A few months back, I bought an AKASO Keychain camera to see if it's at least a 75%-decent knock-off of the Insta360 Go. I found that it was a truly terrible product and left a negative review detailing all my impressions and issues with it.
Not long afterwards, "Tara" from AKASO (using a gmail.com account with the name "Jessica") sent me multiple requests for the following:
>We sincerely appreciate your comment, which is helpful for improvement of our product and service in future. To bring you a better shopping experience, we would like to send you 30 USD gift card. Would you please help us to re-adjusting your comment rating or remove it?
Thanks to the Amazon review system, companies would much rather spend money suppressing bad reviews of their shit products instead of spending money to make good products in the first place.
I got an Instagram ad for a free device from a popular product seller on Amazon. I clicked out of curiosity, expecting it to be some sort of scam. Instead, it took me to a page hidden on the manufacturer’s official .com website.
The deal was that I had to go to Amazon.com, search for a specific keyword, scroll until I found their product, buy it, and then forward my receipt to the company. They would then PayPal me the entire cost and I got to keep the product.
They didn’t even ask for a review, although maybe that request would come after I bought it. Up front, they were simply vying for search ranking.
The margin on some of these products is so high that companies can buy their way in to high search rankings and reviews.
Anyone know how these sellers get your email address? I had a similar experience. The product met 90% of what I needed but the advertised 10% did not, and that 10% was critical for what I needed to do. I left a 2 or 3 star review (I forgot).
I kept getting spammed to my personal e-mail. I was not sure if they were sending through Amazon system or directly - my guess was directly. Later on I did modify my review. I reduced it by 1 more star.
I bought a USB hub on Amazon and in the box was a postcard offering me a $20 voucher for a review if I “enjoy the product”. I wrote a review mentioning this and Amazon rejected it. There’s no way they don’t know what’s going on.
I had a similar experience with a USB-C hub I bought from a brand recommended by wirecutter (not the exact model as it was "replaced by a newer model". I plugged it into a brand new laptop and I got a warning about it drawing too much power, which persisted when I plugged several other devices. I returned the hub and have been getting spammed by these emails ever since. That has made me very wary of buying anything from Amazon now without a good recommendation from someone I personally know.
I had a similar experience after writing a poor review for a down comforter. They offered to refund about 40% of the purchase price if I adjusted my review. With purchased items I've also gotten cards offering a freebie if you send them an email with your order # - some vendors are honest and just send the free item, but others want a (good) review before they send the bribe err gift.
Beside having your email, do they have your address or is that only amazon?
Else, and I know that its not worth your time, but couldn't you accept their request, change your review, receive the gift card, redeem it, and change review back with a short statement of what happened. I mean, as I understand it, what are they gonna do? (I they do have your address though, I would not play games either)
Like I said in other comment: this is all Amazon doing, and their inactivity towards reports of what clearly was, and is, bad practices.
Amazon basically became a rigged marketplace where those who thrive are the ones who can get away with a lot of things. From completely disregarding guidelines, TOS, targeted attacks to destroy competitors listings, you name it.
It's just like prisons, people go in and come out worst because that's the game that has to be played in order to survive.
The only one to blame is Amazon that promoted these practices by giving leverage to those who did it. With more revenue, more exposure, privileged access to Amazon account managers (yes, talking to a human is a privilege for an Amazon Seller).
Games without rules and referees degenerate into brawls.
Similarly, open markets require regulations, enforcement, fair and impartial judiciary (tort), and property rights.
Fraud and counterfeits spoil markets. Lowering trust. Increasing transaction costs. Poorly regulated Freedom Markets™ like eBay and Amazon are net negatives, even while a few thrive on the chaos.
> Amazon doing, and their inactivity towards reports of what clearly was, and is, bad practices
Search for 1TB USB drive, look at the results with obviously scam products. This has been there for years. They do nothing for even the most blatant offenses.
Name an online marketplace that had good quality honest factual reviews before or after Amazon.
At their scale it is absolutely impossible to moderate and keep the problems away. The stacks are against them. Each seller has the incentive to try to game their own product reviews, while AMazon has to attempt to stay on top of the whole marketplace.
