Amazon Says It's Permanently Banned 600 Chinese Brands for Review Fraud (theverge.com) 146
An anonymous reader shares a report: Remember when gadget vendors Aukey, Mpow, RavPower, Vava, TaoTronics and Choetech started mysteriously disappearing from Amazon's online storefront, and it turned out Amazon had intentionally yanked them while vaguely gesturing to the sanctity of its user reviews? Turns out they were just the tip of the iceberg. Amazon has now permanently banned over 600 Chinese brands across 3,000 different seller accounts, the company confirms to The Verge.
Amazon says that's the grand tally after five months of its global crackdown, and it's no longer being shy about why: a spokesperson tells us these 600 brands were banned for knowingly, repeatedly and significantly violating Amazon's policies, especially the ones around review abuse. The South China Morning Post reported the numbers earlier, citing an interview with an Amazon Asia VP on state-owned television.
Amazon says that's the grand tally after five months of its global crackdown, and it's no longer being shy about why: a spokesperson tells us these 600 brands were banned for knowingly, repeatedly and significantly violating Amazon's policies, especially the ones around review abuse. The South China Morning Post reported the numbers earlier, citing an interview with an Amazon Asia VP on state-owned television.
Nice but meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly all those banned from Amazon will be back tomorrow under different names, doing the same thing.
Not sure what else can be done, but banning alone is not really solving the issue...
Re:Nice but meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Building a brand for repeat business is a western (Score:3, Offtopic)
concept. This basically doesn't exist in countries with 1+ billion people, the mindset there is someone new will come along to get scammed any minute anyway - so, the idea is to spend as little on overhead/maintenance as possible.
Chinese people do not buy Chinese cars. Google this and find out why, it applies in many areas.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is complete bollocks.
If you had ever been to China you would have noticed how much effort brands like Xiaomi and Huawei put into their image. They sell a lot of gear domestically too.
As for cars, Chinese people buy a hell of a lot of domestically produced cars. Wikipedia has some data from 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You will note that domestic cars are very popular. You see a lot of them driving around.
Re: (Score:2)
Some dude makes a gross mischaracterization, that you easily prove wrong (though common sense was more than enough to derive that) and is moderated +4, 50% Insightful, 50% Informative, and you're here giving a (much nicer than fucking deserved) rebuttal, including evidence, and you're +2, 50% Insightful, 50% Troll.
Are there fucking waves of people with modpoints who are fucking foaming at the mouth to gaslight any topic involving China?
Re: (Score:2)
There are a lot of people who hate China so much they can't bare to see anything that suggests it's no some USSR-style commie hell-hole.
FWIW Chinese cars are really good. The MG electric ones are affordable, long range and very well made for the price. Obviously not Merc levels of luxury but not cheap either. For the high end Neo have some interesting models.
Re: (Score:2)
However, I've had some really great Chinese stuff (My OnePlus) some really bad Chinese stuff (that I *knew* was going to be bad, but whatever- some whiteboxed Bluetooth transmitter) and some pretty good cheap Chinese maker electronics.
As far as I can tell, they're perfectly capable of making trash, or good shit, depending on what the market wants in that segment, and there's no reason whatsoever to think t
Re: (Score:2)
And yet the Chinese car industry is booming, both in terms of domestic sales, but also quality. Western auto brands are in decline there.
Honestly, when it comes to poor quality, it's us in the west who are to blame. The Chinese manufacturers are willing to make to whatever standard we want to pay for. Western demand for dirt-cheap goods is driving quality, not some inability of Chinese business people to make quality products. As to cutting corners to maximize profits, well they've learned from the best
Re:Nice but meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese don't bother with "brands". Traditional companies used to leverage a brand to build trust over time. EG SnapOn isn't competing on price - their sales are built around a trust and faith in that brand that you're paying extra for stuff that works really well.
The Chinese instead just rotate through randomly generated stuff to use the advantage of a neutral stance on a "brand" (because nobody knows if its good or bad yet) and they use that up until the rep turns negative and then switch to a new one. Searching for cordless drills on Amazon you get the usually "established" brands like Dewalt, Makita, Bosch, etc, but you also get: WAKYME, OOX, HYCHIKA, SORAKO, OEKO, WANCHI, ACPOTEL, GOXAWEE, MOKENEYE, etc.
None of those have been around for any length of time and I can almost guarantee that aside from old stock they won't be there in 2 years. The companies won't have gone out of business though, they'll just have moved on to a new name.
