I was gifted a £130 ice bath in exchange for a five-star review on Amazon
WHETHER it's a copycat SKIMS bodysuit for £15 or a water bottle for £4, Amazon is the go-to site for thousands of Brits.
The retailer is the ultimate one-stop shop for just about everything, with some items arriving at your door in as little as eight hours.
The site was founded in a Washington garage in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, who is now the third richest person in the world, and operates in more than 50 countries with as many as 9.7 million traders worldwide.
The site has 310 million users and the site ships almost 1.6 million packages every day – that's about 20 orders per second.
And many of us won't part with our money until we read the product reviews.
Reviews that we think are real.
But all is not as it seems on the lucrative e-commerce platform.
In an effort to increase sales and their profits, some sellers PAY customers in exchange for five-star reviews.
A recent study of Scam information found that six in ten products on the site had more than 40 percent reviews, which were in fact misleading or completely fake.
Furthermore, a 2023 study shows Which revealed that 10 percent of people who bought from the site between August 2022 and July 2023 had received a note or card in the box offering a reward if they left an impressive review.
Some of these tricks are startling and include offering customers incentives such as full refunds, gift cards, and even cash transferred directly to their bank.
Amazon says it has removed as many as 200 million suspected fake reviews in 2022 alone.
But it seems like many are still falling through the cracks.
In addition to reportedly containing notes in packages inviting customers to falsify their reviews, they are also being targeted via Facebook.
Money to get by
Cheryl* claims this happened to her after she was lured in via a 'spammy message' on Facebook Messenger in the summer of 2020.
“During the pandemic, a few people reached out to me, and that's when I started doing it,” she claims.
The unemployed 27-year-old saw it as a good way to make some extra money as the cost of living started to rise.
3
“The sellers send you about 30 photos of products to choose from and all told I did 19 reviews over about 18 months,” she claims.
Among the products Cheryl gave five-star reviews were a sink strainer and LED lights – with some products worth up to £19.
“I've dealt with a lot of different salespeople; I think once you say yes to one, the word spreads and more people message,” she adds.
“It was constant for a while.
“They were clearly fake accounts and sometimes the different accounts were even Facebook friends of each other.
“Often the sellers would overlap and send me batches of the same products, so I had to tell them I had already seen that stuff.”
According to Cheryl, Facebook would sometimes close accounts while she was talking to them, only to have them reappear shortly afterwards under a different guise.
After posting a review, she sent the seller a screenshot and they processed the refund right away.
What is assessment incentive?
- Sellers on Amazon offer rewards or incentives to buyers in an attempt to manipulate reviews and star ratings
- This ensures that their products rank higher when shoppers search for them
- Refunds usually come in the form of a refund or an Amazon gift card, which can even exceed the value of the original product
- However, sellers will typically only “reward” reviewers in exchange for a four- or five-star review
Cheryl claims that her refunds would typically be made through PayPal, but occasionally through an Amazon gift card.
Amazon discovered what she was doing and her account was eventually banned from posting reviews due to “suspicious activity.”
But by then she had made hundreds.
“They could have easily banned my entire account, losing what I paid for a Prime subscription for the entire year,” she says. “But they didn't, and I was a bit shocked by that.
“They didn't crack down on it as hard as I thought.”
It was a risk worth taking
Another woman, Alice*, claims she was given an ice bath worth around £100 in August last year in return for a positive review, but says the offer fell into her lap “very randomly”.
“I was looking for ice baths on Facebook Marketplace and one came up for £30, advertised as 'like new',” she says.
“I messaged the girl and she told me it wasn't secondhand, but that she had just started a business and was trying to get reviews on Amazon to get it to the top of the search list.”
3
Alice claims the seller offered her to keep the ice bath for free if she left a five-star review on Amazon.
She says it was “worth the gamble” because she planned to buy one anyway.
“She asked me to let her know if I had any friends who wanted to do it,” Alice adds. “It was a real profile, not a fake profile.
“Her photos were real and she talked to me like we were friends.
“But I've gotten messages from fake profiles offering me free reviews – I never trusted them.
“I gambled a bit with this one. But I already wanted an ice bath and was already willing to spend £100 on one, so I thought I'd take the risk.
I probably wrote a slightly longer and more in-depth text than I normally would, but that was because I knew I would get the article for free
Alice
“She had very good contact with me throughout the entire process. She seemed very sincere.”
Alice insists that if the ice bath had been “crap”, she would have returned it, instead of faking a review just to get the incentive.
But she adds, “I probably wrote a little longer and more in depth than I normally would, but that's because I knew I was getting the item for free.”
Alice says she would do the same thing again if the item was something she already wanted.
What is Amazon doing about the crackdown?
Amazon bosses say they “aggressively fighting fake review brokers”.
By the end of July 2023, the company had taken legal action against 120 fraudsters in the US, China and Europe.
“Customers rely on product reviews to make informed purchasing decisions,” said David Montague, Amazon's vice president of Selling Partner Risk.
“And these fraudsters must be held accountable for deliberately misleading Amazon customers, harming our selling partners, and abusing our store.
“These latest lawsuits represent our zero-tolerance policy toward fake reviews and illegal activity.
“We will continue to pursue fake review brokers to maintain a reliable shopping experience.”
These fraudsters must be held accountable for deliberately misleading Amazon customers, harming our selling partners, and abusing our store
David Montague, Amazon Vice President of Selling Partner Risk
An Amazon spokesperson told Fabulous that the company has “zero tolerance” for seller ingenuity.
“We have a robust and long-standing policy prohibiting review abuse, and we suspend, ban, and take legal action against those who violate this policy,” they said.
“We consistently monitor and enforce our policies so customers can shop at our store with confidence.
“More than 99% of the products viewed in our stores contain only authentic reviews.
“We invest significant resources to proactively stop fake reviews, continually evaluating emerging technologies and relentlessly innovating to stay ahead of bad actors as they invent new tools and techniques to evade detection and harm customers.
“We have teams dedicated to detecting and investigating fake rating brokers.
“Customers can report their concerns about fake reviews, or whether a review is for a different product, via 'Report Incorrect Product Information' on the product page.
“Customers who have had direct contact with sellers offering compensation of any kind can send this evidence to us.
“If someone offers you compensation for creating, editing or deleting a review, please email us at report-review-compensation@amazon.co.uk.
“Include the product name and a photo or screenshot of the compensation offer.”
Facebook has been contacted for comment.
*names have been changed