Amazon.de is sub-eBay in terms of bargain bin junk store vibe. It's mostly stuff direct from Alibaba with an own brand name slapped on it to get around having to compete for the buy box. I've actually started going back to eBay, Google Shopping and some independent web shops I know are good just to cut through the noise.
You should see the state of Amazon.se. It launched earlier this year in absolute shambles: product descriptions were whacked; many listed products couldn't even be purchased; the product reviews were imported from other Amazon sites which made them look suspicious; the pricing wasn't even competitive when factoring in shipping to Sweden, etc, etc. They have made some improvements but still haven't taken off and it's crazy they don't value quality that much on a new market. The bargain bin junk store feel is all over the place.
It's absolutely shocking India where startup competition is huge has no eBay.
Basically there's no way to buy anything in secondary market, yes OLX or Quikr etc... exist but they are limited to only people around you (in same city) and do not facilitate payments or logistics or even reviews.
Now someone can make their own website but product discovery is pain and buyers can't trust reviews on website owned by the single seller, neither can trust the refund will be honoured as you need Escrow to deal with the unknown sellers.
India has people who are interested in saving money and buying second hand tools/machines is an option yet it has no eBay or alternative as if startups in India have a blindspot.
For example, I live a town with population of 500K (200km away from Delhi) and while repairing my car, the mechanic told me he will go to Delhi and try getting the spare part from Junkyard owners.
Maybe guys from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore don't have this problem but majority of Indian population still lives in small towns and villages where finding 1 used part at affordable price can save a business or medical equipment (life). What are the technical people in small towns are supposed to do? Run to Delhi and Mumbai each time you need a spare part?
Such a waste of human efforts, my mechanic could have instead bought it on eBay from a junkyard owner who is also a seller on ebay through courier if eBay like website existed.
Lemme give you another example, sometime back I was interested in a product from Mobil which only comes in 230L barrel packaging, I need only 2liters of this stuff and there were many sellers on eBay selling it in used Coke/Soda bottles, but I couldn't buy it because I am from India.
Similarly, our junkyards are filled with useful servos, PLCs etc..., linear rails, valves but it's hard to find buyers for the junkyard owners because there's no online marketplace for this
India imports millions of tons of waste from foreign countries yet the stuff that's harvested from it has very inefficient market.
This is holding back innovation as you can build lots of cool things from the used machinery/tools which cost wayyy less than the new stuff.
It happened so fast too. I'm in Finland but used to buy from a.de on a regular basis because there was no VAT, shipping was sensible, and often the prices were much better than local markup (which is infamously bad in Finland), especially on stuff like video games.
Sometime in the past few years something changed though. Shipping prices went up. Prices on name brand goods started climbing up too, sometimes higher than I pay locally even. Savings basically disappeared so I stopped bothering 90% of the time.
Then the flood came. IG without the international competition, the knockoff and counterfeit and aliexpress sellers saw an opportunity and absolutely flooded the site. Now you can't find a name brand fucking anything unless you explicitly search for it, and more often than not it's out of stock. It will sell you a million suspiciously cheap knockoffs with obviously fake brand names, often the same knockoff under dozens of different names and prices.
It really is basically just a shit overpriced Wish now, and it is baffling to me that Amazon have seemingly just allowed this to happen.
Pulled from amazon.com, because amazon.de still sells their products.
There's no reason not to assume that AUKEY isn't using the same tactics on international sites
Many of the reviews are taken directly from amazon.com
----
Danielle Schenk
Great product highly recommend
5.0 von 5 Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 4. April 2019
Verifizierter Kauf
These headphones last all day for my husband who works at an oil plant. There noise cancelling is amazing so he can listen to music while protecting his ears. Plus they look like earplugs so he doesn't get fussed at! Great product
----
So it's safe to assume that Amazon has absolutely no issue with this, unless there's a lawsuit threatening them.
