Slashdot Mirror
Belkin's Amazon Rep Paying For Fake Online Reviews
remove office writes "I recently discovered that Belkin's lead online sales rep, Michael Bayard, has been secretly paying internet users to review his company's products favorably on Amazon.com and other websites like Newegg, whether or not they've ever used the devices. Bayard instructed the people he was paying to 'Write as if you own the product and are using it... Mark any other negative reviews as "not helpful" once you post yours.' Ironically, he was using Amazon's own Mechanical Turk service to hire his fraudsters. Did he honestly think he wouldn't get caught? Are Slashdotters aware of other examples of other such blatant astroturfing on behalf of a large tech company like Belkin?"
I will review any piece of crap i know nothing about for money.
I'm more surprised that there aren't more companies caught doing this. Its like being surprised that a professional was using hGH or 'roids.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Belkin have a history of dodgy behavior and should be avoided where possible. Their last trick was hijacking something like 1 in every thousand http connections and directing them to an advertising site.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1039_3-5104863.html
This company should be avoided where possible.
Microsoft gave some nice Ferrari laptops to some bloggers recently. It's easy to figure out to whom: just google favorable Vista reviews.
http://what-is-what.com/what_is/vista.html
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I missed out. If anyone wants me to review their products, I'm sure I can do it for the right price.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
It was recently reported that the Chinese government pays 300,000 astroturfers to go online and talk positively about the Chinese and the chinese government. Basically a modern day propoganda campain (melamine and lead based toys sold separately).
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Why did Belkin even both to do this? They make wonderful products. Just the other day, I got a Belkin Tunebase FM Transmitter with ClearScan for iPod and it was my best purchase ever. It plays my ipod over the radio with amazing fidelity, and my truck gets better gas mileage to boot. I've sold my home and I'm living out of my truck because the sound is so much better. (Where's my money?)
Seriously, the first thing that needs to happen is a bunch of people should "review" Belkin's products with the evidence that they're faking reviews. It'd pretty much finish them, at least with Amazon customers. This is extremely annoying and we need to make it as painful as possible.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It wasn't personal, I'm just supposed to do that after I post my glowing review of the belkin backpack as anon. otherwise I dont get paid.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Anyone with a brain who has checked out any product online, be it cars, computers or anything, finds a user group or ten with reviews. Some reviewers have used the product. Some reviewers have not. There is always "this is the bestest thing in the whole world" review. And there is the "this is the largest POS known" review. You toss the lovefest, and toss the POS review. Trust the middle. If all the reviewers seem happy, then it's probably good. If they all hate, then not so much. You are your own editor.
My wife posted a bad review of one company on Amazon- it really wasn't even bad, it was Neutral. They missed shipping their product by Christmas when there was time. And they kept calling us...once at 11pm at night. We weren't answering and thought they would give up but the harassment continued.
So finally she answered the phone and they offered her a bribe to remove the review. They offered to pay for the item she ordered. Sadly, she accepted.
So apparently this sort of manipulation of reviews is not uncommon.
I went into an electronics store recently and the staff let me try out wireless adapters to find out if it would work on my laptop ( running Ubuntu 8.04 at the time ). The first one we tried was a Belkin USB adapter and it worked fine. I brought it and haven't regretted my purchase in the slightest, in fact, I'd purchase more. The signal strength was way better than other adapters I'd used and it's never dropped the connection ( to a Linksys WRT54G ).
I'd probably recommend them for their hardware but it seems their ethics need to catch up.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Although there is no way to prove any of this, 2 incidents immediately come to mind:
1) While reviewing The Orange Box game set on Amazon and seeing all the complaints about Steam, some guy actually had the nerve to make the assertion "Steam single handedly resurrected PC gaming" - as well as other off the wall comments like bragging about how many millions they've sold. After I highlighted a few statements of his and responded to his review - and implied twice that he must work for steam - the entire review and all the responses mysteriously disappeared.
