Be careful when buying on Amazon...

[TheMystic]

In the last couple of years, Amazon has began clubbing user reviews of products, where products included in the reviews are very different, even completely unrelated to each other.

I was looking for a screen protector for my S22 Ultra, and found one with several thousand reviews, mostly positive.

 

I'm aware many of the reviews are **bleep**. There are several paid agencies whose job is to post reviews on behalf of the seller. So i used the filter feature in the reviews section:

 

And guess what, there is not a single rating or review for the item advertised:

 

So the almost 13k reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars are for other products, not the one being sold. They have clubbed the reviews of screen protectors for all sorts of devices, including other brands.

It is possible that the filter they have set is incorrectly configured. There are users who have reviewed the item for S22 Ultra, and most of it is negative. But the fact remains that products are being clubbed together to create a very misleading impression of quality.

This holds true for several other products too. I have reported this issue to Amazon couple of times before, yet they continue with this practice.

Even if Amazon has an excellent system in place for handling returns and replacements, one must still be mindful of this fact and read through the reviews before making a purchase decision.

Most importantly, do check if the review is actually for the product you are planning to buy.

[TheFastestIndian]

Great info, thanks bro 👍🏻

[user963]

https://youtu.be/_1yZPFqPgck?t=11m3s



If you like my answer click on 3 dots and accept my solution

[TheMystic]

Is the person in the video you?

I stay away from browser extensions as much as possible. Besides, this is a problem with Amazon, and applies to very reliable sellers too like Appario Retail, Cloudtail, etc. While the extension can be useful, it won't work all the time.

If you are using the extension, give it a try and post the results here.

[user963]

No I'm not the person

[Ab_Heartsy]

Good writeup 👍🏼,
Yes bud, some sellers combine reviews, as u pointed out for screen guard, it's also the same for phone cases, sunglasses etc basically everything that sell in huge numbers. So we consumers should read the critical reviews n double check before buying.

I'm not sure if I've seen this on Flipkart tho, can't remember.
Also if somebody is very lucky n if one search deep enough, u can find some cheap but quality gem of smartphone cases in Amazon(TIP by me).
Snapdeal has some hidden gems too, but one need good search skills 😉

[TheMystic]

You can give us some tips on how to search, or what specifically to look for. Just today i saw the same case selling for 3 different prices (one was double the other) from 3 different sellers. That's not something one would normally expect (so much difference in price).

Also, many of the not so popular brands are essentially the exact same item selling under different names.

[Ab_Heartsy]

Well I don't have special tips than most people are aware of, but I use the pages 4-7 pages of the search page mostly to get good deals, some products might not have reviews in those pages but the products might be good than the ones shown in first page.

Also if u add a item to wishlist u'll get notifications whenever it goes down in price, but we need to be very fast in checking out. Also in festive season the prices goes down so adding to wishlist is beneficial that time.

And always check n search in the seller profile page, there might be cheaper listing by the same seller for the same yet sometimes different colour product.

All those points have High RISKS associated with it, I got some good deals with products that doesn't have a single review, but I bought from seller coz the seller rating n reviews were good enough, so some products might not have any review but one can buy it (with risks ofcourse) only after going through the seller details n reviews.
ALL THE ABOVE HAVE RISKS THAT'S WHY I'M SAYING THIS IN CAPS😅😁😁

[TheMystic]

So you scout for the dark horses. I do that too for some items like screen protectors and low value household items.

[Ab_Heartsy]

Yes bud, but for screen guard I still think buying from shop is better, as we can just try it by placing on our phones, n some or most sellers online won't have return options most of the time coz our phones punch hole position n curvature the screen guard are different for many models n they know it but wrongly lists it anyway 😤 may not fit correctly on our phones. But yes it is cheap sometimes than the outside shop. 👍🏼
Also have u tried the loot deals telegram groups, I have it but one needs to be superfast lightining fast⚡, don't know if phone cases include in those.