Fake Product Reviews Destroy Amazon's Credibility

Amazon has a problem, a big problem -- a lack of credibility and trust.

August 11, 2021 - Los Angeles, CA – Amazon has a problem, a big problem, and it's obvious when you know where to look. Amazon's product review system is awash in fraud, paid endorsements, and particularly troubling manipulation by the e-commerce juggernaut itself. Many of the positive reviews are fake or for something else altogether, while Amazon removes negative reviews.

Amazon has as much incentive in keeping away the negative reviews as the shady sellers do. Amazon and an entire seller underworld are dedicated to pumping up the positive reviews to attract more sales, in turn increasing the fees to Amazon for each item sold.

While Amazon is blocking negative reviews for its own direct sales of fake and fraudulent merchandise, reviewers are recruited and incentivized with cash, coupons, or products to leave four or five-star reviews for essentially worthless garbage products.

While the deceptive practices thrive, Amazon continues to tell the media and policy-makers that it has "zero tolerance" for fakes, fraud, and bad actors. The statement is patently false; Amazon blocks or removes negative product feedback and consumer warnings about dangerous and potentially deadly items while enabling and facilitating counterfeit and fraudulent product sales.

The Counterfeit Report, a global award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, made hundreds of counterfeit and fraudulent product purchases from Amazon, the majority with Amazon as the direct seller. Dozens of negative reviews left to warn consumers about the fake items were blocked from publication. The fake or dangerous products remain, and account managers assigned to The Counterfeit Report have been unresponsive for years, a common complaint from trademark holders and sellers.

Amazon is a big part of the problem. The Wall Street Journal has reported cases where Amazon employees were accused of accepting bribes in exchange for information that benefited third-party sellers. Amazon said at the time that it disciplines any employee in violation of the company’s policies and has installed systems to restrict and audit what employees can access.

Amazon product reviews play a significant role in consumer purchase decisions, but the reviews are no indication of authenticity or quality. Website Fakespot  Inc. rates the reliability of product pages and reviews on Amazon, reporting that more than one-third of online reviews on Amazon are fake. Fakespot’s algorithm looks at reviews and reviewers, analyzing language, previous reviews, and purchase history to determine trustworthiness. On July 16th., Apple removed its iOS Fakespot app on Amazon's claim that the app supplies misleading information. (Fakespot is also available as an Android app).

Amazon's "Verified Purchase" label can easily mislead consumers as it does not take into account schemes where reviewers are compensated for purchases structured to leave phony reviews." Our worry is that millions of online shoppers could be misled by reading fake reviews and then spending their money based on those recommendations," Andrea Coscelli, the chief executive of the UK's Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) told BBC News. "Equally, it's simply not fair if some businesses can fake 5-star reviews to give their products or services the most prominence, while law-abiding businesses lose out."

"We have clear policies for both reviewers and selling partners that prohibit abuse of our community features, and we suspend, ban, and take legal action against those who violate these policies," an Amazon spokesperson told CNET. Amazon claimed it removed 200 million suspected fake reviews before they could be posted to pages for products listed by one of 1.9 million third-party sellers on the platform - a shocking example of the enormity of the problem. How many others did Amazon miss?

A SafetyDetectives cybersecurity team uncovered an open unclaimed (via ElasticSearch analytics search engine) database, exposing an organized fake reviews scam affecting Amazon. The search revealed 3,124,962 records have been exposed in the breach, potentially implicating more than 200,000 people in unethical activities and 75,000 leaked Amazon accounts.

While it is best to avoid businesses that enable, facilitate, or participate directly as criminal enterprises, here are some tips;

• Watch out for an overwhelming number of positive ratings. An equal number of five-star and one-star reviews would be more realistic. People who feel strongest about a product, both positively and negatively, tend to review it. Unhappy people leave reviews; happy people move on.
• Look at whether reviews are spaced evenly over time, or clustered around particular days or a product introduction.
• How many reviews are written by verified purchasers -- those identified as having bought the item directly from a legitimate retailer.
• Analyze the language, looking for repetition of themes, broken English ("Chinglish"), or words that would suggest the posts are written from a script.

Amazon is not a better marketplace that serves consumers; Amazon is an arena of creative destruction, leaving consumers on their own to sort the legitimate, honest sellers from all the bad actors under an umbrella of legal immunity. They are voracious churners of counterfeit, fraudulent items and scams, indifferent to the damage they cause to consumers, legitimate sellers, and manufacturers while fulfilling their desire to be the sole source of items for purchase. There is no incentive to clean up their website -- they make too much money.