2) Amazon's own reading device, Kindle. When it was released initially, you had people literally declaring war on anybody that said anything even remotely negative about it. Even if they complained about how certain features work, they would fall victim to endless insults and accusations of not having used the product. It was an all out witch hunt.
Sites like Thepiratebay don't generally have people hired by the entertainment industry writing favorable reviews about, say, Snakes on a Plane. There are advantages to buying, selling, and aquiring things illegally. People don't lie -- after all, their reputations are on the line. And depending on what's being bought and sold, sometimes quite a bit more.
There's an irony that illegal business is the most honest kind.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
As the build up of Vista 7 started it became apparent to me that this sort of thing was happening on Digg.com. Critical review of Microsoft simply disappeared as anything was just dugg way down to hide it.
It seemed readily apparent to me that someone was artificially altering anything Microsoft or Windows on Digg.com. I noticed a change where anything negative about Microsoft and Vista were dugg down and anything positive was dugg up. It didn't matter if the negative was spot on and making valid points, it was dugg down. Anything about Microsoft was dugg up. Even if the company was doing nasty things still.
I attributed it to: 1) either a few people had been creating multiple accounts in order to influence the vote, 2) people were being paid by Microsoft to go to digg and change the outcome, or 3) a bunch of Microsoft employees were actively seeking to alter the vote to make Vista 7 and Microsoft look better.
I also noticed several other people commenting as they saw the same thing.
This was like an overnight thing. One day everyone is telling it like it is about Vista and Microsoft and the next day anything anyone said that was negative was dugg way down. Anything positive was dugg way up, even if it was utterly false and few in the face of history.
I will say that Digg.com has declined. I have had to bury a slew of articles that were purely fluff, and moreso of late. Way too many totally stupid posts, uninformative conjecture articles, and poorly thought out pieces that tend to just waste my time.
Combined with the seemingly altered rankings of pro and negative comments regarding Microsoft and Vista I concluded that Digg.com was headed for a big decline.
Now that I see this sort of thing occuring regarding other large company products I can only conclude that there must be something more to my observations on Digg.com
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Astroturfing is an extremely harmful practice to companies in the long run. I remember a couple of particular travel companies on a site I frequent which did this. The companies themselves had a pretty decent reputation, but a few members were just a little bit too enthusiastic about recommending them, and were outed after a couple of months. Any goodwill the company had instantly collapsed, and any time a new traveler asked for advice relating to these companies, they were told to avoid them because of their marketing practices.
Somewhat strangely, it's actually the successful astroturfing campaigns that do the most damage in the long run. There's thousands of obvious attempts each year which immediately get spotted, and everyone nearly immediately forgets about them. But the few times it flies under the radar and is "trusted", the loss of that trust upon discovery is total and final, and it'll take years for the company to recover (if they ever do).
First, Belkin is astroturfing Amazon and Newegg. Next thing you'll be telling me is that Monster Cable's stuff isn't actually any better than the generic stuff!
After their fiasco a few years ago where they decided that it was acceptable to program their home routers to occasionally redirect web requests to their own page to sell people things, they hit my "certified 100% evil" list.
There's no getting off that list. I don't care if they start sending me flowers and candy. Nothing they can do will make me consider giving them a dime again. I don't even buy cables from them; last year I ordered a cable online and waited a week for it rather than buy one locally, because the local place only had Belkin cables in that type.
There are a lot of reviews on Amazon and other retail sites written by people who clearly do not own the product. A lot of reviews are written by people who don't understand the concept of a review. You can find reviews for things which aren't even available to buy yet but Amazon have created a product page for. Seems to me there's a very easy to get rid of reviews people are being paid to write or are just idiots - sites should only allow people to post reviews for products which they have actually bought from that site. It would be easy enough to implement, just check against the would be reviewer's order history. Sure there would be a lot less reviews, but the ones that do get posted will worth something. Quality, not quantity.