I stopped purchasing from Amazon years ago. I used to have a phase where I was a really good customer, back in the 2005-2012. It felt trashy back then as well, but in a good sense. These days, Amazon is full of faked reviews, duplicate products with vast prize difference, very bad product description quality, and all the things you dont want from a reseller. Granted, for a while, we were willing to accept a certain sloppy style in exchange for the pricing, but this treshold has been crossed long ago. Me perceiving Amazon as complete trash has even spilled over into other offerings. I will not touch Alexa (for various reasons), and I am definitely not going to use their video stuff. I dont want to be customer of a company that has so little standards.
For a company that initially was a searchengine (A9 if i recall right, still being used for the site) the search and filter options aren't worthily described if you use the word bad.
I mean, what else besides being able to filter for brands and maybe price is there?
Cue every purchase being research into the fundamentals of the thing you need, together with not being able to trust reviews.
Regarding the reviews, i've turned to only looking at "most critical" reviews - at least with those i'm kinda quickly able to differ between "logistics service dun f'up" and "this thing has so many issues it's not even funny anymore".
Edit to add: my purchases on AMZN are down by like 90% - replacing my online shopping by going to local (hardware) stores mostly
I've ranted about this in the past. What makes me a little crazy is how freaking obvious this problem is, yet Amazon won't fix it. It must be what they want, otherwise they'd change it. Right? Am I taking crazy pills here? I just wrap my head around how they think that their god-awful search and filtering is helping them. I am also buying everything I can from brick-and-mortar these days.
My biggest gripe is related: filtering doesn't work. I was just looking for a small video projector today. I had specified a maximum price and some specs. The results were full of items that were up to 3x the maximum price, clearly didn't meet the specs, or weren't even video projectors (usually accessories). This seems so incredibly central to the shopping experience that they'd try to get it right, but apparently they feel it's much more important to get products from their favorite vendors in front of many eyeballs as possible. Somebody should really investigate how one becomes a favorite vendor, because it seems shady AF. My best guess for what happened to Aukey and Mpow is that they stopped paying the protection money.
I was pleasantly surprised by their removal of Aukey et al, given their past record of willful negligence and attempts to deflect liability for all sorts of horrors. This article confirms it was not actually a change of heart by Amazon.
I'm not entirely sure if Amazon's fake-review enforcement is a deliberate sham (i.e. whether it is malice or incompetence), but this new information does raise the likelihood that it is deliberate policy.
For Amazon Japan, there's a site called "Sakura Checker" (https://sakura-checker.jp") which based on the distribution of the reviews and ratings, the grammar and wording, store's reputation, etc., tells how much the chance of reviews being fake are. Interestingly I checked a few of Aukey products and they were reported as highly having fake reviews.
That site is blocked by Microsoft on my mobile connction sadly.
One obvious clue to the listing being Chinese is the length of the title. Chinese listings tend to include descriptions and usages of the product in addition to the product name itself. I guess it is the Chinese's way to SEO hacking because all products I see on Taobao or AliExpress have the same spammy title all the way to the length limit.
If other companies are created and thriving specifically to fix systemic problems in your company's business model, how much more do you need a 2x4 upside your head to FIX YOUR BUSINESS!?
Posting fake reviews on Amazon is a prisoner’s dilemma at this point. I’m not surprised to see even top brands getting caught up in it, because if you don’t do it your competitors most certainly will.
It's more devious than that. You have companies posting obviously fake 5-star reviews of competitors' products to get them banned for review manipulation. I doubt that was the case with Aukey.
No, it's the other way around: these guys, and many others, were pioneers in these fields of breaking Amazon TOS without any consequences.
They knew they could get away with it, became part of their modus operandi, like a playbook for every new product launched.
But don't take me wrong: I blame all of this on Amazon, they nurtured this for years, by trimming away honest sellers and giving wealth to shady ones.
My example: few weeks after I launched my product in an under developed market on Amazon, a new guy came in. For every ~80 sales I'd get one review, while the guy was getting 7-10 reviews for the same amount of sales (mostly 5 stars). How can you compete with a review velocity that's no where close the organic one?
You also have companies creating fake Amazon accounts using stolen personal data, then purchasing their products and leaving verified reviews.
I have many times received products I didn't order from Amazon and they don't seem to be doing anything about this.
Whats a good online webstore from where to buy equipment for our personnel in the USA, mostly computer monitors, laptop desk stands, usb hubs and so on?