People seem to be catching on though and sadly what it's doing is eroding the amount of goodwill/trust people are willing to afford to an unestablished brand.
Both Japan and South Korea have done very well with establishing and maintaining brands (eg, Samsung, Nikon, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Sony, Daewoo, etc), but China simply hasn't. Despite being a huge exporter I can't think of one single actual Chinese brand that is well known. Lots of US & other countries brands that have outsourced production to China, but no actual Chinese brands.
Re: (Score:3)
Both Japan and South Korea have done very well with establishing and maintaining brands (eg, Samsung, Nikon, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Sony, Daewoo, etc), but China simply hasn't. Despite being a huge exporter I can't think of one single actual Chinese brand that is well known. Lots of US & other countries brands that have outsourced production to China, but no actual Chinese brands.
Huawei? Anker? AUKEY?
Re: (Score:3)
...(eg, Samsung, Nikon, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Sony, Daewoo, etc)...
Once upon a time, Samsung was a good brand. That hasn't been the case for about fifteen years now (or longer). Nowadays, they are best known for overly expensive phones loaded with unremovable crapware that sucks both memory and power, overly complicated appliances with HUGELY expensive electronics that break down quickly and regularly, and TV's that spy on you like the KGB/CIA/NSA.
As far as brands go, Samsung is in the same league as the guy selling sex change surgery from the trunk of his car in a dark a
Re: (Score:2)
...(eg, Samsung, Nikon, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Sony, Daewoo, etc)...
Once upon a time, Samsung was a good brand. That hasn't been the case for about fifteen years now (or longer). Nowadays, they are best known for overly expensive phones loaded with unremovable crapware that sucks both memory and power, overly complicated appliances with HUGELY expensive electronics that break down quickly and regularly, and TV's that spy on you like the KGB/CIA/NSA.
I can't say much about Honda, Hyundai, or Daeoo, but the rest of that list are pale shadows of their former glory. Nikon used to be a household name in cameras, but with so few people buying cameras these days, it seems like they're mostly just known for building camera components that go into cell phones. Toyota went off the deep end with hydrogen fuel cell nonsense. Sony ended up becoming an evil entertainment conglomerate that hamstrings their technology to the point of uselessness to protect their mo
Re: (Score:2)
A brand is only useful if you make quality products which could result in repeat sales. There's no such luck with Chinese stuff because it's all rubbish.Brands could only tarnish their sales because consumers would stay away from them next time.
I dare you: name one Chinese manufacturer who is well know for its quality products and has been for a considerable time. You can't because there isn't one!!!
Re: (Score:3)
OnePlus is my favorite phone brand. Lenovo is not perfect but has a pretty good reputation. At least ThinkPad is still a great product line, though of course it was bought from IBM. My main flashlight is a Sofirn--it has some quirks but I still prefer it to Fenix (also Chinese, around for 20 years).
The brands I really dislike, due to a combination of quality problems and their refusal to take responsibility for the issues--Dell and LG are the ones that come to mind right now--are not Chinese. The brands I d
Re: (Score:2)
IBM ThinkPads were renowned for their durability and toughness. The Lenovo ThinkPads still look similar but aren't up to the same standard.
Re: (Score:2)
I again dare you to name one Chinese manufacturer who is well known for its quality products and has been for some time.
Re: (Score:2)
Lenovo. Not the highest quality, but they're a notch above most laptop manufactures.
Re: (Score:2)
This conversation cracks me the fuck up, a bunch of jackasses on the internet patting each other on the back while complaining that everyone else's problem is that they put feelings before facts even though that's exactly what they are in fact doing.
This is exactly our problem with getting people vaccinated.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All in all, not much different from other Chinese manufacturers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I think what you're describing is only true of Chinese products outside the Chinese market. Some of the I've bought on taobao has been pretty good, and at least the pressure cooker and hammer drill brands are still around after 5 and 2 years. And taobao shows you how long a seller has been in business, implying that more years is more trustworthy. They still have rampant fake reviews, though.
