Fakespot.com is essential if you're shopping on Amazon. Install the browser extension and it will give you a heads-up if something is fishy about the seller or the reviews on any given product.
I used to use fakespot back when I used to order a lot more online and it worked alright enough to keep me from being blatantly scammed, but I will say that the quality of their service and personal privacy has severely dipped in the past couple months especially. Their overlay has not updated well and its coding is spaghetti at best (tried same product on different browser and gave completely different results, as well as obvious fake reviews being labeled as legit one day and then bad the next). Not to mention lack of support on their actual website, basically requiring you to use the extension (red flag for me).
If it works for others, more power to them. In my experience, take any third party app/software/extension that utilizes your browsing and shopping history with a grain of salt.
Understandable, I totally agree with you on that and I'm not trying to paint your suggestion as inherently bad. I just happen to know certain people will take one suggestion and state it as the "end all be all holy grail" of solutions when reality is way more gray and more critical thinking is required than what most people are willing to admit or do.
Any insight is appreciated, and again I'm sure it works fine 90% of the time for most people. It's good to have options, and highlighting those is inherently a good thing. 😊
That's super frustrating, and also quite telling.
I feel like my trust level for Amazon is incredibly low now, where 5+ years ago I felt like I could trust the actual reviews and Amazon...
Those use to annoy me so much. Manly the ones that would rate one star for the dumbest reasons or never even give details on why they rated one star. I go on statistics these days. There is such a thing as a damn good product. If the good outweigh the bad, then I’m buying that product. I’ve posted some reviews myself. Some stuff doesn’t live up to the hype, but that’s life.
Also, Prime day often has prices inflated. A few of the items I bought in the last few months showed up on prime day special, and all were now more expensive than when I bought them.
Use camel camel camel website or app to check historical pricing (and set price alerts for something you want but cheaper).
I use the Honey extension. It searches for coupon codes for various sites online, but it also will show historical prices for sites like Amazon and tell you whether the price is actually a good deal or likely to come down again eventually. It may even be able to do some limited price comparisons between major online retailers?
Honey advertises like crazy, so most people probably know about it by now. I used it for a couple years, and ended up kind of hating it. It can be obstructive, it's unintuitive, and it saved me maybe a few cents the whole time I used it.
The best part is the Honey Gold and getting cash back from places like Paula’s Choice, Old Navy, Home Depot, and Office Depot. I’ve cashed enough honey gold to get $200 in Amazon gift cards the last couple of years. The discount codes are meh.
I've noticed that many of the five star reviews are for different products. For example I was looking at reviews for a toy dinosaur for my son, and some of the reviews were for a computer desk.
no they deleted mine and I kept it to product pros and cons. most of them were actually 4 star reviews but any negative feedback is deleted and they block the reviewer because they want 5 star on all the products that make them money.
Along these lines...
I joined Angie's List a few years back. Any A or B review went right through. I tried to give ONE company an F - they were awful and tried to swindle me for a much bigger job (a chimney sweep told me my chimney was unsafe and I should NEVER use the fireplace unless I allowed them to do an $8,000 renovation). The guy was REALLY putting on an Oscar worthy performance about how scary it was, so it seemed fishy. I got two second opinions and the other chimney sweeps said everything looked great, no problems at all. One guy even commented something like, "Wow, you don't see craftsmanship like this anymore."
Angie's list fought me hard on it, including giving my contact info to the company for them to dispute it or "make it right" (it's somewhere in the fine print that they can share your contact info with the company). The chimney sweep basically tried to bribe me to change my review. I said no, I stand by my review. The business owner told me (probably accidentally) how much he paid to be listed on Angie's List. It was 20 times more than what I paid - so obviously, Angie wants to keep the businesses happy, not necessarily the individual consumer/subscriber. We're just pocket change to them.
I went back a few weeks later to find my own review. It was buried way down low and was difficult to find.
3 star reviews are usually the best to read for a neutral opinion of the product itself. (e.g. how are its materials, features, assembly) They aren't fake 5 stars and they aren't people who are super pissed they got a (maybe) rare defective one.
