Bait-and-Switch Amazon Reviews, Continued
Timothy B. Lee (via Hacker News):
When I clicked through to individual product pages, I found that most of those hundreds of positive reviews were for products other than can openers[…]
[…]
Apparently, shady merchants gain control of Amazon pages for highly-rated items and then swap out the product descriptions. I assume their goal is to game Amazon’s search engine—and to trick customers who rely in a product’s star rating without actually reading the reviews.
[…]
When I asked Amazon about the bait-and-switch review problem last year, a spokesperson told me that “we have clear guidelines about when products should be grouped together and we have guardrails in place to prevent products from being incorrectly grouped, either due to human error or abuse.” But the guardrails against abuse still don’t seem to be working. Abuse continues to run rampant, at least for can openers.
Previously:
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Amazon appears to have its own way of engaging in bait and switch! Ordered an item that had a 10% off coupon from Amazon and completed the transaction according to rules for the coupon/voucher (or so I'd believed!). Yet later the same day when placing another order, it appeared that the order for the reduced price merchandise had disappeared!!! When searching for that item again, of course, it was still available for purchase, BUT NOT WITH THE COUPON DISCOUNT! That certainly looks and feels like 'bait-and-switch.' Word to the wise: take screen shots of any orders that you place via Amazon that use Amazon coupons, lest the transactions just mysteriously disappear!
