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A comment on Amazon still isn't doing enough to stop bait-and-switch reviews. Parent comment

Re:Amazon still isn't doing enough to stop bait-and-switch r... by derbOac on Friday December 17, 2021 @06:49AM (#29590964)
Regarding your last remark, and circling back to the main article: now the review market and culture is broken as well. Even when legitimate companies come on line, it's difficult to know about them because they don't get reviewed, and if they do, you never know if there's some financial conflict of interest, or if the reviews are legitimate, or what. If they do get reviewed, there's no follow-through to see if quality has improved or declined, etc.

It's remarkable how, when information is so much more accessible, it's become useless by deception and fraud.

It's especially sad in that it affects companies trying to establish a foothold by providing good business.

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Re:Amazon still isn't doing enough to stop bait-and-switch r... by noduerme on Friday December 17, 2021 @04:45PM (#29598726)
This, exactly. The massive flood of fake online reviews, not to mention the broken weighting systems that enhance the effect by grading products on a curve, has created a situation that's stacked against legitimate businesses. Not only are scammers filling their own products with fake positive reviews, they're also spamming real businesses with negative ones.

One of the weirdest things that happened to me this year: I received a book from Amazon I hadn't ordered. It was addressed to me at my house, apparently printed off an Amazon press in Poland, but listed by a "company" in Vietnam. It was called "Daily Business Plan" or something, with a generic stock photo on the cover. Inside, every page was the same - blank except for lined horizontal rules and the days of the week, Monday through Sunday. There were no dates, no year, no page numbers. No bibliographic page. I let Amazon know about it. I can only assume that the seller was trying some kind of scam to write "verified buyer" reviews for themselves...

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