Shoppers rely on product reviews to make purchasing decisions. Last year alone, 125 million customers contributed nearly 1.5 billion reviews and ratings on Amazon.
But on Tuesday, Amazon said it has seen 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.”
In 2022, Amazon proactively blocked over 200 million suspected fake reviews and reported over 23,000 abusive social media groups encompassing over 46 million members and followers that facilitated fake reviews on social media sites.
Fake-review brokers solicit consumers to write fake reviews in exchange for money, free products, or other incentives, and they social media and encrypted messaging services to reach people, it said.
Amazon used the Tuesday blog post to explain what it’s doing about the problem – including taking legal action – but also to show it needs help from the private sector, consumer groups, and governments to curb the problem. “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 are acting alone,” according to Dharmesh Mehta, who heads Amazon’s Worldwide Selling Partner Services, and author of the post.
Last year, Amazon took legal action against over 90 bad actors around the world who facilitated fake reviews, and it sued over 10,000 Facebook group administrators that attempted to put fake reviews on Amazon in exchange for money or free products.
As of the end of May 2023, Amazon have already surpassed that number, taking legal action against 94 bad actors, including fraudsters in the U.S., China, and Europe.
Mehta said Amazon is in favor of greater collaboration across the private and public sector to stop fake reviews, including the following:
1) Greater information sharing about known bad actors;
2) Clearer enforcement authority and greater funding to hold bad actors accountable;
3) Better controls for services that facilitate fake review solicitation.
Mehta also called for third-party services to join it to educate customers about fake review solicitation and to ensure robust enforcement policies for fake review brokers.
