Amazon has an ongoing issue of fake reviews, meaning many consumers are swayed to buy items based on false information.
Research By Which?
Fake review brokers increasingly use third-party sites, such as social media platforms, to buy, sell and advertise for fake reviews.
In 2022, Which? went undercover to expose how Facebook groups facilitate the trade of fake reviews. They found 18 Facebook groups which offered free Amazon products in exchange for reviews, acting against Amazon’s terms and conditions. They joined these groups and found that group agents acted on behalf of Amazon Marketplace sellers, posting photos of products they needed reviews for.
From their research, Which? found that within these review groups, reviewers would choose a product and buy it with their own money and were told they would be reimbursed for their spending, but only once they wrote a glowing review on Amazon. The reviewer is therefore incentivised to rate the item highly, at 5-stars, as they are told this is the only way they will get their money back.
These fake reviews can lead other consumers to make purchasing decisions which are based on false information that they believe to be genuine, uncensored feedback from other shoppers just like them.
Which? gave honest reviews for each product they purchased, with ratings of 2 and 3 stars. As a result, they found that they were unable to get back what they paid. They even found that one customer service agent for a brand sent them an email offering a refund and a £15 gift card if they deleted their negative review from Amazon.
What is Amazon Doing to Tackle this?
“In recent years, these fake reviews are primarily being driven by the emergence of an illicit “fake review broker” industry. As our countermeasures have become more effective, the tactics of fake review brokers have also evolved in an attempt to try to evade detection […] As this misconduct is often orchestrated outside of Amazon’s store, it can be more challenging to detect, prevent, and enforce these bad actors if we were acting alone”
As a result, Amazon is utilising advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to help tackle these fake review brokers by detecting their fraudulent behaviour in a variety of ways. Hopefully, this will help to reduce the consumer harm that these fake reviews are having…