Mechanical turk experiment with extreme narcissism

A few weeks ago, I discovered Amazon Mechanical Turk and decided to try to play with it, to see what it could used for.

Digging for stupid ideas, I found my inspiration after reading a post on narcissism: basically, I uploaded a HIT asking workers to write a compliment on my official facebook page in exchange for money. How vain is that? 

The HIT description was :

 YOU MUST HAVE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT AND BE LOGGED IN TO DO THIS !

1) Click on the facebook page link

2) Click on the “Like” button

3) Write a compliment of at least one phrase of good english, ex: “He is very helpful and good looking”.

4) Do you see anything already close to what you want to post ? Then edit your compliment to avoid duplicate data !

5) Press enter

6) Copy/paste the compliment you wrote in the following box

In order to avoid turning this lame experiment into an abuse of facebook, the scope was limited to 20 request. Also, to be fair with the workers who were not told in any way that this was an experiment, I offered $0.10 for each task since it required multiple actions, creativity and a final copy/paste of their results in a form for subsequent analysis.

The results are very interesting : every single worker *did* what was requested and wrote a compliment. The compliments are also at the bottom of this message. Since it was work for hire, I guess I’m clear with the copyrights!

I laughed my ass out after reading the comments - some were just so funny, and at least one was very cleverly worded and genuine enough to pass for what would be an actual client feedback (other applications: if you feel down, for less than $3 bucks you can have a good laugh!)

Of all these comments, only 4 i.e. less than 20% were caught by facebook antispam filter - the grammar was not perfect in these 4 comments, but what seemed the most important factor was that the worker had not uploaded a picture.

Also, every single worker did like the facebook page as requested in step 2, which is more shocking. Not a single one did unlike it after the experiment.

The implications are very simple : when playing a “popularity contest”, as some companies do, all it takes is $10 for every 100 votes, with 0% loss on the likes, and 20% loss if you care about having compliments published on a facebook without any action on your part.

I didn’t want to be a cheapskate, hence my “generous” offer by Mechanical Turk standards. However, due to the very short time it took - 1 day before being completed, the price could obviously be reduced - even more if the task was simplified into just pushing “like”.

Let’s take a conservative hypothesis and estimate that Amazon default price of $0.05 will do. To get a million like would require around $250k. Try to reduce the default price by half, say by only asking for the press of “like” and you could reach $100k per million like.

How many companies have more than a million likes on facebook? Do you think a mere $100k in advertising budget would give you that? Can criminals operating spambots match the price?

Besides the fact that many people will find such an offer good enough or need the money bad enough, I’m appalled by the conclusions for any fair player of the social game.

I wonder how prevalent is such an abuse in the social media world, following the rumors of widespread pay-for-like abuse on Apple iTunes, where the popularity of an applications can make the difference between success and failure.

The compliments were:

• He is looking smart and very clever.
• It should be helped for the future.
• Really nice information is given in english on the website. Thanks.
• I found this page very useful. it provides me lot of  good information.
• he is friendly and looking attractive.
• This guy is looking smart and has a lot of positive energy. Looks very confident
• Very handsome and working in a good company
• If you are facing any problem starting from medical field to embedded programming - your one stop solution is Guylhem, a helpful person by all means!
• he is good and concerning indeed…
• He has good personality and interesting.
• He is very innovative about himself.
• He is intelligent, charming and really good looking besides having a likeable personality.
• He is very handsome and also educated well
• NICE GUY WITH GOOD LOOKING
• this would be very helpful
• He seems smart and very talented
• He looks beautiful in sky blue shirt.
• Hai Guylhem Your very hansom
• He is a very kind hearted and honest person.
• He is handsome and good looking person
• I’m a fan of yours Guylhem :) Thanks for all that you do! :)

Take note on how one took some time to do a google search, found out I was in health-IT and wrote the comment around that.

This was disclosed to facebook, along with the following suggestions in an email exchange where they pointed out proxies:

Of course they could ask user to set up proxies, but this would create
another step and add a risk of failure. More steps raise the price per
HIT, which would require a much bigger budget and reduce the potential
number of abusers.

In this case, either they would ask the user to set up a given proxy
or a machine they control, or setup a full range of IP with proxies -
you could then catch the abuser by IP match or IP range.

Alternatively, they could ask users to set up a random proxy from a
public list, but most of these proxies are busy and finding a good one
usually requires trying 5 to 10 candidates - also increasing the
number of actions and thus reducing user compliance for a given price,
or raising the price.

The silver bullet would be monitoring Mechanical turk HIT jobs for
keywords like facebook, or match facebook URL to trigger or weight the
spam filter.

There is no perfect solution unless you can strike a deal with Amazon
to serve a cookie to HIT workers. You can only increase the price of
the abuse, try to detect it by IP match or monitor the HIT jobs to
feed the spam filter.

I don’t know your internal structure so I can’t advise you on the most
cost-effective way. By default, I would go to HIT jobs monitoring.

Guylhem

Amazon.es in fraud + lying

These last days I thought Amazon.fr might have changed the product description between the date of my order and the date of my refund claim. It seemed far fetched, but it was the only real explaination I saw for the difference between what I ordered and what I got.

Now I have proof that amazon.es is doing exactly that, and even more by falsificating client orders. IMHO it is called fraud.

See this screenshot of the item description for ASIN B0050GNQAK, as posted here on december 10, 2011 : it is clearly a revision 1.3 (follow the big red arrow!!)

