1

When reading any reviews on any online site I do not necessarily believe everything I read. I have thought that the “Verified purchase” notation on Amazon reviews did possibly make that review a little more credible. After all, the reviewer must have actually purchased the item on Amazon to have that notation appear.

Sadly, that is not 100% true all the time.

A few days ago I was contacted by a company that would be recognized by everyone who has been on BLF for even a short time. I will not mention the company by their easily recognized name. I was asked if I would like to review a flashlight they sell. It would come complete with an 18650 cell and a charger. They named the light, said it would be free and mine to keep. I replied, sure, I would like to review the light.

The next message instructed me to purchase the light on their Amazon webpage, then send them the order number. They would then deposit the amount to my Paypal account. I thought that was a strange way of handling things. When I checked to verify that I understood the suggested process they affirmed I understood correctly. They added that they would be certain to deposit enough to my Paypal to cover transfer fees that Paypal would be charging.

After all this bounced around my brain over the weekend, I believe I finally saw the light. (pun intended).

If I bought the light and reviewed it on Amazon my review would include the Amazon announcement of it being a “verified purchase”. It seems that the Amazon “verified purchase” notation is a lot more meaningful, is more influential, than I believed for them to want to pay me the $35 selling price to review the flashlight.

What they proposed rubs me the wrong way. It is a form of cheating. It is deceitful. I am disappointed that this company feels this is a fine way to conduct themselves.

I told them I changed my mind and would not participate.

2

They didn’t tell you it had to be a favorable review, right? Reviews must be the name of the game in internet sales. I know they do influence me, even if only a small percentage are negative. I will read the one star reviews first and sometimes that is all it takes to turn me off. The best are balanced between good and bad. Those I generally trust. I also look for a recurring problem. You aren’t compelled to give a glowing review in cases like yours. Even if they don’t credit PP, just return it to Amazon.

3

Most of the time you can easily verify the authenticity of such reviews and identify the shills, most of these review will contain pictures of the unboxing process which no normal paying costumer would do, and they’re normally very short reviews and contains phrases like “I haven’t fully tested it yet but it seems great” and obviously zero negative points. They also comes in groups of reviews with dates closes to each other (within a week) and then a period of review silence.

However this “issue” is here to stay and there’s no solution to it because they’re buying the item at full price and amazon doesn’t have a way to verify.

I have been part of this scheme many years ago but stepped out the first time they told me the review had to be positive and not focused on the flaws to continue receiving the free goods.

I’m amazed this still exists because there is now a better way for products to gain relevance due to the new amazon algorithm: coupons via platforms like vipon. Basically sell your products at cost or at a loss but sell huge qtys, naturally the 5 star reviews will come because of how cheap the costumer got the item vs regular price, and the algorithm will place said item on top of the search because it’s being bought so much.

4

I have received 1 or 2 offers in the past asking for reviews, but not stipulating the content of the review. I ignored them because after checking Amazon’s policies, I found out they were in violation. They were not flagrant enough, and I was busy enough, that I didn’t take any action about it at that time.

Here is the policy in question:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/YRKB5RU3FS5TURN?language=en_US&ref=efph_YRKB5RU3FS5TURN_cont_201972140

5

i have had a few companies ask for reviews and ask for a ‘favorable review’ i instantly turn them down.
And i agree about the reviews, i can tell the shill reviews on amazon. I look for people who compare the product to others and talk about its bad points.
Instead of reviews which are nothing but praise and no comparison. Even if i love an item i bought on amazon il still complain if its too expensive or they are copying another company.
i guess no matter what systems there are companies will find a way of investing money in making that system work for them and their profits. Always check out the 1 star reviews first.

6

Actually, putting photos will bump your review up, and the more people click the “useful” button, the higher your Amazon score. If you order a lot on Amazon and submit good reviews, you will qualify to get free stuff sent every single week by Amazon themselves.

As a non english native speaker, I also spend quite a lot of time translating product pages on my local Amazon to get free products or discounts (this is a win-win-win-win situation for me, customers, amazon and the seller). Some seller sometimes ask for a review too and I immediately leave one if it is 5 stars. If it is less, I ask if he would still like it published else I won’t publish any review (my review is always helpful though as it often includes detailed images of the product, packaging and from different angles).

7

Thanks for posting MtnDon. Though it doesn’t really help if you protect their name.

8

The whole review thing with pretty much all vendor websites is a sham.
One thing I will give Harbor Freight, they leave up the bad reviews and don’t have them taken down like some websites.

Anyway, most of us who have been here for any length of time have probably gotten those same come on PM’s.

I will not do any reviews anymore on any site and take no free offers to do so.
Spent too much time for a flashlight review on a light that I paid full price for and just wanted to share my observations as it was new to market, took lots of pics, wrote up coherent relevant info, only to see it disappear after one of Amazon’s shakedowns when they said they were going to police their site.
This was maybe 18 months ago give or take, anyway they have only gotten worse since then.

Some of those reviews are like reading some movie critic’s rating of a movie, if they hate it, I’ll probably like it :slight_smile:

How many 1 point reviews are because they owner will not RTFM and then blames the product because they are using crap batteries or do not understand the concept of cycling through modes.
So they slam the product and file returns.
Return policies are too lax anymore, many customers are douchy and get away with it.
I served 20+ years of retail and have seen my share of douchebags and it hasn’t gotten any better since I stepped away from the game.

Enough from me now.

9

I’m not sure if they still do, but Amazon used to allow anyone with an account to review any product on their site, regardless of if they had purchased it from AMZ, or perhaps even if at all.