Amazon has been quite bad so far - takes lots of time to find the correct item and then begins the game of "is this thing the real thing or not?".
Employees are spread out in the USA, especially in these covid times. Delivery time is not critical compared to the item's authenticity, pricing and support.
Amazon has been increasing its reliance on 3P sellers (60% of total revenue now compared to <50% a couple of years ago) as they bring in more profit than 1P. Such problems are likely to increase. As others pointed out, plenty of fake reviews out there.
I live in UK & do buy electronics from Amazon mainly because its the only reliable (fast delivery + refunds w/o questions) place to buy cheap Chinese stuff.
This is just a scapegoating of one 'bad apple' to pretend that this action is all that is needed to improve whatever situation Amazon is pretending to tackle here.
In reality the system itself is rotten. Aukey is just a sacrificial lamb to distract from that rotten system.
It seems like they are working on sellers who are offering free gift cards, etc from 3rd party websites for positive reviews. The new one I noticed that is starting, are letters telling me about how hard their lives are, and how they need me to buy their products to feed their kids. Whats next?
I would like an alternative to Amazon, but have not yet found anything directly comparable. Despite promises to the contrary, eBay sellers are almost always charging a higher price. Shipping is slow, even from big reputable companies. Amazon has a lock on fast, inexpensive shipping, and it seems to be a very effective moat. If you buy only products 'shipped from and sold by Amazon' then the rate of fraud is low enough that the easy shopping & fast delivery keep you in the fold.
1 down, 90% of the remaining marketplace sellers to go? Marketplace quality is dollar store bargain bin gambling at this point.
It's easy to see why this is happening too. Internal voices in fraud are drowned out by voices in growth who exclaim about the hit to revenue and conversion rate.
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
Amazon reviews are just another metric. If you do not have personal accountability, the measure will always be gamed.
The reason that reddit is the only place on the internet where you can get general purpose recommendations, is because it relies on the personal accountability of the users giving feedback have between each other. As the subreddit gets to large, this is lost. Treasure small communities.
There is no way to improve the system. The more you improve the metric, the more the metric is gamed. Stop relying on metrics.
[+] [-] the_snooze|4 years ago|reply
Not long afterwards, "Tara" from AKASO (using a gmail.com account with the name "Jessica") sent me multiple requests for the following:
>We sincerely appreciate your comment, which is helpful for improvement of our product and service in future. To bring you a better shopping experience, we would like to send you 30 USD gift card. Would you please help us to re-adjusting your comment rating or remove it?
Thanks to the Amazon review system, companies would much rather spend money suppressing bad reviews of their shit products instead of spending money to make good products in the first place.
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|4 years ago|reply
The deal was that I had to go to Amazon.com, search for a specific keyword, scroll until I found their product, buy it, and then forward my receipt to the company. They would then PayPal me the entire cost and I got to keep the product.
They didn’t even ask for a review, although maybe that request would come after I bought it. Up front, they were simply vying for search ranking.
The margin on some of these products is so high that companies can buy their way in to high search rankings and reviews.
[+] [-] fma|4 years ago|reply
I kept getting spammed to my personal e-mail. I was not sure if they were sending through Amazon system or directly - my guess was directly. Later on I did modify my review. I reduced it by 1 more star.
[+] [-] afavour|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 509engr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slver|4 years ago|reply
Why are you blaming Amazon? What would you change?
You probably know before online stores had their own review systems, it was full of fake review sites (still is) and fake forum product endorsements.
This is not a problem that's here "thanks to the Amazon review system".
[+] [-] fallinghawks|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patall|4 years ago|reply
Else, and I know that its not worth your time, but couldn't you accept their request, change your review, receive the gift card, redeem it, and change review back with a short statement of what happened. I mean, as I understand it, what are they gonna do? (I they do have your address though, I would not play games either)
[+] [-] libertine|4 years ago|reply
Amazon basically became a rigged marketplace where those who thrive are the ones who can get away with a lot of things. From completely disregarding guidelines, TOS, targeted attacks to destroy competitors listings, you name it.