The stuff China has in China seems generally better than the stuff that Americans buy from China. At least I have lit
Re: (Score:3)
The Chinese instead just rotate through randomly generated stuff to use the advantage of a neutral stance on a "brand"
Actually no. Those weird-sounding all caps brands (which you do not encounter if you are shopping on no-nonsense shanzai markets like say dx.com or aliexpress.com or wish.com - even though it's the exact same stuff) exist specifically for Amazon.com marketing reasons. The details are complicated but they are registered as US trademarks (IDK if the same specific shenanigans are afoot in say EU) in order to satisfy some Amazon marketing/store requirements. Figuring out how to game your position on Amazon is a
Re: Nice but meaningless (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Both Japan and South Korea have done very well with establishing and maintaining brands (eg, Samsung, Nikon, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Sony, Daewoo, etc), but China simply hasn't. Despite being a huge exporter I can't think of one single actual Chinese brand that is well known. Lots of US & other countries brands that have outsourced production to China, but no actual Chinese brands.
Branding is a relatively advanced concept, and those countries didn't establish reliable brands until they grew for a while. The first step is to produce a lot of cheap stuff, and the citizens are happy because they can buy things they couldn't. Then eventually people realize some things are worth paying a little extra for quality (never go to H&M), and at that point branding becomes effective.
Re: (Score:3)
"...and the citizens are happy because they can buy things they couldn't. Then eventually people realize some things are worth paying a little extra for quality (never go to H&M), and at that point branding becomes effective."
I lived in Korea during the 80-90s, and what occurred was that the income per capita increased dramatically. They were producing crap, and copying virtually everything...nothing was innovated. It had nothing to do with the populous paying extra for quality...it was all about exp
Re: (Score:2)
I can't think of one single actual Chinese brand that is well known.
Haier makes appliances I had one of their A/C units go titsup after two whole years. I then thought I'd but domestic so I got a GE. Ha, it was now owned by Haier since 2016. Returned the GE went LG instead, I hope the Koreans made it. Power tools and parts are mostly all made by one Chinese company. You can get quality tools if you let a good known brand sell you the chinese parts assembled in the US with a large markup. Always Wiki the brand before you buy, most sere sold off years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you have it in a nutshell. Western brands are riding on nostalgic brand fumes using chinese production. I would have far more confidence in the system if I was buyng the same product under an actual chinese name that had any intentions of sticking around for several decades. And for the western businessmen who offshore and sell brand fumes, I piss on them from a considerable height. Some of us actually *depended* on their companies and their products in our line-of-work... not any more.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Those companies aren't too concerned with building brand strength. They are focused on having highly rated specific product pages for shoppers that don't pay attention to the brand. They frequently bombard Amazon with dozens of the exact same product with seemingly random branding applied, so that as some brands get kicked off others are still there and they just have to replenish. They've practically made ban dodging an art form.
Re: (Score:2)
It's costly, but very fast to generate fake reviews. "Building up trust" is no longer a process, getting the first page or so of reviews to contain no negative reviws is far more important to a short term fraudulent business.
Re: Nice but meaningless (Score:3)
Speaking personally, the most I'll do if it's over like twenty bucks is to check out the negative reviews. You can get a good feel for what the actual issues are once you mentally filter out the morons screaming that the product shipped without the "Any" key.
Positive reviews are only ever good for the occasional picture, doesn't matter whether it's China crap or top-of-the-line.
Re: Nice but meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)
Distinguishing between actual 1 stars and spammed 1 stars is reasonably easy for anyone moderately literate.
Re: (Score:2)
Well I often look to see if I find any trends with the 1 and 2 star reviews. Such as a particular failure, or if the users just really didn't know what the product was meant for.
Then I glance at the 3 and 4 star to see what the normal impression of the project is. I rarely ever care about the 5 star.
Re: (Score:2)
Even the five star reviews put by responsible buyers will sometime mention flaws (i.e. 5 stars! it does x great, y great and z bad but I don't care about z so it's still 5 stars. Let's say quite a bit of weight to it but lighter than my previous one. Or larger but it still fits in my pocket, or whatever)
On the other hand, I don't have any idea how many of the five star reviews are really "legit" or not.
(But in a way, I'm used to things having some flaws so I can give five star reviews in the presence of fla
Re:Nice but meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the amount of white labelling going on, it is really hard to know which brand of a given product is to be trusted. In these cases the original manufacturer doesn't sell directly to the public, but instead through variety of branding partners. This is different to knock offs where there is an original brand selling to the public.
Though the overall effect, as a buyer is that it is hard to know which are knock-offs and which are white labelling, and thus who is making the commitment to support the product for the year it is under warranty, or who will be providing firmware updates.
Re:Nice but meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)
In a lot of cases absolutely yes but some of the larger brands like RavPower had "official stores" on Amazon so you had some degree of trust, although I have myself been tricked before with the 3rd party seller switcharoo from not paying attention at checkout.
