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The sorry state of Amazon reviews analysis

12,915 June 9, 2023 at 08:00 AM
If you shop on Amazon and use Fakespot, it's not long before you find Fakespot results that don't make sense - at least that's my experience. I don't care what their analysis breakdown says, some grades defy logic. So after a long time using Fakespot I decided to switch to ReviewMeta. I found that the results and analyses there made much more sense. Then ReviewMeta was acquired by some shady entity that wiped it from the face of the Earth. Some time later ReviewMeta was resurrected. Hooray, I thought... but not so quick. The site is up but it's not performing any new analyses (as of Feb this year). I also noticed this year a proliferation of Vine reviews... much more so than any time in the past. Could there be some correlation? Wouldn't ReviewMeta have identified the Vine reviews (correctly) as fake?

Shopping on Amazon without a trusted reviews analyzer feels like driving without a seat belt. In this case we may have seat belts, but it appears they have been rendered useless.
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MadPup
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Joined Dec 2005
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SnakePlisken
06-10-2023 at 02:46 AM.
06-10-2023 at 02:46 AM.
Quote from MadPup :
If you shop on Amazon and use Fakespot, it's not long before you find Fakespot results that don't make sense - at least that's my experience. I don't care what their analysis breakdown says, some grades defy logic. So after a long time using Fakespot I decided to switch to ReviewMeta. I found that the results and analyses there made much more sense. Then ReviewMeta was acquired by some shady entity that wiped it from the face of the Earth. Some time later ReviewMeta was resurrected. Hooray, I thought... but not so quick. The site is up but it's not performing any new analyses (as of Feb this year). I also noticed this year a proliferation of Vine reviews... much more so than any time in the past. Could there be some correlation? Wouldn't ReviewMeta have identified the Vine reviews (correctly) as fake?

Shopping on Amazon without a trusted reviews analyzer feels like driving without a seat belt. In this case we may have seat belts, but it appears they have been rendered useless.
Iagree Besides, it's on the internet so it must be true!
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HapShaughnessy
06-11-2023 at 10:52 AM.
06-11-2023 at 10:52 AM.
Consider that 61-63% of electronics Amazon reviews are fake according to recent studies: https://review42.com/resources/wh...-are-fake/

Almost half of all reviews are fake.

Tools like ReviewMeta and Fakespot are just that: tools. Just don't look at the overall rating (unless it walks on water or is abysmal). Dig into the weeds via looking at the specific elements. Also, "journalism-looking" review sites (often with recognizable names) are often bought and paid for, which is why so many of them list shilled garbage like uGreen as "highly-rated."

EcomCrew.com has a very good March 13 article on how sellers from a certain totalitarian country are gaming the system: "How (fill in the usual suspect country since I might get banned for mentioning it) Sellers are Manipulating Amazon in 2023."

The media is complicit as it lazily repeats the Amazon PR about it "targeting fake reviews," which is a scam on its own. Because if Bezosland did that, it would make less money.

Now, we hear that Amazon reviews are being written by ChatGPT to make them harder for us and the review checker sites to spot. No surprise there.

Oh, and then there's referral marketing of highly-shilled garbage offshore Amazon products, such as uGreen mentioned above. You're reading one of those sources right now. SD actively promotes products in Hot Deals with a huge amount of fake reviews; this is highly profitable for Goldman Sachs, the owner of this site, while it screws the SD community and helps these offshore distributors and manufacturers steal our money.
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Last edited by MrSkeptic June 15, 2023 at 07:39 AM.
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komondor
06-12-2023 at 07:34 PM.
06-12-2023 at 07:34 PM.
The other issue is sellers that include a card for free stuff if you write a 5 star review, I have reported companies to Amazon with just lip service.

I do write reviews sometime for stuff I was given for free to review (not vine) by the manufacturers. I always write honest reviews and if a company wants to drop me that is fine. I am not an influencer by any means and I have a day job. I write reviews to inform people about a products features that maybe others gloss over.
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Bye. Too much spam.
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HapShaughnessy
06-15-2023 at 07:49 AM.
06-15-2023 at 07:49 AM.
Quote from komondor :
The other issue is sellers that include a card for free stuff if you write a 5 star review, I have reported companies to Amazon with just lip service.

I do write reviews sometime for stuff I was given for free to review (not vine) by the manufacturers. I always write honest reviews and if a company wants to drop me that is fine. I am not an influencer by any means and I have a day job. I write reviews to inform people about a products features that maybe others gloss over.
Even after a widely-reported Amazon (arguably useless, PR-based) lawsuit targeting 10,000+ Facebook groups in the fake-review market, it's still going strong:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65336369
https://www.theguardian.com/money...says-which

Considering the leaps and bounds of AI (even potentially it killing us off) Amazon could EASILY determine which reviews are fake and delete them. If Fakespot and ReviewMeta can do that reasonably well from outside the company, Amazon certainly could. Suing is easy and makes headlines.

Caveat: if Amazon wanted to. And it doesn't. Because removing many millions of fake *****-star reviews would hurt its bottom line.
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Last edited by MrSkeptic June 15, 2023 at 07:52 AM.
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Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
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komondor
06-16-2023 at 04:34 PM.
06-16-2023 at 04:34 PM.
I agree while you could use AI to help clean it up it as you have stated it is a matter of what is the benefit vs the cost.

Not the same but GM decided to pay out lawsuits vs fixing pickup trucks that has exposed gas tanks.
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