Amazon user reviews

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Reviews are important but inaccurate for many reasons

by jsavell Apr 12, 2015 1:46AM PDT

Amazon bugs me for a review before I have unpacked the product- over half the reviews on anything are written before the buyer has subjected the object to the test of time. A review only describing a TV as having a great picture is not as valuable as one discussing months of tribulations.

What bothers me more is when the website itself manipulates the reviews. It is widely believed that Yelp puts unfavorable reviews in a unseen Not Recommended area unless the business owner pays Yelp more than $400 per month. A fellow physician friend got a good Yelp review which for no reason was put in Not Recommended. The patient was unable to get Yelp to print the review. As a physician I am particularly upset when we can't respond to inaccurate reviews due to patient privacy concerns. We had one review that bitched about her LASIK- the reviewer gave enough information (city of residence, first name) that we could determine she never had the procedure.

In summary, I think I can spot some phony good reviews, but the most damaging ones are the phony bad reviews from competitors.

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Follow-up thought

by DH1 Apr 12, 2015 9:03AM PDT

I replied to this poll one page one. After reading subsequent replies I want to add one additional thought: applicable reviews are not always the reviewer's fault.

I have yet to fully figure out how or why but Amazon tends to "clump" a lot of reviews together.

Example 1: There are, say fifty sellers selling the same product. I purchase the product from seller 3 and you purchase the product from seller 47. But when we post our reviews of said product they all go to the same "review" place. I say the seller was 5 star while your review said the seller sucks.

Example 2: I buy a 32" television from seller 3. You buy a 42" television from seller 47. Different televisions and from different sellers -- yet, somehow, Amazon "clumps" our reviews into the same thread.

My point is, as many others have mentioned, don't put all your eggs in one basket. I LOVE Amazon but if you are making a large purchase, do your due diligence. Review the reviewers: look at their Amazon profile and read their reviews of other products. Are they trustworthy?

Also and as others have said, search for reviews on other websites. While I do LOVE it, I don't trust Amazon 100%. I don't trust ANYTHING online 100%.

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You have a valid point, Amazon should improve review system

by AnthonyNYC Apr 12, 2015 2:06PM PDT

DH1, I agree reviews seem to get clumped together sometimes on Amazon not only for different sellers but also different models and it makes it confusing.
First, about reviewing different sellers of the same item, Amazon should make it easy for people to understand they are basically reviewing the product (item only) they purchased and not the seller, delivery time, or overall experience. At least not there! They (Amazon) should introduce a section to see ratings of that products' sellers (it would be nice) and that would help with complaints of slow delivery, damaged goods, no reply from sellers etc... (Separate from the products star rating).

As it is now, the reviews, INMH, should ONLY pertain to how the item itself rates. Is it of good quality? Does it look like the photos? Would you recommend buying it again? etc... Reviews for seller and customer feedback experiences shouldn't be included in the current star rating the way it is now (but they are).

And DH1, the way Amazon links reviews together now is also not fair to certain products because people might be reviewing a different model of a product. And although the attempt by Amazon to help with that by labeling what product is being reviewed is a step in the right direction. It isn't a solution because it affects the overall star rating system, making it impossible to know what model got what rating in actuality.

So for example, I want to buy a digital audio converter say, and I see a certain amount of 5 star, 4 star ratings for a converter etc... BUT the seller has a cheap $15 converter and a higher quality $60 converter and maybe even a mid-level $40 converter all for sale from the same description page, and the star rating is a blended mixture of all items! How does that help anyone? It doesn't in my opinion the way it currently is.

You'd have to click each review individually and see, is this negative review for the lower priced device?
And somehow, keep a running total yourself? It's nuts!

Not all reviews are setup like this, but I've come across this situation many times, when a seller offers different versions to chose from in the same (link) page. This was probably setup like this originally to choose a different color or size of the same type item BUT it's being used by some sellers to chose totally different qualities of items from them and the reviews are getting all lumped together and the star rating is an average of all of them. That needs correcting somehow by Amazon in the future first in my opinion, then having the seller reviews separate from the product reviews should also be addressed.

We (many of us) figured this discrepancy out, but I believe many people don't investigate that closely or understand what is happening in those situations and are basing their decision on inaccurate ratings.

Maybe Amazon can learn from this thread, and all the great comments like yours? I hope so for their sake because I LOVE shopping on Amazon!
Happy shopping!
Regards AnthonyNYC

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Review of products and sellers help

by gururajbn Apr 12, 2015 1:47PM PDT

I do rely on certified buyer reviews rather than rely on all reviews. When extraordinarily large reviews favor a seller or a product, I would rather listen to the dissenting voice of a review which contradicts the generally favorable review. I would rather not buy a product which has received neither the ratings, nor reviews.

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Blackballing is common.

by steamkitty Apr 12, 2015 3:42PM PDT

I buy only books on Amazon, usually. I have seen horrible reviews of books by reviewers that all seem to say the same thing, in the same way, about a book. Usually about an author that has some notoriety in his/her field. Also, mass hate reviews seem to follow popular authors whose latest book doesn't follows the plan of previous books. Are these reviews phony or just a mass jump on "let's hate x... because she didn't write what we wanted her to"? I don't know or really know how to tell. But, since the internet is filled with anonyous haters who are even too chicken to show their faces or sign their names, I don't think most reviews are worth while. The same goes for gushing positive reviews. If it is on the internet, it just might, probably, be a lie. I not only take most reviews with a grain of salt, I usually take them with a pound of salt. I wish people were more honest. In all ways. Guess that's too much to hope for, however. However flawed, I prefer Consumer Reports.

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my opinion

by ela1n3ko Apr 13, 2015 4:56AM PDT

A! I find reviews to be very important. They help me make my decision on whether I want to proceed with my purchase or not. Not just for Amazon, but for anything I usually buy online, I try to read the reviews if there are any. Some items don't usually have any reviews, but the ones that have ratings show me that they must be popular items.

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Fake online review, topic at a consumer conference in Boston

by timplee Apr 17, 2015 1:53PM PDT

Hi, Justinia and everybody.

I'm just catching up now, a week after this article and thread was started. Last year's National Consumer Protection Week conference in Boston devoted a substantial portion to this topic. I made a digital recording, and, from that, a 71 pp. combination of notes and transcript. I put it on my Dropbox account, and should be available here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/paltummt5avnx36/Consumer%20Conference%204-8-14.docx?dl=0

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I do not trust drop box..

by JCitizen Apr 17, 2015 4:11PM PDT

especially the way it installs without my permission, and takes a special log file to remove. Only an expert can get it off the average user's computer. NO THANKS!

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