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Comment by daveleebbc | Hacker News Reader

Lack of effort? I wrote the FT piece referenced in CNBC's reporting, regarding the 20,000 fake reviews. While the reviews have been taken down, there doesn't seem to have been any repercussions for the companies. All the products are still live... complete with other suspect reviews (just from users not specifically highlighted by our report).

Amazon could do a lot more. I've just opened up Telegram to see what's happening in the scam review groups today, and within seconds I can see that this wifi range extender is being boosted by paid-for positive reviews: https://www.amazon.com/Extender-Wodgreat-Wireless-Repeater-I...

(The 5-star reviews on that page confirm the theory).

If I can do that, on a Sunday morning, from my home... why isn't Amazon?

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But you can't just remove products for fake reviews. Or else competitors will buy fake reviews for their competitors products in order to get them delisted.

There’s a big jump from committing fraud for your own benefit and committing fraud because it might mess your competitor up. I think you’d deal with a much smaller problem, and, presumably one that companies would be on the lookout for and aligned with Amazon on.

I don't think it is a huge jump. In the past, I was a high volume seller on Amazon and competitors frequently purchased our products and left unwarranted negative reviews or just left a negative review without ever having purchased it. We knew this because in several cases, we matched the shipment address of our shipment with the return address of a competitors product (this was before FBA was huge).

Plus, sellers wash their hands of this by paying a company to boost their listings. It's don't ask, don't tell on how they accomplish that.

Is it a huge jump? Seems to me like it might be a slightly different manifestation of the cobra effect: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

committing fraud is committing fraud. if i'm on a jury, you get no less of a sentence than if you bought the negative reviews.

I’m talking number of cases (how many people relatively would commit the 2 categories of crimes), not necessarily the severity of the crime. But I am now kinda interested in flushing this out lol, Bernie Madoff and Martha Stewart both committed securities fraud, yet served different sentences, but was this ok in your world view?

I don't know the particulars, so hard to say. You're probably wanting me to say intent has bearing. Madoff intended to scam anybody as long as it helped his situation along. Don't know what Stewart's intent was.

You buying positive reviews is intended to make more money for yourself by getting as many sales as possible including if it means another seller doesn't get that sale. The person buying negative reviews is intending to take sales from others so they get the sales instead. Either way, the intent in both situations is to increase one's own position at the expense of others in a fraudulent manner. You're both just as guilty.

For the record, I don’t want you to say anything, I’m just trying to understand where you’re coming from. No agenda with that particular choice, just the first scenario that came to mind of same crime, different sentence.

I don’t understand why you need particulars if fraud is fraud though. They both got difference sentences and did the same underlying crime. Why do we sentence people differently, or is the view that we shouldnt be doing that?

I don't have information on what Stewart did. It's as simple as that. I honestly don't even know what Stewart did. I read up on Madoff. I care so little about what Stewart does, I didn't follow it. Madoff was more interesting to me, so I read more details on it.

"repercussions" covers a lot if things.

23% 1-star reviews? They need to buy a lot more 5-star reviews for me to even start reading the negative reviews and then to consider to buy the product.

Seeing how aggressively all the Big Co. optimize for more profits, wouldn't the reason be something like "Doing this at scale isn't worth the effort"

> If I can do that, on a Sunday morning, from my home... why isn't Amazon?

Because there's no real way of measuring the cost of a fake review to Amazon. Yes, Amazon could do a lot more. What's the right amount to do? How much should be spent on that initiative, and why shouldn't that money be spent on other initiatives?

Honestly? A lot of effort and money is appropriate. People can and have gotten hurt because of fake, deceptive, or counterfeit goods sold on Amazon.

Safety and genuine goods are important things. If they can't or don't care about that, what makes it any more reputable than random vendors on aliexpress, for instance?

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