Why do people answer amazon product questions, "I don't know"?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

On product pages at amazon there’s a place to ask factual questions about a product, such as,* what is it made of, how many batteries does it take, is it waterproof.* Not opinions–that’s what the reviews are for. You can set it up so you get an email when someone answers your question.

Yesterday I posted a question about a product I had just bought–there was something that wasn’t working. Within minutes I had a reply from the manufacturer who told me what I was doing wrong and I fixed it. All happy.

This morning I get another email from a random person, “I don’t know. Sorry.”

I see this all the time in the question section of various products, i.e., people who answer, I don’t know, I’ve never used this product, I don’t know, I bought it, but I haven’t used it yet,, and all variations. And I don’t mean answers like, I haven’t bought it, but I have a similar product and this is how mine works, because that might be a little bit helpful. I mean flat out, Sorry, I don’t know, I don’t own one. Why do they bother posting?

And this isn’t just with orphan questions that don’t have any answers yet. There will be a string of helpful, informative replies to a given question from people who clearly have used the product, and then in the middle, one of these, I haven’t the slightest idea why that is.

What is the psychology of this?

Okay, I’m realize leaving this open for the first witty person to reply, I haven’t the faintest idea, but that’s an appropriate response here, because I’m asking for opinions, not facts.

2

I don’t know. Sorry.

3

I get such emails, and I’ve clicked the “I don’t know” box kind of absentmindedly. I don’t think I’ve ever responded to a question with an actual email though. The Google Guide thing is the same, it asks questions and I’ll click Yes/No/I don’t know as appropriate. I guess it would be similar too if somebody asks on Facebook “Has anybody taken course XYZ?” and they get a lot of responses “No, I haven’t”. I even do that sometimes. I guess there is something in the psyche that wants to at least reply. That’s generally why I reply to something like that. I’m thinking it would nice for them to know their question is being read. I think our brains are simply adapted to socialization, and not to technology. If somebody on the street asked me “Do you know what a whahoozit is made of?”, I wouldn’t ignore them, I’d politely say “I don’t know. Sorry.”

4

maybe someone is getting paid to answer questions and was told to answer them honestly.

5

Same reason people 1-star a product because it’s delivered late or it doesn’t magically come in a color it never was.
Because they’re morons.

6

I don’t think users are going to amazon.com, scrolling through the questions, and posting a response. Rather, I think they’re responding to the notification email sent by Amazon when someone posts a question to a product they bought in the past. The user clicks the link in the email thinking they’re responding to Amazon customer support, but they are really entering the answer on the product page.

7

I almost never get those question notification emails. But I have gotten them a few times. Not sure what the algorithm is.

I agree that this is a likely source. Some people will click on any link in email they get and follow directions. :eek:

The real problem is a page where a bunch of different versions of the product are listed and no one, questioner or answerer, seems to understand that they have to name the particular version they are talking about.

8

This is how it works:
You go on a product page and post a question where it says

You enter your question in the search box, which will initiate a search for questions like yours. If no questions or answers are found, you can then post your question.

IF you have set up the option to be notified by email when someone answers your question (not sure exactly where you do this…), THEN you will get an email at the address that amazon has listed as your primary email address WHEN someone posts a response to your question. In that email will be a link to go back to amazon to the location of the question and the option to “thank” the person who posted the response.

AFAIK you only get these emails if you have posted a question AND if someone replies to your post on the amazon site AND if you have the option set up to be notified of responses. I don’t think this dialogue can happen through email (I don’t see how it could, frankly).

9

Yeah but what **ftg **is describing is the email you get from Amazon with the question. If you’ve bought a product and someone asks a question about it, you’ll get an email asking you to answer the question.

I get an email with the subject: “ZipperJJ: Can you answer this question about LampChamp - The USB Lamp…?” and the body:

I don’t know what the “I don’t know” button does (ha!) but I imagine people click “respond” and type “I don’t know”.

10

ZipperJJ is correct about the situation I was talking about.

11

Ah, threadshitting Amazon. What a life!

12

That drives me nuts. Don’t give a bad review to a product because the shipping was late or Amazon sent the wrong item. IMO, that’s as bad as going to a recipe website and saying “I doubled the sugar, used dark instead of milk chocolate, added walnuts and changed the temp from 400 to 375, these cookies are not good, don’t bother, I wish I could give them zero stars”.

Getting back to the OP, I’ve heard that people get questions emailed directly to them, but I buy a ton of stuff on Amazon and have never had that. Maybe it’s a setting I turned off and maybe people that get these emails feel obligated to answer them.
I have a different idea. I’ve read, right from Amazon, that they do (or used to) give people free items to review. In turn you had to actually review them and you had to be active on the site answer questions. I assume the people that answer “I don’t know” are basically just post count padding. I’ve started replying with “why even answer if you don’t know?” I also mark all of those answers as unhelpful.

13

I’ve never gotten one of those emails, and I probably get 2-3 Amazon deliveries per week. Maybe you have to check an option somewhere to get those, and I don’t have it selected. I dunno.

14

Welp, I was looking for a link to help you opt in to these emails and in doing so I seem to have opted out :frowning: There’s a link in the bottom of the email that I thought might take me to a page to adjust settings but instead it just opted me out. Boooo!

Maybe you can opt in by going to a product page of a product you’ve purchased and answering a question.

Emails come from answers@amazon.com

15

They do have decent filters, though. I’ve run into them when leaving a product review. So they should be able to detect these “I don’t know” answers and just not give them.

Also, I do think you can mark them as “unhelpful,” right?

16

Some people probably think, that they personally, are being asked a question. And they don’t wan’t to be rude and not answer at all.

17

This bugs the living sh** out of me. I shop at amazon for router bits. There are hundreds of different shapes made by Freud. If I’m interested in bit 123 and look at the 1,000 reviews listed, they are a mish mash of every review for every Freud product. And because the individual product reviewer was writing a review of their individual purchase of the 345 bit, they had no good reason the include the product id in their review. After all, why would it appear on the wrong page! I’ve tried to get amazon to correct this flaw in their system but to no avail.

18

Lots of really good ideas here about why people post “I don’t know.” I always assumed they were just really bored and lonely.

19

There are two possibilities why people waste a lot of time typing “I don’t know” as an “answer” to an online question: A large percentage of the population are truly stupid or Amazon awards them points for posting answers. I have no evidence of the latter. I have noticed many times in reviews someone admits to ordering the wrong color or wrong size, and rates the product one star. This supports the first possible cause.

20

On to the next question: why do people post on dormant seven month old threads just to say the same thing already said earlier?