With most of those brands though I just assume you get zero support, warranty or updates. If it lasts through the Amazon return window that's the best you're gonna get. Tradeoff for a good bargain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If Anydildo rechargeable batteries don’t give a single fuck can you return them as faulty?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Is it? An action with the same result as doing nothing but which required usage of any amount of resources is objectively WORSE than doing nothing.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Often these companies ship without their name on the box or product, maybe on a little paper insert.
I saw one reviewer show that the product came with a different brand on it, so if it comes down to it they'll just ship old inventory under new name even if they did bother to label it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a continuous struggle, indeed. But I'd rather try a brand/product with 10 legit reviews (or no reviews at all) than a brand/product with 1000 good reviews, containing an unknown number of fake ones.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'd rather try a brand/product with 10 legit reviews (or no reviews at all)
There is no consistency between user reviews. I'd rather check a review site that actually compares products against one another.
"USB hub: 10/10 - plugged in my keyboard and it worked right away, greatest product ever."
"USB hub 1/10 - package arrived late."
Rating site: we purchased 8 of the most sold USB hubs, benchmarked them for speed, measured which ports can supply enough amps to charge devices, and benchmarked their speed
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For many products, there are no relevant reviews.
Don't get me started with review sites, especially "Best 2021 [insert product here]" which are in fact 2012-2018 articles with changed dates, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite are the answers from customers.
"Hey can you use this with a laptop?"
Answers:
"I don't know, I use it with a cell phone and like it"
"My package hasn't shipped yet, so I don't know"
"Yes, it works great for me"
"No, it didn't work when I tried it"
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
No. Not meaningless. This is a non-zero value. Those brands are no longer available right now. That's good.
Some portion of them will recreate accounts under new names and others will not.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem being is that it's too cheap/easy to circumvent for these companies that don't actually care about brand strength. Amazon makes it easier to get started for 'small business' and get feedback from 'users', but by the same token opens things up for trivially engineered rebrands and fake reviews.
I wouldn't be surprised if they have highly automated relaunching a new brand for an existing product and firing off the process to get fake reviews going.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not sad at all, they made some good stuff. The problem is Amazon's review system that heavily penalizes products for unfair reasons, like the buyer didn't read the description and bought the wrong thing, or the buyer had unrealistic expectations for that price point.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not sad at all, they made some good stuff. The problem is Amazon's review system that heavily penalizes products for unfair reasons, like the buyer didn't read the description and bought the wrong thing, or the buyer had unrealistic expectations for that price point.
This is what comments *used* to be good for. When you see reviews that are clearly wrong, people could point out that they were wrong, and readers would know. It won't help with the ratings, but those average out unless a product sucks or has only single-digit purchases. Unfortunately, Amazon stopped showing review comments. And now, I don't trust Amazon reviews at all.
That, combined with Amazon incorrectly grouping completely unrelated products as "different colors/styles", failing to group the exact s
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly all those banned from Amazon will be back tomorrow under different names, doing the same thing.
Heh. Also, for each 600 brands that they ban, there are 6000 brands that they didn't even ban.
There are entire categories of products (like headsets) which are majority fraud-based entries. Amazon could start with banning any product that
1) Achieves over 4.98 average star rating with more than 100 reviews (no product is that good. and even if there is, there is always an idiot with "great product, not what expected, 2 stars")
2) Anything that receives over X 5-star reviews more than Y days in a row stra
Re: (Score:3)
If the holding company is just a sales office and a shell they could start a new one and start all over again, but if they try the same tactics they'll quickly get booted again.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But it would be labeled as racist under the current environment saying it's specifically targeting the chinese or something.
Interestingly enough, there are Chinese companies that would say bring it on. If a Chinese company actually gives a crap (as some actually do), they are screwed over by the bad reputation of the little stub businesses dumping knock-off crap from the massive Chinese manufacturing capacity. South Korea and Japan before them went through the same phase of having a national reputation for crap before evolving to actual reputable brands. However with Amazon setup, the cheap crap strategy is more enduring than
Identify product's country of origin (Score:2)
Even if true, it will still take them time and effort — making the operation at least somewhat meaningful... They'll have to change tactics too, because, Amazon must've learned, how to detect — and fight — the methods they've been using so far.
