garage with 4-5 years of dust on them. And her patio that could be heated by just two of those? It's completely covered in boxes of free trinkets and free furniture that "someone might need!" :p
 
I've seen products labelled as one thing with some extra photos inserted of another product.
The reviews are mostly for the other product which gets high quality reviews and the actual advertised product is utter crap, the "few" reviews for that are nearly all complaints.
It looks like the original advert was for the other product and they have pulled a switch and bait to sell crap to the unsuspecting with an updated advert label.

Always always read a large selection of reviews carefully and never buy a product that has reviews for another product!
 
I am of firm belief that any review posted by someone who has not purchased subject product should be hidden from view or, preferably, deleted immediately.

"Have you purchased the product you are leaving a review for? No? GTFO."
 
I ahve had on multiple occasions sellers try to buy positive reviews after I left a negative. In one case (for a LCD wall mount) they went so far as to replace the mount with a better model that didnt bend (my TV was less then 1/3rd of the rating for the original) and refund me 100%. I said all along that the review for the product would stand so I let them & the review is still in tact along with edits to show the company trying to buy the positive.
 
I ahve had on multiple occasions sellers try to buy positive reviews after I left a negative. In one case (for a LCD wall mount) they went so far as to replace the mount with a better model that didnt bend (my TV was less then 1/3rd of the rating for the original) and refund me 100%. I said all along that the review for the product would stand so I let them & the review is still in tact along with edits to show the company trying to buy the positive.

Since I cant edit the post... here is the review I mentioned above.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r.../ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000WL0I1I
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I am of firm belief that any review posted by someone who has not purchased subject product should be hidden from view or, preferably, deleted immediately.

"Have you purchased the product you are leaving a review for? No? GTFO."

What throws a wrench in this idea is legitimate reviews from people who bought it elsewhere. You might ask "well why leave the review at Amazon", but the reason is obvious. There's a much larger crowd on Amazon. Your review (especially if well written) will have much more exposure than it would almost anywhere else. I wrote various bad reviews for a Viewsonic monitor and the RoG Swift due to its panel lottery and I've gotten hundreds of votes and probably a hell of a lot more views than that.

If anything there should be a way to register yourself as a verified purchaser even if you didn't buy it from Amazon, for the purposes of leaving a review. Amazon maybe needs to realize they have such a big industry at this point that well written reviews there are actually highly desired. Judging by the move in this article, it sounds like they've realized that by now.

Also, it wouldn't do any good for you if people were verified purchasers, but they were bought off anyway as noted in Demon10000's post.
 
I don't mind reviews from people who want a product and get it free or for a discount, but when it's under the idea, we give this to you for a good review, I call BS.

I say that because I have done some car part reviews, and I was contacted by the mfg to do the review for a discount/free, as I am really into this given car/part, however if they do not state, I always ask about exceptions. The last one I asked this of said they wanted a fair review, and if that was that the product was not what was expected or its out right shit, then it should be in the review, good or bad, but that they would like a heads up before posting it to see if the issue could be fixed with the product and if not, it would be removed from their store.

Others have said that they more or less expect a premade review with my name stamped on it, to which I told them to piss off and warned people about them/the product.
 
We also have to remember the reviews are actually two-part. One for the product and another for packaging. Many times people will omit the packaging quality from the review. I've received items from Amazon, and elsewhere, which were poorly packaged yet the product functioned properly.

As far as a vendor or manufacturer requesting I leave a positive review for free stuff, forget that. There is not one free thing in this world I would trade for integrity.

Well, OK, if someone gave me $1,000,000 to jump around in a Reeses Peanut Butter, jello-filled, shallow swimming pool with a hog or two for an hour, I might do that. :p
 
is this the same as all the recent 5 star reviews for products that were given to the reviewers for free or at a discount? those reviews annoy me to no end.
 
I get all sorts of free and discounted stuff from Ubervita thanks to them offering stuff in exchange for reviews. I only agree to it because I honestly think that the items I've used deserve the 5 stars. I wouldn't do it for crap products just to get it for free though.
 