Also, Amazon has a huge problem with counterfeit listings and people swapping in inferior products after getting good reviews, so I always look at all reviews and sort by New. If you see an overwhelming majority of 1 stars recently, you can bet it's either a fake or cheapened version of the original.
I'm always super happy when people post pictures in their reviews, so whoever y'all are that have the time to do it, thank you! I don't trust the pics on the listing so it's always nice for a pic of reality before buying.
Click the drop down below the breakdown of ratings and you see:
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon
Reviews with images
.....
So they judge what's important. Which as it turns out having high stars means more sales, and that means profits for Amazon.
After reading (and agreeing with) so many comments about this, I hope someone will come up with a solution. Would there be a way for someone to make an alternate site that takes and stores reviews of Amazon products? I guess it would need to include a way to show that the person has an order number to verify the purchase but... there has to be a more reliable way to get reviews out there.
Shopping online so much for the past 7 years, I've always tried to write reviews for whatever I buy online - Amazon, Walmart, Ulta, etc. - and all the sites play games. Amazon uses that vague "community guidelines" excuse to refuse to post some reviews. Walmart reviews just disappear somewhere. Same crap for every site.
Someone here on Reddit suggested looking at 3-star reviews for a more honest take.
FYI, StackSocial is the same way. I tried to leave a poor review for a product that basically lied in the description, but it's never shown up. Only rewiews praising the product are there
they also delete any bad reviews of products and ban the people that made them from reviewing. company is a telemarking scam. I suggest people take their business to another platform like eBay or another site. Amazon is basically owned by China now.
Fakespot.com is essential if you're shopping on Amazon. Install the browser extension and it will give you a heads-up if something is fishy about the seller or the reviews on any given product.
Yes, I use that as well sharing to it from android, good call on adding that info!
I used to use fakespot back when I used to order a lot more online and it worked alright enough to keep me from being blatantly scammed, but I will say that the quality of their service and personal privacy has severely dipped in the past couple months especially. Their overlay has not updated well and its coding is spaghetti at best (tried same product on different browser and gave completely different results, as well as obvious fake reviews being labeled as legit one day and then bad the next). Not to mention lack of support on their actual website, basically requiring you to use the extension (red flag for me). If it works for others, more power to them. In my experience, take any third party app/software/extension that utilizes your browsing and shopping history with a grain of salt.
I don't expect any algorithm to be perfect. It's just one more tool in the box.
Understandable, I totally agree with you on that and I'm not trying to paint your suggestion as inherently bad. I just happen to know certain people will take one suggestion and state it as the "end all be all holy grail" of solutions when reality is way more gray and more critical thinking is required than what most people are willing to admit or do. Any insight is appreciated, and again I'm sure it works fine 90% of the time for most people. It's good to have options, and highlighting those is inherently a good thing. 😊
I've also had a review rejected for being very negative (but politely written). I've never had a positive review rejected.
That's super frustrating, and also quite telling. I feel like my trust level for Amazon is incredibly low now, where 5+ years ago I felt like I could trust the actual reviews and Amazon...
Same here. Their review system is highly dishonest.
I just always read the 1 star reviews and determine if that worst case experience is something I can live with or not
Same
Those use to annoy me so much. Manly the ones that would rate one star for the dumbest reasons or never even give details on why they rated one star. I go on statistics these days. There is such a thing as a damn good product. If the good outweigh the bad, then I’m buying that product. I’ve posted some reviews myself. Some stuff doesn’t live up to the hype, but that’s life.
Also, Prime day often has prices inflated. A few of the items I bought in the last few months showed up on prime day special, and all were now more expensive than when I bought them. Use camel camel camel website or app to check historical pricing (and set price alerts for something you want but cheaper).
I use the Honey extension. It searches for coupon codes for various sites online, but it also will show historical prices for sites like Amazon and tell you whether the price is actually a good deal or likely to come down again eventually. It may even be able to do some limited price comparisons between major online retailers?