It's just like prisons, people go in and come out worst because that's the game that has to be played in order to survive.
The only one to blame is Amazon that promoted these practices by giving leverage to those who did it. With more revenue, more exposure, privileged access to Amazon account managers (yes, talking to a human is a privilege for an Amazon Seller).
[+] [-] specialist|4 years ago|reply
Similarly, open markets require regulations, enforcement, fair and impartial judiciary (tort), and property rights.
Fraud and counterfeits spoil markets. Lowering trust. Increasing transaction costs. Poorly regulated Freedom Markets™ like eBay and Amazon are net negatives, even while a few thrive on the chaos.
[+] [-] user3939382|4 years ago|reply
Search for 1TB USB drive, look at the results with obviously scam products. This has been there for years. They do nothing for even the most blatant offenses.
[+] [-] deanCommie|4 years ago|reply
At their scale it is absolutely impossible to moderate and keep the problems away. The stacks are against them. Each seller has the incentive to try to game their own product reviews, while AMazon has to attempt to stay on top of the whole marketplace.
[+] [-] nr2x|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agilob|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alangibson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arkitaip|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolfretcrap|4 years ago|reply
Basically there's no way to buy anything in secondary market, yes OLX or Quikr etc... exist but they are limited to only people around you (in same city) and do not facilitate payments or logistics or even reviews.
Now someone can make their own website but product discovery is pain and buyers can't trust reviews on website owned by the single seller, neither can trust the refund will be honoured as you need Escrow to deal with the unknown sellers.
India has people who are interested in saving money and buying second hand tools/machines is an option yet it has no eBay or alternative as if startups in India have a blindspot.
For example, I live a town with population of 500K (200km away from Delhi) and while repairing my car, the mechanic told me he will go to Delhi and try getting the spare part from Junkyard owners.
Maybe guys from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore don't have this problem but majority of Indian population still lives in small towns and villages where finding 1 used part at affordable price can save a business or medical equipment (life). What are the technical people in small towns are supposed to do? Run to Delhi and Mumbai each time you need a spare part?
Such a waste of human efforts, my mechanic could have instead bought it on eBay from a junkyard owner who is also a seller on ebay through courier if eBay like website existed.
Lemme give you another example, sometime back I was interested in a product from Mobil which only comes in 230L barrel packaging, I need only 2liters of this stuff and there were many sellers on eBay selling it in used Coke/Soda bottles, but I couldn't buy it because I am from India.
Similarly, our junkyards are filled with useful servos, PLCs etc..., linear rails, valves but it's hard to find buyers for the junkyard owners because there's no online marketplace for this
India imports millions of tons of waste from foreign countries yet the stuff that's harvested from it has very inefficient market.
This is holding back innovation as you can build lots of cool things from the used machinery/tools which cost wayyy less than the new stuff.
[+] [-] jarcane|4 years ago|reply
Sometime in the past few years something changed though. Shipping prices went up. Prices on name brand goods started climbing up too, sometimes higher than I pay locally even. Savings basically disappeared so I stopped bothering 90% of the time.
Then the flood came. IG without the international competition, the knockoff and counterfeit and aliexpress sellers saw an opportunity and absolutely flooded the site. Now you can't find a name brand fucking anything unless you explicitly search for it, and more often than not it's out of stock. It will sell you a million suspiciously cheap knockoffs with obviously fake brand names, often the same knockoff under dozens of different names and prices.
It really is basically just a shit overpriced Wish now, and it is baffling to me that Amazon have seemingly just allowed this to happen.
[+] [-] qwertox|4 years ago|reply
There's no reason not to assume that AUKEY isn't using the same tactics on international sites
Many of the reviews are taken directly from amazon.com ---- Danielle Schenk Great product highly recommend 5.0 von 5 Rezension aus den Vereinigten Staaten vom 4. April 2019 Verifizierter Kauf These headphones last all day for my husband who works at an oil plant. There noise cancelling is amazing so he can listen to music while protecting his ears. Plus they look like earplugs so he doesn't get fussed at! Great product ----
So it's safe to assume that Amazon has absolutely no issue with this, unless there's a lawsuit threatening them.