The real problem is Amazon sabotaging their own review system (purposely): Amazon Vine, grouping "similar" reviews, and allowing unverified reviews.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Since I cant edit the post... here is the review I mentioned above.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-r.../ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000WL0I1I

To be fair, I have 5 of those tv mounts and all 5 are perfect. 1 is even holding about 5lbs above its recommended weight right now.

Engineering problems happen, how a company handles those problems are what I judge them by. I don't like the fact that they asked to remove the review, if they asked to add a star or two for customer service that might be understandable but still uncouth.

But this is what the review system does, it shows the good and the bad and everything in between. Fake reviews are pretty easy to spot, but it is hard to fake trends and when you compare multiple websites, which you should do if your serious about a purchase, those trends become much easier to spot and identify.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Pepboys is begging for positive Yelp reviews as of last week in-store when I used the tire shop. It's everywhere.
 
I once gave a seller a 3 star review, and they were literally begging me to change it. It was annoying as hell. I should've changed it to 1 star for that alone.
 
I once gave a seller a 3 star review, and they were literally begging me to change it. It was annoying as hell. I should've changed it to 1 star for that alone.

I have seen this as well, and the reverse as well. not long ago I bought a external enclosure for an SSD, which ended up getting sub USB 2 speeds, wrote a bad review for the product, come to find out it was a bad USB cable that came with the case, used one of my own and it worked just fine with 230ish MB/s, however within 12 hours of posting the review, the mfg had contacted me through Amazon asking me to confirm my shipping address, I did and in 2 hours received a tracking number for a new case that they were over nighting to me. It was delivered the next day and it worked just fine (including the USB cable), some of the best customer service I have ever had and from a brand I had never really heard of and they never asked me to change my review, though I did on my own.

I have had other cases, where the item sold shows extra items AND lists them in what is included, but the box shows up with only the main item, missing about $30 worth of the extra items, which is what made me pick that one in the first place because it was the better "deal", and you could tell none of the other reviews pointed this out, and everything was almost all 5 star, needless to say it got a 1-star review from me. I was then contacted about the review to change it because it was only meant to be the main item, when I pointed out not only did the items show in the product picture, but were also listed in the description of what was included, I got nothing from them other than asking to change the rating, I reported it to Amazon also because a week later and the listing was never changed, they were listing it that way on purpose to get more buyers, nothing more than bait and switch.
 
bastage.. that is hilarious, I commented on that exact item even!

Holy crap... Thats pretty damn funny. Glad I could help out..

To be fair, I have 5 of those tv mounts and all 5 are perfect. 1 is even holding about 5lbs above its recommended weight right now.

Engineering problems happen, how a company handles those problems are what I judge them by. I don't like the fact that they asked to remove the review, if they asked to add a star or two for customer service that might be understandable but still uncouth.

But this is what the review system does, it shows the good and the bad and everything in between. Fake reviews are pretty easy to spot, but it is hard to fake trends and when you compare multiple websites, which you should do if your serious about a purchase, those trends become much easier to spot and identify.

Did you have the old or new design. From what I could tell the issue is with the new design. There is absolutely no way I would hang 50 lbs off of it, much less then 150 its rated for. On the replacement they sent me I got the old design & i have to admit its stout as fuck. I have absolutely no problem with its construction. Only issue with it is that its very hard to move. I end up just not moving it even though I would like to (with the orientation & the longer arm on the original I could swing the set out & it would face my kitchen directly. Now it takes a whole lot more work & I can only get it to about a 60 degree angle to my kitchen).
 
Holy crap... Thats pretty damn funny. Glad I could help out..



Did you have the old or new design. From what I could tell the issue is with the new design. There is absolutely no way I would hang 50 lbs off of it, much less then 150 its rated for. On the replacement they sent me I got the old design & i have to admit its stout as fuck. I have absolutely no problem with its construction. Only issue with it is that its very hard to move. I end up just not moving it even though I would like to (with the orientation & the longer arm on the original I could swing the set out & it would face my kitchen directly. Now it takes a whole lot more work & I can only get it to about a 60 degree angle to my kitchen).

Guess it is the old design, mine are stiff but put some bike grease I had on the arm and it moves pretty good. Shame that the newer designs aren't as good. But it was good of them to send a better model for you.
 
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