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A comment on Amazon changes its review policy. Parent comment

Re:Amazon changes its review policy by slantyyz on Thursday December 14, 2017 @12:24PM (#15924202)
>> 2. The very first reviews. These are almost always fake and unverified. No one ever looks for this but it is the most common indicator in my experience of faked reviews given how low the bar is.

The unverified part is no longer true. A lot of companies now get reviewers to buy the product from Amazon and reimburse them for their costs via PayPal. So in general, when it comes to obscure Chinese brands, you can't trust the Verified Purchase label any more. I stopped doing incentivized reviews with the rule changes, but I know that's how they operate, as I've had many offers to go the PayPal route.

I rely too much on Amazon for my own purchases, and it wasn't worth getting banned from reviewing for that.

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Re:Amazon changes its review policy by CamelCaseName on Thursday December 14, 2017 @09:50PM (#15929334)
Yup, this is true as well. I could go on and on about all the stuff I see happen.

What you're talking about tends to happen over facebook or wechat. But there are "Amazon Launch Services" which are far more pervasive in my experience. You'll find countless services like Viral Launch, JumpSend, etc. that find some way to make it hassle free to get those first few crucial reviews.

The funniest thing I've ever seen happen is one person was scamming the sellers. They would place the order, get paid via PayPal, and then cancel the Amazon order. It was cathartically beautiful.

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