Amazon reviews - not as trustworthy as they used to be?

[R E S T E C P]

I saw something the other day with 79 5-star reviews and 1 3-star. So I thought - great, people love it!

Read the reviews - all 79 of the 5 star reviews said "I have been given this product at a discount or for free in exchange for an honest review"
The single 3-star review was an actual honest review saying the product was OK, not great.

It makes sense, if you want other companies to give you freebies in future then your honest review needs to be honestly 5 star!

[Hoofy]

How do you start getting freebies?

[Ste1987]

If I'm not sure about a product, I'll always buy if it's from Amazon direct or Fulfilled by Amazon. Then, if it's st, I can just send it back, no quibbles.

[Rude-boy]

Honestly just ignore the reviews as much as possible and buy on instinct and research where you can trust the source material with at least some degree of independence.

Buy via Prime and return if pants.

[mr_fibuli]

Look up AMZ Review Trader. You sign up there and can then request a load of old tat for free in return for leaving an "honest" review. But everyone knows that if they don't leave 5* reviews then they won't be sent any more free tat.

Look out for stupidly long and wordy reviews - they rank you by word count, so this is a good sign of a dodgy review. There is supposed to be a disclaimer at the end along the lines of "This product was supplied for free in return for my honest review"

My best win so far was a free remote control tower fan

[Hoofy]

mr_fibuli said:

Look up AMZ Review Trader. You sign up there and can then request a load of old tat for free in return for leaving an "honest" review. But everyone knows that if they don't leave 5* reviews then they won't be sent any more free tat.

Look out for stupidly long and wordy reviews - they rank you by word count, so this is a good sign of a dodgy review. There is supposed to be a disclaimer at the end along the lines of "This product was supplied for free in return for my honest review"

My best win so far was a free remote control tower fan

Hm. Thanks. The problem with free electronic tat from China is you could wake up one day in an inferno.

[mr_fibuli]

Good job I have a free fan to cool me down then

It sells for about £60 on Amazon though so not that cheep, its on a par with anything you'd pick up on the high street.

I say tat because most of the stuff on offer are trinkets like phone cases and USB cables.

I'm off now to write 250 words on how my new garden hose nozzle has transformed my life...

[Hoofy]

mr_fibuli said:

Good job I have a free fan to cool me down then

It sells for about £60 on Amazon though so not that cheep, its on a par with anything you'd pick up on the high street.

I say tat because most of the stuff on offer are trinkets like phone cases and USB cables.

I'm off now to write 250 words on how my new garden hose nozzle has transformed my life...

You have to start it by writing: I was having a problem with receiving Chinese electronic tat that kept spontaneously combusting when I plugged it in and this new hose has saved my wife and my children.

[Fastchas]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GREAVES-CO-Barrettine-Met...

I'm not convinced these are true but then I've led a sheltered life...

[BRISTOL86]

I've now returned them and ordered some Brainwavz M2s

[CrutyRammers]

Hoofy said:

Look at the 1 and 2 star reviews. If there aren't any, then read the 3 star ones etc.

Yep.

Yep, I always read the negative reviews, as they're more likely to tell you something. Obviously you have to filter out all of the stupid people who bought the wrong thing and then moan about it, but it's easy to spot trends of problems.

[Finlandia]

BRISTOL86 said:

I've now returned them and ordered some Brainwavz M2s

You won't be disappointed, I can promise you that much

[TommoAE86]

I went through this trying to get a Playstation controller that worked with my PC. Installed the Chinese but well reviewed item and found that there was no way to turn off the auto-sleep function which would come on if buttons weren't pressed, the analogue sticks would not interrupt the sleep timer. Sent it back and bought an official Sony controller and downloaded DS4, so so much better albeit double the price.

I tend to go by brand now with my stuff instead.

[MX51ROD]

Rick101 said:

Everything I've purchased recently from Amazon I've subsequently had numerous emails pestering for positive reviews.

I bought a simple PIR LED light to use as a night light in the bathroom for midnight wanderings , so far I am up to 4 mails requesting reviews , I gave in and gave a short review , I think next time this happens , the review will be low due the nagging
Some funny reviews here
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&a...

Edited by MX51ROD on Friday 26th August 14:14

[wack]

BRISTOL86 said:

I get that £25 isn't going to buy you top of the line, but honestly you should hear these things. £5 and you'd feel like you'd been robbed!

I had a 2 hour train journey monday, forgot my headphones , passing a poundland I thought how bad can they be , Like having a fork stuck in your ear , wouldn't surprise me to find out your £5 headphones are the same as poundlands

Binned at the station when I got off

[Max5476]

wack said:

I had a 2 hour train journey monday, forgot my headphones , passing a poundland I thought how bad can they be , Like having a fork stuck in your ear , wouldn't surprise me to find out your £5 headphones are the same as poundlands

Binned at the station when I got off

When I was a not-quite teenager I needed to use some of my hard-earned pocket money on some new headphones, so popped into poundland, what a mistake that was. They were terrible, and one of the cables broke on the day I opened them, changed to some £10 sony in-ears and they did me well for the next 10 years.