[+] [-] mlang23|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KamiCrit|4 years ago|reply
"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking." -Henry Ford
[+] [-] moepstar|4 years ago|reply
For a company that initially was a searchengine (A9 if i recall right, still being used for the site) the search and filter options aren't worthily described if you use the word bad.
I mean, what else besides being able to filter for brands and maybe price is there?
Cue every purchase being research into the fundamentals of the thing you need, together with not being able to trust reviews.
Regarding the reviews, i've turned to only looking at "most critical" reviews - at least with those i'm kinda quickly able to differ between "logistics service dun f'up" and "this thing has so many issues it's not even funny anymore".
Edit to add: my purchases on AMZN are down by like 90% - replacing my online shopping by going to local (hardware) stores mostly
[+] [-] TheRealDunkirk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|4 years ago|reply
So many things. Take a look at NewEgg's search. Even when I search for specific model numbers on Amazon I have to wade through irrelevant results.
[+] [-] notacoward|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] varispeed|4 years ago|reply
edit: also drop shipping filter would be helpful.
[+] [-] sjs382|4 years ago|reply
Amazon wasn't initially a search engine. A9 was created in 2004, by Amazon.
[+] [-] gandalfian|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alangibson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fmajid|4 years ago|reply
I'm not entirely sure if Amazon's fake-review enforcement is a deliberate sham (i.e. whether it is malice or incompetence), but this new information does raise the likelihood that it is deliberate policy.
[+] [-] jptech|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spurgu|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaudat|4 years ago|reply
One obvious clue to the listing being Chinese is the length of the title. Chinese listings tend to include descriptions and usages of the product in addition to the product name itself. I guess it is the Chinese's way to SEO hacking because all products I see on Taobao or AliExpress have the same spammy title all the way to the length limit.
[+] [-] kwanbix|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealDunkirk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fmajid|4 years ago|reply
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketpl...
[+] [-] libertine|4 years ago|reply
They knew they could get away with it, became part of their modus operandi, like a playbook for every new product launched.
But don't take me wrong: I blame all of this on Amazon, they nurtured this for years, by trimming away honest sellers and giving wealth to shady ones.
My example: few weeks after I launched my product in an under developed market on Amazon, a new guy came in. For every ~80 sales I'd get one review, while the guy was getting 7-10 reviews for the same amount of sales (mostly 5 stars). How can you compete with a review velocity that's no where close the organic one?
[+] [-] totalZero|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] varispeed|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techaddict009|4 years ago|reply
More detailed info here: https://lifehacker.com/what-the-hell-happened-to-aukeys-prod...
But again so many small & big seller do the same!
[+] [-] baybal2|4 years ago|reply
I think, after everybody started pointing a finger on Amazon tolerating them, they had to act.
[+] [-] ratiolat|4 years ago|reply
Amazon has been quite bad so far - takes lots of time to find the correct item and then begins the game of "is this thing the real thing or not?".
Employees are spread out in the USA, especially in these covid times. Delivery time is not critical compared to the item's authenticity, pricing and support.
[+] [-] tanjiro|4 years ago|reply
I live in UK & do buy electronics from Amazon mainly because its the only reliable (fast delivery + refunds w/o questions) place to buy cheap Chinese stuff.
[+] [-] beckman466|4 years ago|reply
In reality the system itself is rotten. Aukey is just a sacrificial lamb to distract from that rotten system.
[+] [-] theropost|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|4 years ago|reply
Is Amazon immune to disruption?
[+] [-] 0xy|4 years ago|reply
It's easy to see why this is happening too. Internal voices in fraud are drowned out by voices in growth who exclaim about the hit to revenue and conversion rate.
[+] [-] miked85|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ItsMonkk|4 years ago|reply
Amazon reviews are just another metric. If you do not have personal accountability, the measure will always be gamed.
The reason that reddit is the only place on the internet where you can get general purpose recommendations, is because it relies on the personal accountability of the users giving feedback have between each other. As the subreddit gets to large, this is lost. Treasure small communities.
There is no way to improve the system. The more you improve the metric, the more the metric is gamed. Stop relying on metrics.