jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

We all know that you cannot trust the customer reviews on Amazon. I saw a video on YouTube about them last night, and it's worse than I thought. There are businesses built around manipulating reviews and Amazon sellers.

Without going into all the details, it's relatively easy for these companies to ruin a good company and boost an inferior one. Amazon gets millions of complaints about phony reviews, but they don't seem to do much about them - largely because of the scale of the abuse.

As I've said before, I do a lot of online research before I buy anything. I look for reviews, tests, and comparisons. I won't be bothering with Amazon reviews any longer.

Ollieboy

I've been contacted many times by some of the vendors to give a positive review in exchange for a freebie. I never do it I and usually expose their offer.

Fotoserj Loc: St calixte Qc Ca

Why should they care, they’re in only for the money and every minute there’s a sucer born

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That seems to be a very common practice.

John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

They could link the review to an Amazon order no. and remove it if product is returned.
But it might hit sales.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

I buy a great variety of items on Amazon; electrical, small appliances, clothing, etc., etc. In the shipping carton of my last purchase of a small ($35) appliance made someplace in the Far East there was an envelope stating I was randomly selected to receive a $30 Amazon gift card if I submitted a 4 or 5 star review. After using their item for a month, I honesty found it was something that I would rate 5 stars. Nevertheless, I didn’t write a review for the product because of their attempt to buy my rating.

Billbobboy42 Loc: Center of Delmarva

I am suspicious of some eBay sellers` positive reviews that number well over 100,000.

Jack47 Loc: Ontario

I left Amazon over a year ago. Haven’t missed it.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

I find the reviews helpful. I first read all the negative reviews and assess their believabliity. I'm most interested in the recent reviews from verified buyers. I also run Fakespot. https://www.fakespot.com/
I try to read reviews in other sources. Sometimes I'll check the reviewer's other reviews. I've bought a lot from Amazon, only rarely needing to return an item. But, for the most part I avoid buying computer parts from them. For example, I just bought a 6tb enterprise hard drive from B&H because they're not going to send me something that's already been used and returned.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

I'll somewhat consider Amazon (and other) reviews but I mostly only look at the 3-star comments. I figure the 4- and 5-star comments are likely planted by phony reviewers and the 1- and 2-star reviews are generally the few people who have a grudge because their product arrived broken or was a rare lemon that didn't work right from the start.

Same the for book reviews because I buy a lot of Kindle downloads. I often post comments after reading a book and it's extremely rare for me to offer up an extremely good or extremely poor review.

Jay7h

I too have been offered and received "free" gifts but not necessarily for a positive review. My experience has been for a request for a review. It can be whatever you judge the product to be. I find no harm in this, but I guess it can make you feel more positive about a product or company. I told it like it was.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Yes, even very good companies get caught up in this "review thing". I've had B&H and Adorama, both top companies in the photo world send me request for reviews just after I purchased something but before I received the product! No way I'm giving a review until I have the product in hand and see how it was packed, how the spects. meet the advertising etc.

alexol

I usually consider the total percentage of 3 stars and above.

It's at least as important to read between the lines as it is to read the lines themselves. If an item has 15 reviews and 14 are 5-star, written in poor English you shouldnt be surprised to find the item is rubbish.

I also read quite a few reviews, but just as many of the 5 star reviews sound fake, a number of 1 star reviews are clearly written by morons.

Recently I wanted a tiny pair of pliers which I found - 3" long, very clearly stated several times in the product description. Several of the 1 star reviews commented about how small they were, including one "if I'd known how small this tool was I'd never have bought it". For four bucks, get real! It isn't going to a pair of 8" Snap-on linesman's pliers.

Many reviews are completely unrealistic given some of the amazingly low prices of certain goods especially from China.

In truth, I don't understand how it is possible some times: just for fun I bought a transparent plastic quartz Rolex look-alike for $5.99 including delivery from China.

It's easy to complain about Amazon and eBay although both have opened new purchasing worlds for many people, albeit at a cost some find unacceptable.

I'd guess I do 95%+ of my shipping online.
I have very high standards and have rarely been disappointed - and when I am, the item just goes back.

Caveat emptor, as always.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

I also use that strategy in addition to what I already mentioned.

AGO

Amazon is not the only company and phony reviews are not the only problem. I recently submitted a negative review of a camera package I purchased from a top online camera store. My review did not get published. I figured I must have done something wrong so I tried to resubmit it but got a message that I had already reviewed the product. I contacted the store and was told that they'd look into it. They never got back to me and my review has never appeared online. I can only conclude that they didn't like my negative review.