Each product's country of origin has to become a mandatory attribute of the product's description — right next to the very price and rating in impor
Re: (Score:2)
I know can be done. People can stop looking at Amazon reviews and find a third party for reviews rather than going to a site that is literally trying to sell you the thing. There is probably no way to get legit reviews out of a store's website, it's too big of a target for sellers and there is too much profit motive for the site operator.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I know that Choetech (for example) has dozens of other brands under the same parent company who do these "Free products for a 5 star review" Amazon review scams. Most of them still have working stores on Amazon.
Amazon Shady Review Product Name Generator (Score:2)
Get yours here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gTae8RZoO3ynv_XlD6IsdR0kkgw6XTKDoV0R3EhlsoM/edit?usp=sharing
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly all those banned from Amazon will be back tomorrow under different names, doing the same thing.
Not all. We seem to ignore the volume at which Amazon can act compared to what a Chinese spinoff-peddler biz can. Rejoining isn't as easy as you or I in the way of creating a shopping account. It takes time and effort, and ergo, it costs.
Attrition will take the toll out of a number of fraudulent e-retailers, and will inevitably put the brakes on many who, until now, though it was effortless.
It is not going to be cheap for Amazon, but that's just an opex for it, which AZ can legitimately write off from U
Re: Nice but meaningless (Score:2)
Amazon needs to switch to whitelisting, and deep researching to be sure that Happy Fluffy Bunny made by Xiangong, the toy that gives kids chemical burns when hugged does not return as Mister Cotton Tail made by "Zugichan" (formerly Xiangong)
Re: (Score:2)
A good start (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll bet I could find bogus reviews on almost every product on Amazon. And the part where you can take over a brand/existing ad, then change the product but keep the reviews, is horrible.
Re:A good start (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. That and comingled inventory can really screw a legitimate business with knockoff competitors. They really need to do more!
Re: (Score:3)
Or sell at an unsustainably low price in order to create a momentum of positive reviews, then raise the price. With so many positive reviews, people think the item is worth the price, and the ones who don't question their own sanity.
And of course Amazon doesn't let buyers qualify their reviews by revealing the price they paid.
Re: (Score:2)
And of course Amazon doesn't let buyers qualify their reviews by revealing the price they paid.
I've seen many reviews which mention the price, hence sometimes my annoyance that it is no longer on offer for that price.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll bet I could find bogus reviews on almost every product on Amazon.
Yes, absolutely. But many are more of "leave a review and receive a gift" or "received product for free", which are at least mixed with real reviews.
The ones that truly annoy me are products that have 1000 5-star reviews and 20 4-star reviews for 4.99 star average.
Re: A good start (Score:3)
Super TV 1000 made with quality components "Great TV set!"
Super TV 1000 (rev. B) made with crap components and now burns down your house "Great TV set!" :-\
Annoying (Score:3)
Yeah I have to admit I recently was quite confused - I was looking a "dent puller" (suction cup thingy) which had rather good reviews but reading them didn't seem to make much sense.
After looking at the reviews, pictures, and questions for a bit it became clear that the reviews and such were written for an Audi sticker, which they later just changed to the other product but kept all the reviews for the old product.
IMHO the "third party sellers" hurt Amazon more than it helps. Amazon needs to be selling their own inventory, and they need some checks in there to check QC and at a minimum prevent review manipulation.
This is bad, how? (Score:2)
Came fully expecting to see the flood of Amazon-haters declaring why this is a bad thing, and sure enough here they are. I believe that at least one of them is complaining about the banning of a brand that he previously complained about Amazon carrying.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is, they basically banned a few companies whose products are generally decent quality, and left most of the junk sellers who sell the exact same ultra-low-quality products under eighty different names at slightly different prices and keep changing names to stay ahead of the bad reviews. That's the exact opposite of an improvement.
Just get rid of 3rd party sellers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: AlixExpress sucks (Score:2)
I usually find only three star reviews are useful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
When the spammers are all over a product (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>"Just read the actual review. If it's a one-line throw away comment it's pretty useless"
Bingo.... ^^^THIS
Give us a way to filter out terse, meaningless reviews. And give us better "moderation" of reviews so people can better rate the reviews and then filter by them. Having just a "helpful" only button is not very helpful. Amazon's tools for filtering reviews are downright primitive.
Personally, I review most everything I buy from Amazon. And I do issue lots of 5 star reviews. But I also write someth
Re: (Score:2)
Dude...
Your user name rsillvergun....
One could be forgiven for thinking you were trying to impersonate rsilvergun (571051), someone who actually has a good track record and an insightful posting history.