And if you do not believe a screenshot is binding, I am sure I did not made any mistake in my order since amazon itself confirmed by email I would get a revision 1.3:

from: auto-confirm@amazon.es sender-time: Sent at 23:25 (UTC)date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 23:25subject: Tu pedido de Amazon.es

(…)

Pedido nº:

171-9404429-3853925

(…)

Importe total:  

EUR 145,47

 
Fecha de envío estimada para estos productos: 7 dic 20111“Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3, 32 GB, dual, 1066, 1200, 1300, 1333, 1600, 1800, 1866, 2133 MHz, DDR3, 1.5 V, Intel (rev. 1.3)”
Accesorio; EUR 126,25
En stock
   Vendido por: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.

Now guess what ?

Today on december 12, 2011, at the very same URL, the very same item is listed as revision 1.0 - and with the same item number (ASIN). Ain’t that strange ?

Check for yourself on  http://www.amazon.es/Gigabyte-Z68MX-UD2H-B3-dual-1066-Intel/dp/B0050GNQAK/ :

That could be an honest website update, but that would be a wrong guess because you need to hear the end of this story.

The very worst is that they ex-post-facto “updated” (some would say “falsificate”) my purchase to list the motherboard I purchased as a revision 1.0 - in contradiction with their own email!!

The only question is why? IMHO, it is to deny customers who got scammed the possibility to return a product different form the one they ordered, so that they can not ask for a refund.

Here they can only ask to return it for an exchange of the same product. The same product is a revision 1.0, which will be officially be attributed to the customer this time, who will thus give away all its hopes to ever get a 1.3

I was more than patient, but that is just too much. Today I got 2 calls from people form Amazon.fr who offered they apologies, and explained that yes, they did a mistake, that it was they fault, and that they would issue a full refund:

Suite à notre conversation téléphonique, je suis désolé d’apprendre que vous ayez reçu votre carte mère avec la révision 1.0 au lieu de 1.3.

Veuillez trouver ci-dessous un lien vers l’étiquette de retour personnalisée. Il s’agit d’une étiquette prépayée, vous n’avez donc pas à affranchir votre colis. 

But still, they didn’t think my thousands K of purchased goods on amazon were worth a single dollar coupon. Lamers.

Anyway, I consider the matter with amazon.fr settled.

But Amazon.es is not doing anything like that. They are now even trying to falsificate my order, by claiming I ordered a 1.0 while I have multiple proofs I ordered a 1.3 - even they own sending slip and their own bill !!!

At this time, I can only see of one good solution : I am going to call my bank and ask to revert the charge, then sue amazon.es for fraud. What they did is just not acceptable. I have all the proofs that they posted a product description, then altered it, then also falsificated the order so that they can pretend that the ordered was right and refuse any refund.

I wonder how long such business practices would fly in the US?

Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 warning : possible false advertisement on Amazon (or is it by Gigabyte??)

For a very special Xmas present, I placed order #171-9404429-3853925 for item ASIN: B0050GNQAK on Amazon.fr on dec 4 - that is a Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 revision 1.3. With ultra fast shipping, 2 days later, I got a revision 1.0 - just check the label right below Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 where it says Intel Z68 / rev 1.0

That’s not what I paid for!!

Hey, mistakes happen, and I figured out the french website may have had an inventory problem, so I placed another order #171-9404429-3853925 on Amazon.es where I got the case I wanted. Even if I pay around 50 Eur/year for premium status to get next day shipping on Amazon.fr, I paid 15%  of the item price in shipping costs to amazon.es in order to get the fastest delivery money could buy (since a computer without a motherboard is kinda useless).  Same product reference, ASIN: B0050GNQAK, and again clearly indicated as:

But 2 days later I got yet another 1.0 - check the label label right below Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 where it says Intel Z68 / rev 1.0, only with a different serial number.

The best thing is that both bills reference the very same item, ex on amazon.fr bill:

And on amazon.es bill:

So they both agree ASIN: B0050GNQAK is revision 1.3, but they believe I’m only worth of version 1.0

Which of Gibabyte or Amazon is trying to unload the remaining stocks and screw the consumer, trying to sell an old revision which won’t be able to support pci-express 3.0 that the brand new and expansive revision 1.3 will???

I spent almost an hour with Amazon customer service on the phone. They just couldn’t give a hand and at a time, after putting me on hold, almost insinuated that it was my mistake.

That’s adding insult to the injury! They even suggested I get in touch with Gigabyte instead. Yeah right, you screw up and it’s up to the customer to try and get the right item sent to him - especially at this time of the year. And on top of that, I was asked to pay for return shipping cost for what Amazon.es second mistake!

Sorry, but there is no way that’s going to happen. At this point, I have to put the story online and strongly advise customers trying to get a  Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3 from Amazon to get in a written statement that they will be sold revision 1.3 - or every better, forget Amazon and Gigabyte and take they business elsewhere - say Newegg and Asus.

PS : Something fishy is going on there. The french website now has no mention of revision 1.3 (!!) Only the confirmation email I have kept mentions a “Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3  C” (the 3rd letter of the alphabet - is it supposed to mean a C?) so I got a screenshot of the amazon.es website while it is still showing that ASIN: B0050GNQAK  is indeed rev 1.3 :

Guys, please take additional screenshot. I really feel like I’m getting screwed here.

It’s not just a matter of almost 300 Eur now (ie circa $400). That’s just plain wrong to try to screw up people at Xmas time.