Fallacies on Amazon Reviews - Hyping by Dry-Knight and Lil' Jumbl

Amazon Reviews are intended to provide a true and unbiased user experience of products sold on Amazon. When Amazon started their "Vine Reviews" and also allowed sellers to offer their product at no charge to "reviewers" Amazon was expecting that such reviewers would be thorough in their use and analysis of the product that was being reviewed. We are sure that some are. We are also confident that there are many others who get the free product for very personal reasons that have little to do with an honest and thorough user experience by them.

1.         When a product is given at no cost to the "reviewer" that is a "freebie,"  which many people like to get only for the purpose of getting a free product. They may have no real use for it, but it is free, and so why knock that?

2.         A person receiving a free product can get egotistical for having being "honored" and given a free product. This often leads to "feel good" reviews and insipid criticisms, if any.

3.         Reviewers of freebie products may do a conscientious job of using, analyzing and reviewing the product. But as they received it at no cost, and did not pay any money out of their pockets for it, the cost of the product is very rarely considered in terms of "valuing" the product. Most consumers do take the actual out-of-pocket cost into consideration, but freebie reviewers very rarely do.

4.         Freebie reviewers are very conscious of and want to continue receiving free products. The great majority of such reviewers believe that a product should be given a 5-stars review so as to continuing to receive free products from Amazon sellers. Very few reviews of these freebies are given less than 5 stars. We have actually seen Amazon comments between two Vine Reviewers who had given 3 stars to a product, that they were receiving negative opinions about their non-5-stars reviews and that this may result in their not receiving further freebies to review.

5.         Many reviewers actually have no personal use for the product that they receive. It is often passed on to someone else, and a 5-stars review written which is superficial and third-party based. Some products are never used in a real-life situation, but false claims are made based on "testing" in a non-user environment. For example, for a freebie bedwetting alarm, a review states:

"This is a wonderful idea. Heavy sleepers can be awakened to get to the bathroom, hopefully, in time to avoid an accident. I did test it, three times with a moist cloth, as directed, and all three times the alarm went off." If this reviewer really examined the facts about this alarm, or compared it in detail with many others as has been provided in great detail on Wired Alarms  the reviewer would realize that in order to make the alarm small [good] the manufacturer must use small batteries that
  (a) possess very little power capacity (about 360 mAH compared to the approximately 2400 mAH for a typical pair of AAA alkaline batteries as used in most alarms) [bad],
  (b) are unable to generate much sound or vibration [bad],
  (c) are exhausted (die) very soon and need frequent replacement [bad].

If this reviewer really was a "heavy sleeper" as stated above, the 76.5 dB of maximum sound level produced by this alarm at a typical distance of 8 inches from the ear, and the very slight vibration, especially as felt through the padding of the armband, probably would not even make the user twitch! Plus not actually using this alarm gave the reviewer no information of its ease of use, reliability, convenience, battery exhaustion, etc.  But a 5 stars review was given to this freebie. Many actual users have pointed out deficiencies in this product in their reviews, and favorable facts as well. IF the reviewer was only considering the psychological effect of a bedwetting alarm on the user (patient) then this alarm might prove just as effective as a $20 alarm or a $200 alarm!
Here is another recent example from a freebie reviewer:

"I gave this to someone I know who has a toddler and asked for their opinion ... Tested on the husband and it works but haven't had an alarms go off on the child yet (only used for a few days now)." Huh? "Gave it to someone I know?!" "Toddler?!" "Tested on the husband?!" "Haven't had an alarm go off on the child yet...?!" And this gets 5-stars from a person who is not even concerned about third-party reviewing! This "reviewer" seems to be completely overwhelmed by the gratuity of receiving the alarm as a freebie, and looking at all of this reviewer's Amazon reviews, certainly has been receiving many gratuities and hopes to receive many more! 82 reviews by this "reviewer", none as an Amazon Verified Purchaser,  with 74 5-stars and 8 4-stars. Incredible and unbelievable!

We have therefore made it our policy to disregard reviews given in return for receiving a freebie.

We have also found that sellers, usually with uninteresting products and/or products with deficiencies, desperate to hype their poor products, are the sellers usually providing freebies so as to hype and increase their Amazon reviews ratings. We are concerned that Amazon has created and is promoting this opportunity to get easy (and possibly unmerited) reviews. In our opinion, Amazon's hap-hazardous review policies are creating substantial potential for abuse and manipulation by desperate sellers, and the misinformation of Amazon buyers.

Two such products on Amazon recently came to our attention.

1.         BEDWETTING ALARM Nocturnal Enuresis Bed Wetting Alarm Treatment sold on Amazon by Dry-Knight, and

2.         Lil' Juml Bedwetting Enuresis Alarm sold on Amazon by Lil' Jumbl .

Perhaps they learned their lesson from Chummie, the undoubted King of Hype!

Before continuing further, we want to mention that these two alarms appear to be identical and are made by the same manufacturer in China. Other sellers of this alarm can also be found to be selling this identical product on eBay and other sites, and the product "brand" name can vary. This manufacturer was the contract manufacturer for another bedwetting alarm seller, who subsequently withdrew the business from this manufacturer. Would anyone care to guess why? The manufacturer appears to be "dumping" this product on whoever wants to buy and sell it. We have already pointed out that this alarm is not FDA registered, and that its sale by shipping to U.S. customers from within the U.S. is illegal. However this does not stop some unscrupulous sellers from ignoring U.S. laws. It is a shame that U.S. buyers are also blind about purchasing such products from such sellers flaunting U.S. laws.

Following are some actual statistics taken from Amazon.com for these two alarms:

It is VERY apparent that both of these alarms have poor or non-existent reviews if the freebie hand-outs given to them are removed. To compare them in depth with other wired alarms we suggest that you look at

Wired Alarms   on the site  Urine Alarms .