If you are planning to shop for Amazon Prime days coming up soon, you might want to be careful about fake reviews. Fake reviews are a serious problem for online retailers like Amazon because they can mislead consumers and damage trust. According to a study by Review42, fake reviews influence $791 billion of e-commerce spending annually in the U.S. You know what I’m talking about. A product has tons of glowing five-star reviews for an item that is just so-so at best.
Fake reviews are a cat-and-mouse game Amazon says it proactively blocked over 200 million suspected fake reviews from its stores in 2022. That may seem like a lot, but it’s just a drop in the bucket if you consider that Fakespot, a fake review detection service, says that roughly 42% of all online reviews are fake. It’s a cat-and-mouse game.
Amazon’s legal action against fake review brokers In addition to its proactive technology that protects its store, Amazon also takes legal action against fake review brokers who are the source of many fake reviews. These are individuals or organizations that offer to write or solicit fake reviews for a fee, often using AI tools or networks of fake accounts. Amazon says it has teams dedicated to uncovering and investigating fake review brokers.
Amazon is working on a way for customers to get real reviews In response to the ever-growing menace of fake and misleading reviews, Amazon established Amazon Vine for customers to get genuine and unbiased product reviews. Amazon Vine is an invitation-only program that selects the most insightful reviewers in the Amazon store to serve as Vine Voices. These reviewers can order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers.