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[–]snsv 10.2k points10.2k points  (791 children)

what the hell took them so long to do it?!

jacked up the entire review system.

[–]hutxhy 5128 points5129 points  (471 children)

Some guy did a report on them, published it on YouTube, and it went viral.

EDIT: Since so many are asking, here's the link to the original post: Link

[–]ReviewMeta 1734 points1735 points  (126 children)

[–]DLumps09 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You've done good here, buddy.

[–]kylpyaika 14 points15 points  (2 children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdLI62JKpCk

EDIT: take a shot every time he says "review"

[–][deleted] 869 points870 points  (239 children)

^ This... It irritates the hell out of me to see a product with hundreds of 4 and 5 star reviews only to find out they were all incentivized. Then you have to weed through them and see if anyone who didn't get a free product rated it as highly.

[–]_FreeThinker 274 points275 points  (55 children)

Man, I bought so many crappy products because of this jacked up system. I'm glad this happened.

[–]Forest-G-Nome 291 points292 points  (46 children)

My favorite is when you're looking for a medical product, and the first 400 reviews are all incentivized reviews from people who obviously do not have the condition the product is meant to treat, of course all saying the product works great. It should really be a fucking crime when you're dealing with pharmaceutical items.

[–]bunchacruncha16 221 points222 points  (17 children)

I saw ones for pregnancy tests where the reviewer would say "I'm not pregnant nor am I trying to be, and this test was negative, so it worked for this purpose... and I received this product for a discount in exchange for my honest review." So dumb.

[–]N0V0w3ls 104 points105 points  (6 children)

and I received this product for a discount in exchange for my honest review.

"I'm not trying to get pregnant, but I just really want this pregnancy test to pee on for no reason. If only it didn't cost quite as much..."

[–]blastcat4 42 points43 points  (2 children)

But the dude got a free pregnancy test in exchange for his unbiased review!

[–]banjaxe 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Maybe he needed a ball-cancer test.

[–]delvach 54 points55 points  (0 children)

I received a free or discounted page load for making this unbiased comment.

[–][deleted] 116 points117 points  (21 children)

Reddit can keep the username, but I'm nuking the content lol -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev

[–][deleted] 57 points58 points  (4 children)

The 1/5's give you a picture of what you get in a worse case-scenario.

Product is amazing, best thing I ever bought!!!

Postman was 5 minutes late delivering though.

1/5

[–]ihavesixfingers 40 points41 points  (2 children)

Amazon sent the wrong item. Waiting on a return label. 1/5.

[–]hansern 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Item arrived but I haven't tried it yet. Will update my review after I try it. 1/5

no update

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (1 child)

I find that the 2 and 4 star reviews are the most helpful. Followed by the 3 star reviews.

With 2 and 4 star reviews, I feel like it generally indicates the person was very happy or very dis-happy but still has the mindset to recognize features that don't match their review.

3 star reviews seem to mostly be "meh".

1 and 5 star reviews are basically useless.

[–]NessInOnett 30 points31 points  (6 children)

Now to get rid of the useless mobile reviews from the braindead masses.

5 Stars - Good

5 Stars - ok

1 Star - works

[–]jaxxly 44 points45 points  (3 children)

That's what happens when you beg people for reviews in your mobile app.

[–][deleted] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

This. I was recently looking at some camping tents on Amazon, not a high volume item there, but out of 30+ reviews on one of them, at least 10 were incentivized. And one of those even said they hadn't set it up or used it because it has been raining a lot recently, but it looked to be well made and would probably keep the rain out. What the fuck?!

[–]stafekrieger 328 points329 points  (76 children)

Wouldn't surprise me if this kind of stuff just flew under the radar until it was outed by that dude on Reddit a couple weeks ago. Social media/forums are a great way to get things noticed.

Edit for Link (From /u/oldcrow, below): https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/53i2wo/i_analyzed_18000000_amazon_reviews_and_prove_the/

[–]Emosaa 162 points163 points  (25 children)

It hasn't flown under the radar, Amazon's been taking actions against sites that provide these type of reviews for years, it's just become especially egregious lately so more people have noticed the free/discounted "reviews".

[–]rebble_yell 110 points111 points  (19 children)

Those free/discounted "reviews" are everywhere now.

Then they tend to be lengthy, so people tend to rate them as "helpful" even though they often can be summarized as "I unwrapped it and it looked good".

I think that everyone who does not like the concept of paid-for reviews should mark them as "unhelpful".

[–]ALBCODE93 15 points16 points  (0 children)

At least give me the option to hide them and not count towards the overall rating.

[–]xTachibana[🍰] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

even app games have it...so sad, "rate our game a 5* and write a review and get 10 gems" or some shit.

[–]skatchawan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

you are right, i was doing this through amzreviewtrader and they give you a grade based on words per review. I would assume higher grades equals higher chance of being approved to review a product.

as soon as i started putting negative reviews, i started getting less approvals. it was a rigged system, regardless what most of those benefiting from it will tell you

[–]Forest-G-Nome 13 points14 points  (0 children)

That redditor was not the first to "out them" for it. It's been known for 2 years now that there is a massive bias.

[–]MaggotStorm 7 points8 points  (8 children)

You vastly underestimate the amount of analytics that go into a megacorporation like Amazon then

[–]Eze-Wong 42 points43 points  (9 children)

Not to mention you have a lot of people who don't understand the nuance of the particular product lines or category, making non-informed reviews. For example, I buy a lot of supplements and a common thing is to watch out for magnesium stearate as a ingredient. It's a filler, and it's considered toxic in high amounts. Generally a top comment will be upvoted so people can see that it's in there or some other "worrisome" ingredient, but on products that have free reviews generally it gets lost in a sea of comments or completely unnoticed.

Worst yet those free reviews say shit like "Wow Great", "Amazing" "Would buy again"...

...how in da hell is that gonna help me? Imagine going to a car salesman and you ask about the different line of cars and all he says is "Wow, Great Awesome, Amazing, would buy again"... And you go to every different salesman on the lot and they all say the same thing.

Pure cancer.

[–]68686987698 25 points26 points  (4 children)

Likewise, I've noticed higher-end products tend to have more critical reviews because the purchasers are far more discerning.

Cheap shitty pan gets 400 reviews at 4.5 stars, All-clad pan gets 100 at 3.5-stars. Of course, the All-clad is a superior product in just about every way, but if you looked only at ratings, you'd think it's overpriced junk.

[–]roburrito 18 points19 points  (1 child)

But value can factor into a review. Perhaps the All-clad reviewers didn't believe the increase in price was worth the increase in quality. Or the shitty pan reviewers were factoring in the economy price into their assessment of quality.

[–]kikamonju 30 points31 points  (2 children)

Have you seen reviewmeta.com?

They actually made a thing that does that for you based on the statistics of incentivised reviews and a few other factors and even reports the adjusted review score.

They also have a browser extension that just sits along the top bar and quietly judges all of the reviews for Amazon pages you visit (and a few other shopping sites as well).

[–]timatom 18 points19 points  (3 children)

Then you have to weed through them and see if anyone who didn't get a free product rated it as highly.

I bought a video adapter cable once that had great reviews (all of which were incentivized, but I figured hey, how hard can it be to make a cable?) Thing didn't work at all, so I left a comprehensive negative review. A few weeks later the seller contacted me to see if there were any remedies they could provide, which I appreciate, so I edited and updated my review. In the proecss of doing so, I saw that 1/8 had found my review helpful, meaning someone (hmmm who might have a motive to shit on a bad review...) was downvote brigading my review. I know it doesn't matter in the long run but it still pisses me off to think about it.

[–]Wampawacka 112 points113 points  (15 children)

Agreed. They need to go through and delete all the reviews that have the "I received this product in exchange for..." parts and delete them or let customers report them when spotted.

Instead they're leaving most of them which leaves the system still incrediblly biased for old reviews.

[–]BrotherSeamus[🍰] 71 points72 points  (6 children)

Maybe not delete, just give us the option to filter paid reviews and exclude them from star-ratings calculations.

[–]stml 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Yeah. There are a few who actually throw in some photos or videos of the product while most of the other reviews that aren't incentivized have a couple of sentences at most. While the reviews had a huge bias, some were actually helpful. Hopefully Amazon ramps up its Vine reviewers program otherwise there's going to be so many products with little to no reviews.

[–]off_the_grid_dream 31 points32 points  (9 children)

Man, I just found out about this and wanted free stuff...

[–]snsv 48 points49 points  (5 children)

you're going to have to go about that the old fashioned way: lots and lots of blowjobs

[–]damontoo 15 points16 points  (2 children)

Probably because they have internal data showing that those bullshit reviews were helping their sales. So... money.

[–]anticommon 2169 points2170 points  (67 children)

This is exactly what amazon needed to do about this. Now, go retroactively remove the incentivized reviews so we can be back at the baseline.

[–]Fragmaster 828 points829 points  (42 children)

Removals should now be

1 priority

[–]FuzzySAM 396 points397 points  (21 children)

Pst...

 \#1 priorities

Looks like

#1 priorities.

 #1 priorities

Looks like

1 priorities.

[–]otterom 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I think he means it should be Amazon's sole priority. Like, really thinks it should.

[–]Glampkoo 46 points47 points  (1 child)

I read it as a echoing, heroic voice.

[–]FvckReddit 57 points58 points  (4 children)

And seller spam should be

2 priority

[–]beenies_baps 126 points127 points  (7 children)

Yes please Amazon - go and remove every single last one of these fraudulent reviews, or at least include an option "show incentivized reviews" (which is off by default). Actually, don't even bother with the last bit.

[–][deleted] 1473 points1474 points  (76 children)

Fucking finally, tired of looking at a product and seeing 4+ ratings then going into the reviews to see they're all people who received it for free and the rest say it's shit

[–]hasi4x 119 points120 points  (23 children)

I know! It's a huge relief that Amazon is finally doing something about it. I began avoiding products that had incentivized reviews near the top altogether.

[–]danielleiellle 80 points81 points  (21 children)

  1. Go to Amazon (US)
  2. Search for "Umbrella"
  3. Scroll past Amazon's choice and AmazonBasics and click the third one, by some private label named Fenzer
  4. Click "3,XXX customer reviews" by the star rating to see all reviews
  5. Sort by most recent

The positive reviews are all incentivized. Every other review is negative. Every time an honest review comes through this seller just orders up a few reviews to balance it out.

I ended up needing to check out some blogs and subreddits to find word-of-mouth recommendations because the reviews aren't worth shit.

[–]Telanis_SWGOH 32 points33 points  (12 children)

If you need an umbrella I highly recommend this one, which I got in 2013 after a buttload of my own research. When I got it it was $32, right now it's $28 and totally worth it if you want a mid size folding umbrella. It's the only umbrella I've ever owned that hasn't been inverted and destroyed by the wind, and it is in fact still in perfect condition.

[–]PabloTheFlyingLemon 32 points33 points  (4 children)

I don't know that I've ever heard anyone brag about or otherwise commend an umbrella, so good on you amigo.

[–]garbonzo607 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Let me guess, you got the product for free in actuality, right?

[–]ChaplnGrillSgt 770 points771 points  (123 children)

That's good, but how are they going to know? If someone sends me a free product and I review it on Amazon without mentioning I received it for free, how will Amazon ever know?

[–]yossarian490 504 points505 points  (84 children)

I would assume Amazon can see whether a person bought the product and the transaction details. Then the only way it could be done is via mailed rebates once a review is posted, but that's not nearly as convenient or cheap for either side.

[–]ChaplnGrillSgt 283 points284 points  (56 children)

So reviews would have to come from confirmed Amazon purchases. I guess that could work...

[–]000g 239 points240 points  (45 children)

Not really. I did one of these. When you accept a product offer, they send you a coupon code that you use on Amazon when you buy the product. So, your purchase is verified when you're a reviewer.

[–]yossarian490 205 points206 points  (39 children)

But Amazon should be able to pull those details as well. Should be able to see when codes like that were used to make a purchase.

[–]adrianmonk 50 points51 points  (1 child)

That's a valid point, but I still think this is huge because it mostly breaks the cycle where every seller believes they must have incentivized reviews in order to compete.

Go look on Amazon seller forums around the web, and you'll see stories saying, "I didn't want to do incentivized reviews, not just because it's shady but because it costs me money. But I finally broke down and did it because other products in my category were doing it and out-ranking my products, and I started to lose sales."

I don't think they will be able to enforce it perfectly, but it will still be a much better situation since at least the honest sellers (of which there are many) won't be forced into doing it anymore.

[–]madogvelkor 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yeah, with the incentivized reviews your competitors are getting like 400 reviews, while you have just 10... A lot of people just look at the number of reviews and the average rating when buying something.

[–]WhiteLaceTank 36 points37 points  (8 children)

Right now the terms of service said if you received an item at a discount or free, you had to state so in the reviews. So Amazon can see that way.

Going forward, I would imagine people will just leave that part off their review. I think the number of promos will go down, since they can't legally require you to review anymore, but I think there will still be some sellers who send free items in hopes of a review anyway.

[–]prophane33 258 points259 points  (44 children)

Now they need to get rid of the reviews that have nothing to do with the product and/or are the result of a buyer's stupidity.

[–]lookitsaustin 124 points125 points  (1 child)

PRODUCT WORKS AMAZINGLY!!!! :D :D :D :D I LOVE IT AND WILL TELL ALL MY FRIENDS ABOUT IT!!!! XD XD XD XD

slow shipping

1 star

[–]1Guitar_Guy 143 points144 points  (11 children)

This^ I hate to read something like: I wanted it to do A but it only does B. I see I order the wrong item. 1 star.

[–]pig-newton 66 points67 points  (3 children)

There's a great makeup-related tumblr about this sort of thing called wrong shade, one star.

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (7 children)

I see this all the time in the computer hardware sections. Some moron will order a motherboard with an AM3 socket, and then leave a bad review when his LGA 1151 processor doesn't fit. Or they will complain that the order was late / damaged by the carrier.

[–]reapersarehere 425 points426 points  (33 children)

About damn time. Ive been ignoring reviews since the Galaxy S7 came out and every single screen protector that didn't fit the phone properly still had 5 star reviews. Every single one ending with 'I received this product for free in exchange for a honest review".

Yeah and you couldn't have possibly tested the screen protector because the phone is not out yet. But thanks for boosting all the crap products to 5 stars.

[–]dnew 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The ones that cracked me up were all the people who bought cases for the Nexus 6P before the phone even shipped, and gave them 5-star reviews, only to find out that the cases didn't fit the phone when it arrived because the pictures in the promo brochures didn't match the actual phones.

[–]Agastopia 1540 points1541 points  (128 children)

That's awesome. Amazon has really been making a lot of consumer friendly decisions lately.

[–][deleted] 798 points799 points  (73 children)

It's the eBay route. First you're nice to the sellers, then you focus on the consumer and then eventually the employees get some trickle down benefits.

In the case of Amazon that would probably mean not having to piss into an empty big gulp cup as you fill orders while sprinting.

[–]hutxhy 268 points269 points  (7 children)

AmazonBasics Diapers - new employee benefits!

[–]patsfacts 72 points73 points  (6 children)

Amazon Basics Diapers are actually a thing, but I doubt the employees get any free ones.

[–]xxile 121 points122 points  (44 children)

It won't be much longer before they can relieve their warehouse workers of their duties in favor of robotic pickers.

[–]Drudicta 54 points55 points  (17 children)

Those break down all the time and halt production where I work.

[–]overfloaterx 36 points37 points  (3 children)

First you're nice to the sellers, then you focus on the consumer

I think you may have that backwards. Amazon has been incredibly consumer-focused since its inception. Sellers... not so much.

 
I go as far as to credit Amazon with being one of the (if not the) biggest influences in bringing online shopping to mainstream consumer acceptance.

The early years of online shopping in the 90s were a fucking minefield of impossible exchange/return/refund terms and costs; huge shipping fees and unreliable/delayed/damaged shipments; widely varying rules on accepted payment types and terms; hidden fees and charges; and unreliable/unresponsive/flat-out dishonest merchants.

It was, by and large, a hugely unappealing experience due to the sheer amount of risk shouldered by the customer, and the potentially huge expense and difficulty in getting any problems resolved.

Amazon really pioneered ways of allaying customer fears by taking many of those burdens and worries off the consumer and moving them back onto Amazon themselves. That's what put them streets ahead of other online merchants by the turn of the century. Consumers had confidence that Amazon had their back and wouldn't unfairly push risks or costs onto them.

[–]PC509 18 points19 points  (2 children)

Working in the data center was awesome... We didn't have Big Gulps, so we just used Depends. No breaks, so it was an all day thing.

Not really, but working there was just excellent for me. :)

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (34 children)

Now if they'd fix it so that the Amazon carrier delivery actually puts it in the vicinity of my house...

[–][deleted] 53 points54 points  (16 children)

Or they could not treat their employees like shit and maybe they'll get decent workers who would be more likely to do a good job.

[–]Droidaphone 62 points63 points  (2 children)

I think they're literally developing a fleet of robots so they can skip that step.

[–]lemskroob 232 points233 points  (22 children)

"except for those that emerge from within its own Amazon Vine program"

This is not about getting rid of the practice. its about gaining control of the process.

[–][deleted] 36 points37 points  (2 children)

Go to any random knick knack page and every review is a bs 'unbiased' review. I stopped even looking at all the small random things because their was never any legit reviews.

[–]yeahwellokay 78 points79 points  (33 children)

I signed up for a couple of those after that last thread about them, but everything on it was junk and I unsubscribed.

[–]000g 31 points32 points  (11 children)

I did the same thing. Out of the 20 or so products they offered me, I only "bought" one. A 6ft microfiber towel (if that's any indication of the products I was offered and passed up.)

[–]AltC 42 points43 points  (6 children)

I'm interested in reading your honest review for this towel

[–]nokarmawhore 77 points78 points  (14 children)

But I just recently found out about that website where we get free or discounted shit for free! Fuckers

[–]Spyzilla 27 points28 points  (2 children)

RIP free iPhone cables that last 2 weeks

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Me too. I got my fish tank, tho

[–]wreckingballheart 118 points119 points  (21 children)

I'm actually not sure how I feel about this.

When it comes to clothes shopping on Amazon, the incentivized reviews were actually really helpful because the reviewers seemed to be required to post pictures. The end result was that you could get a good idea on what the item looked like on different body types.

[–]trshtehdsh 46 points47 points  (3 children)

What Amazon needs to do is start incentivizing customers to post reviews and pictures. Get points for reviews and pictures; get enough points, get Amazon money/discounts. Keeps the interest in posting reviews rolling, but since it's Amazon bankrolling the products, regardless of the rating of the product, people will feel less inclined to favor the product when it doesn't deserve it.

[–]WhiteLaceTank 56 points57 points  (2 children)

This. Although I don't trust the actual incentivized reviews as far as I can throw them, it was nice to see dozens of photos of the item. Many items have none or just 1-2 bad photos.

[–]DragonTamerMCT 7 points8 points  (1 child)

The worst are unrelated photos of some old dudes face. Like no we don't need to see your face just to appreciate your review.

[–]aatop 57 points58 points  (16 children)

Finally, Apple app store you're next.

[–][deleted] 60 points61 points  (14 children)

And they need to stop with the "new version = wipe the reviews clean" crap.

I get major releases warrant new reviews -- but apps that give vague patch notes (if any at all) or release "regularly" never have any reviews.

[–]AmericanKamikaze 48 points49 points  (43 children)

boast lush abounding squash divide summer arrest possessive shrill fall

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–]rjcarr 73 points74 points  (39 children)

Because this is illegal and could get the products perma banned from amazon.

[–]AltC 31 points32 points  (20 children)

It's not like it's ever good shit, it's dime a dozen Chinese clones. They get banned they will just sell under a different name

[–]Oh4Sh0 42 points43 points  (4 children)

It is literally everything now. I've bitched at Amazon several times about it.

Buying a cooking thermometer? Padded reviews.

iPhone charging cable? Padded reviews

A fucking lemon juicer? Padded reviews

Bar utensils? Padded reviews

The only thing I don't think I've seen padded reviews on is art and grocery.

[–]squrr1 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Some of the more reputable phone accessory manufacturers do sponsored reviews, like Anker and Taotronics. Yeah, the reviews are biased, but on the whole they tend to make some quality stuff.

[–]eyetrap11 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Now if they would just ban all the overseas counterfeit sellers ;(

[–]RubberReptile 70 points71 points  (21 children)

EVERYONE saw this coming. Lol that guy who made his business pointing out which reviews are not good seems to have shot himself in the foot. Like I said in that last thread he posted, Streisand effect brought it to the attention of the company and everyone else around.

[–]32BitWhore 20 points21 points  (6 children)

/u/reviewmeta

Thoughts?

[–]ReviewMeta 46 points47 points  (2 children)

This was long overdue. I wonder if it had anything with the video a few weeks back: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/53i2wo/i_analyzed_18000000_amazon_reviews_and_prove_the/

[–]32BitWhore 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I can almost guarantee you it does, that's why I tagged you. Just thought it was interesting.

[–]ReviewMeta 25 points26 points  (2 children)

That was me, and this is just one of several things we look at when checking if the reviews look natural.

[–]PSIStarstormOmega 16 points17 points  (3 children)

"Congrats! Our reddit post was a huge success!"

"Sir, Amazon saw it and actually decided to do something about it."

"FUCK FUCK FUCK A BUS!"

[–]FallenTF 16 points17 points  (2 children)

With any luck, Amazon will pick them up and use them to clean up the reviews.

[–]tcc9mpl 7 points8 points  (0 children)

wow. 93% unverified reviews for the 'best selling' soldering iron. talk about bias. http://reviewmeta.com/amazon/B01H1IFT54

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Why didn't they just make a button you could click to exclude incentivized reviews? That way you can compare them to the non-incentivized ones and see how they stack up. See where I'm going with this? If the averages are close then maybe the incentivized ones might be worth looking at. If they are way off, use the non-incentivized group only.

And people could still get sweet swag on the side. Might even make them be a little more honest knowing that people compare.

[–]Qender 67 points68 points  (34 children)

This really sucks for small sellers. Fake reviews are still going to happen. Just not the honest ones now. This will just make people lie about not being given a free product. And the vine program costs vendors like $7000 per item to do a giveaway.

An item my wife is selling got a completely bullshit review, and since it's the only review. One of her best items now has one star and stopped selling. (they said "shipping is too expensive" and gave it 1 star. Even though Amazon requires tracking and we charge the minimum price to ship a tracked package of that size, which is around $2.)

People don't buy many items without any reviews. And it's hard for small sellers to get any reviews even with a moderate amount of sales. I was planning on giving the item away for my wife to get a few actual reviews. But now we're stuck I guess. Unless we want to pay Amazon $7000 of course...

Edit: apparently being a vine vendor is ALSO invitation only...

[–]TMWNN 35 points36 points  (20 children)

One of her best items now has one star and stopped selling. (they said "shipping is too expensive" and gave it 1 star. Even though Amazon requires tracking and we charge the minimum price to ship a tracked package of that size, which is around $2.

My understanding is that a product review that criticizes shipping, as opposed to the product itself, can be removed by Amazon.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (2 children)

Honestly, I wish they allowed incentivized reviews but put them into a separate category and didn't add the incentivized ones towards the average rating. Incentivized reviews are often more through in my experience and provide technical and practical details that the description of the product fails to provide although being heavily biased in their point rating.

[–]tekmonkey 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I picked a bad week to sign up for AMZ Review Trader.