That's pretty despicable and shady. What's your deal?
n/m I don't want to know.
Sadly, they didn't HAVE to cheat. (Score:3)
I have Aukey cables I've used for years. If you make good stuff, you get good reviews, and I've given there stuff good reviews without incentive. I don't like buying everything from China, but there's really no place else to get it from.
I've given bad reviews for trash as well. Seems like I've got some RavPower and Choetech stuff as well, but they don't stand out like Aukey.
Seems to me the secret of good review is just make good stuff and don't play magical-listings. Keep selling the same product under the same listing long term - builds trust.
Review fraud rampant; Amazon only acts for optics (Score:5, Insightful)
Only when the Wall Street Journal reported on RAVpower doing this did they take any action on it, because it put public eyeballs on the problem and Amazon. Then, they deleted the page for that brand, not saying they were banned for review fraud, just a generic "sorry we can't find this page" with one of the cute Amazon dog photos on it. Users who read the article and looked it up assume they're banned, but anyone linked from another source just assumes maybe that seller just stopped selling on Amazon.
Until Amazon wants to take review fraud seriously, or is forced to by media or regulator attention, they're going to continue the same pattern: ignore it until they're called out in an extremely public way, and only on a per-brand/seller basis.
Re: (Score:2)
Only 600? (Score:2)
Only problem is that they'd ditching decent brands (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You can still get them from other places. Better to really, don't give Amazon any money if you can avoid it.
A deluge of OEM junk (Score:2)
All this is due to Amazon wanting to shave a little expense by selling stuff on behalf of other people so they don't have to write off the cost of returns, warranties etc.
How about a list of the banned brands? (Score:2)
I scanned through all the comments and didn't see any mention of a list of what brands were banned.
Held my breath and read TFA.
No mention of a list of what brands were recently banned, just a mention of the same 6 listed in the brief that were banned months ago.
Anyone able to paste in the list or provide a link?
Amazon Fraudently Reviewed Product Name Generator! (Score:2)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gTae8RZoO3ynv_XlD6IsdR0kkgw6XTKDoV0R3EhlsoM/edit?usp=sharing
That's not really going to do anything (Score:2)
You're talking about a "brand" that only exists for a couple days anyway. That's like taking down a malware C&C server, by the time you get everything set and ready to take them down, the malware has long moved on to a new one.
Funny timing... (Score:2)
Just went to the mpow web site to look for solutions to a problem. Put in my model number and came to a page with reviews.
99% of them said "the sound sucks".
The other 1% said "these are gratest! perfect sound quantity!"
Hmmm.
Walmart.com is ironically better (Score:2)
Walmart also allows 3rd parties on their site to sell products BUT validated supply chains under the "Sold by Walmart" label are floated to the top of search results and can't be subverted (i.e. 3rd parties can't sell their own items under the same "Sold by Walmart" item listings). That means things you buy in-store at Walmart can be bought online with confidence that you aren't getting shafted by a 3rd party supplier. Walmart clearly labels the difference and it is impossible to get to the top of search
Re: (Score:3)
One solution could be having the vendor having a physical presence in the country the particular Amazon store is said to be, with a publicly disclosed board of owners. If a store has no presence in that country, then Amazon should clearly indicate "offshore vendor", or something of the sorts.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You say that as if it wasn't intentional.
Amazon's "search" is actively and deliberately hostile to customer.
It does not try to show you what you ask it for.
It does try to make Amazon the most profit, *despite* what you asked it for.
It still boggles my mind that anyone uses that turd. How do they even find what they are looking for, let alone a good deal? Or do they just not care?
Re: (Score:2)
I've given up on Amazon's search and almost exclusively use Google to search Amazon. And even with that approach, I constantly get hindered by keywords in their garbage "People who bought X also bought Y" ads interfering with the search results and making products look like a match when they actually aren't. If you asked me to design a site that was pure window shopping and made any sort of comparison shopping impossible, made any sort of careful buying impossible, and basically made shopping an unmitiga
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon Basics (Score:2)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10... [cnn.com]
That was one hell of a feat, having such a diverse range of products under the same umbrella brand all be defective and deadly fire hazards all at the same time. This has to be a historical first as I've never heard of something like this happening before.
Re: (Score:2)
At least I got the assurian warranty. if it breaks, and I can't fix it (I mean like piston breaks, etc..) I can at least get my $200 back and get a new engine.
If it breaks, there will be something you learn about Assurion, and it won't be that you get $200 back.