Amazon Fake Products and Fake Reviews

rsk writes "The first time I came across fake reviews on Amazon, it was hilarious. Using Amazon's Window Shop app, I came across a great category, 'Peculiar Products,' and was more than happy to look through it. Almost every one of the products I found on the list (Uranium Ore, 1 Gallon of Milk, Parent Child Test, Fresh Whole Rabbit) were fake, with thousands of reviews on them. As a shopper, I wasn't aware of how easy it was to apparently fake product reviews and it bothers me. When I'm shopping, the first (and a lot of times only) place I visit is Amazon to read the reviews if I'm in the market for something. I don't expect the reviews to be the word of God, but I do assume a certain level of legitimacy for most of them. While this won't affect my use of Amazon (especially not at this time of the year) I would like to bubble this up to Amazon's attention so some time is spent on improving the quality of the reviews."

Comments

Article is Clueless -- Reviews are Jokes

[eldavojohn]

I did this way back in 2005 for IDC reports that cost thousands of dollars but were only 10 page PDFs.

It's a joke. It's funny. It's not people gaming a system, it's people being funny. It's not some evil corporation pimping it's uranium, it's people who think half life jokes and Back to the Future references are the hip new thing.

One of my friends posted the original joke review to the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt a long time ago and for about a week, we got our kicks writing joke reviews and people approved of them because, well, they were funny. I'm appalled that you think this is gaming the system when it's just regular people having a good time.

As a shopper, I wasn't aware of how easy it was to apparently fake product reviews and it bothers me.

How on earth could that bother you? You didn't notice it until you stumbled into a weird category on some beta app. Do you have any sense of humor?

For what it's worth, Amazon is starting to allow reviewers who ordered the item from Amazon to mark on their review that Amazon confirms them as an owner. So you could probably in the future sort those reviews by those that wrote jokes and those that actually ordered the uranium (my god, how is this not on idle).

It really bothers you? How? Please tell me how I've ruined your shopping experience.

Re:Article is Clueless -- Reviews are Jokes

[Monkeedude1212]

It really bothers you? How? Please tell me how I've ruined your shopping experience.

Really John? You have to ask that question?

A couple years ago my Father wanted to get out of the Field Technician Business and get into a more desk type job at home, where he could be his own boss kind of stuff. For Christmas he had but ONE request, a semi-luxurious Office Chair. Given that my father could not come to terms with how I dropped out of school and still got a job without that piece of paper, we both have this grudge about things we shouted at each other one day. However, the holidays are about family and I could not help but feel compelled that perhaps fulfilling this one request might mend the broken family that came about as a result of me not finishing that damn technical writing course. (As a side note, I was seriously knee deep in working out Regular Expressions in Perl, how could they possibly expect me to do up a cover letter that made any sense at the same time?)

Anyways, so after discovering this magic bullet to fix all the things that went wrong, I set out to get my father the best Office Chair Canadian money can buy. Having been recently thrown out and banned from Staples, Bestbuy, and Futureshop, for setting the IE Homepage on the display computers to the small local competitor down the street, I had no where to reasonably go but online. I did consider Ikea, but honestly I had enough trouble setting up some shelves with nothing but wooden dowels and an allen key, I did not want to take the risk of them making me set up a complex office chair with nothing but the same.

So there I was, browsing the Amazons and the Ebays of the world over, just trying to find the best price and shipping combination for my buck on Office chairs with reasonable features. However, I noticed a shocking trend. A lot of people who recieved these shipments of Office chairs were horribly mauled and disfigured by what they claim to be a Bobcat. They would not buy again. Now, I know that occaisonally someone likes to post a little joke review here and there. But this was EVERYWHERE. It was like an epidemic. I rationally thought that there must have been some mix up at the factory, or they really should not have put that Office Chair Warehouse right beside the nature reserve.

As such I did not purchase an office chair, but rather settled on a Thelma and Louise DVD. Needless to say, relationships have since worsened, and he has recently ended up in the hospital. He doesn't even want to see me. He thinks I did this to him. Everything is just so messed up, and I had this one perfect opportunity to make everything all better. And I blame you and your ilk for completely ruining my shopping Experience, Christmas, and inadvertantly, the rest of my life.

Re:Article is Clueless -- Reviews are Jokes

[God'sDuck]

But the reviewer said that eating uranium ore for a month had caused him to grow three heads. I did the same and I still only have one head. I want my money back!

Give it time. I'm sure you'll grow tu mor soon.