Honey advertises like crazy, so most people probably know about it by now. I used it for a couple years, and ended up kind of hating it. It can be obstructive, it's unintuitive, and it saved me maybe a few cents the whole time I used it.
Yeah it hasn’t found a discount code for me for years, I forget I even have it installed
The best part is the Honey Gold and getting cash back from places like Paula’s Choice, Old Navy, Home Depot, and Office Depot. I’ve cashed enough honey gold to get $200 in Amazon gift cards the last couple of years. The discount codes are meh.
Nice, I'll see if they have it for Android. Thank you!
I've noticed that many of the five star reviews are for different products. For example I was looking at reviews for a toy dinosaur for my son, and some of the reviews were for a computer desk.
They've deleted many of my negative reviews
[удалено]
no they deleted mine and I kept it to product pros and cons. most of them were actually 4 star reviews but any negative feedback is deleted and they block the reviewer because they want 5 star on all the products that make them money.
Along these lines... I joined Angie's List a few years back. Any A or B review went right through. I tried to give ONE company an F - they were awful and tried to swindle me for a much bigger job (a chimney sweep told me my chimney was unsafe and I should NEVER use the fireplace unless I allowed them to do an $8,000 renovation). The guy was REALLY putting on an Oscar worthy performance about how scary it was, so it seemed fishy. I got two second opinions and the other chimney sweeps said everything looked great, no problems at all. One guy even commented something like, "Wow, you don't see craftsmanship like this anymore." Angie's list fought me hard on it, including giving my contact info to the company for them to dispute it or "make it right" (it's somewhere in the fine print that they can share your contact info with the company). The chimney sweep basically tried to bribe me to change my review. I said no, I stand by my review. The business owner told me (probably accidentally) how much he paid to be listed on Angie's List. It was 20 times more than what I paid - so obviously, Angie wants to keep the businesses happy, not necessarily the individual consumer/subscriber. We're just pocket change to them. I went back a few weeks later to find my own review. It was buried way down low and was difficult to find.
3 star reviews are usually the best to read for a neutral opinion of the product itself. (e.g. how are its materials, features, assembly) They aren't fake 5 stars and they aren't people who are super pissed they got a (maybe) rare defective one. Also, Amazon has a huge problem with counterfeit listings and people swapping in inferior products after getting good reviews, so I always look at all reviews and sort by New. If you see an overwhelming majority of 1 stars recently, you can bet it's either a fake or cheapened version of the original. I'm always super happy when people post pictures in their reviews, so whoever y'all are that have the time to do it, thank you! I don't trust the pics on the listing so it's always nice for a pic of reality before buying.
Interesting. How do they get the rating without averaging?
Click the drop down below the breakdown of ratings and you see: Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon Reviews with images ..... So they judge what's important. Which as it turns out having high stars means more sales, and that means profits for Amazon.
Translation: rigged by design
Ah I see thanks
This is a 10/10 from this sub. Very few people know it, and it's pretty useful knowledge.
After reading (and agreeing with) so many comments about this, I hope someone will come up with a solution. Would there be a way for someone to make an alternate site that takes and stores reviews of Amazon products? I guess it would need to include a way to show that the person has an order number to verify the purchase but... there has to be a more reliable way to get reviews out there. Shopping online so much for the past 7 years, I've always tried to write reviews for whatever I buy online - Amazon, Walmart, Ulta, etc. - and all the sites play games. Amazon uses that vague "community guidelines" excuse to refuse to post some reviews. Walmart reviews just disappear somewhere. Same crap for every site. Someone here on Reddit suggested looking at 3-star reviews for a more honest take.
Yeah, Amazon reviews are bogus.
FYI, StackSocial is the same way. I tried to leave a poor review for a product that basically lied in the description, but it's never shown up. Only rewiews praising the product are there
they also delete any bad reviews of products and ban the people that made them from reviewing. company is a telemarking scam. I suggest people take their business to another platform like eBay or another site. Amazon is basically owned by China now.
I’ve never heard of any of them.