Therefore, the only thing that can be safely ascribed to the “Verified Purchase” tag is that the item was obtained through an AMZ transaction, ostensibly by the person writing the review. Nothing more, nothing less. There are still plenty of questionable, if not poor reviews that have that tag, and as illustrated, ways to circumvent the process and undermine its intentions.

This was instituted to try to improve the quality of reviews, but sellers still violate it.

Prior, certain categories were flooded by reviews where the opening sentence was “I received this for free in exchange…,” and while those have mostly disappeared, there are still reviews posted recently that make that admission.

Sadly, it’s hard not to take many “reviews” with a grain of salt, and it’s not just confined to Amazon reviews.

10

wuben does or did that-buy it from amazon then they reimburse through paypal

not sure if it was them but one of the companies i reviewed, would not reimburse til they liked the review - i think wuben at least did not require approval of the review, for the reimburse,

so-yes there are back doors to the ‘verified purchase’ thing

wle

11

I confess, I’ve been there and done that and got the teeshirt, but I always try to be fair and honest about it. Anything I’m not interested in, or that looks crappy, I’ll just give it a pass (did that recently, a thanks but no thanks). Times when I lucked out (like the WK30), I tried like Hell to find some fault with it just to appear “unbiased”. :laughing:

Ages ago, one seller did the buy-then-paypal thing, and I gave a thorough review, then they offered another light for review but only wanted a quick “wow, great light!” and weren’t really interested in a “professional review” (their words). Hmf. Didn’t do that again…

To me, it’s easy to give a good review for something that’s a genuinely good product. But then again, sometimes you can’t. I kinda gave a solid “meh…” to the Wuben E01. Great value for the price (7bux!!), but I’m not thrilled with the mooshy switch, and hate hate hate SOS that keeps hitting me when I don’t want it. But for 7bux? I’ll live with it. Well, at least the only one that I actually opened. The others will probably get sold or gifted out.

But any seller that wants to “withhold” paypal bux unless/until you give a good review, is just plain stoopit. You can then return the item (zing #1) and then slam the item in a review (zing #2) as the reason you’re returning it. They gotta know that, no? So you really can’t have your bux be “held hostage” in exchange for a glowing review.

Basically, just do whatever you want, as long as you can still sleep at night. If someone you know personally went and bought you a light, would you review it, good and bad? So does it really make a diff if it’s a seller buying it for you? What’s the worst that can happen if you give it some negatives? No more reviews? Nothing lost, nothing out of your pocket. But if a fair review gives people the pluses and minuses of a product, it ain’t all that bad, even if the product is a freebie. Moreso if it’s a product you wouldn’t buy on your own (“yeesh, how many ‘tactical lights’ do I need?!?”).

Hell, I’d rather go to a trade show and get a free shirt, water-bottle, tote-bag, whatever, with some company’s logo slathered across it, than pay big bux to have “HILFIGER” or “AERO” spattered across it instead. It’s free advertising for them, so let them pay me to be a walking billboard for their brand.

12

Yeah, that bugs me, too, and if I were interested at all (kinda doubtful at that point) I’d say up front that it’d be an honest review or no review at all.

13

Hjeh, that’s pretty stooooopit of them to try that, at least if you bought through Amazon. :laughing:

A-to-Z, folx. A-to-Z. :smiling_imp:

14

Free flashlight?

SWEEEET !!! :wink:

15

I know that customer reviews aren't always real, but if I cannot find a professional review I frequently rely on customer reviews when online shopping.

And I actually like Amazon reviews more than those on other vendor sites.

16

This is done for all kinds of products. I haven’t ever done one but know of people who have. Companies do this A LOT. And the reviewer is beholden to make a good review, for fear of not getting reimbursed.

Amazon reviews are difficult to gauge when they’re not in the thousands. Are these “real” verified, or surrogate verified? I look to the negative reviews, actually. Even if they’re few. I check them for:

  1. DATE - how recently they were made. Sometimes issues were addressed later on, or issues cropped up later after ownership.
  2. CONTENT - is this a well written review? Is the person articulating something that makes sense?
  3. RELEVANCE - is the issue the person had relevant? Some people will give a very low rating because of things like vendor service, or a nitpick issue that is being exaggerated. If there’s some recent bad reviews, I check for consistency. Are people tending to report the same thing?
17

On amazon you can just return the light within 30 days so there is no way to “force” a good review there :wink:

18

The point I was trying to make is that a) you buy the light, b) you review the light, c) you get reimbursed for your purchase price. If “b)” isn’t a positive review, then there’s a chance “c)” won’t happen.

19

And its a free return on amazon within 30 days

So theres no way they can enforce the positive review as youll just return it with free return shipping

Not to mention the person will probably leave a negative review at that point (just claim defective or something similar)

Its not like the company can complain to amazon about it :wink:

20

I usually start to read the 3- and 4-star reviews as these are often well-balanced between the good and the bad about the product. I stopped to publish reviews on Amazon long ago as their customer review approval process has become intransparent and unpredictable. Too often a review was being rejected for reasons unknown. My reviews always contain negative criticism as there is no such thing as a perfect product. There is always something to improve. I was also offered to review flashlights or other products but no seller has ever dared to hold back the refund until they deemed my review to be positive enough. I would immediately turn away in such a case.

There was one time that the seller did not want to send the refund before the review is published. I had to negotiate the terms over several e-mails until they agreed but it was worth it as I was really interested in testing the product.