Product Review Inquiry With Amazon Marketplace Web Service
Despite measures to gainsay simulated reviews on its platform, our latest investigation has discovered a thriving industry of review manipulation businesses targeting Amazon market and evading its checks.
Amazon sold an estimated $295bn worth of products worldwide in 2020, with many sellers successfully trading through high-turnover online storefronts. Just with competition fierce, some sellers are turning to experts who have built a business from gaming Amazon'south organization.
In December 2020, nosotros signed up to 10 sites offering review manipulation services, including complimentary or discounted products in exchange for reviews, or sales campaigns for sellers to heave their positive reviews. We found:
- 702,000 product reviewers beyond just v businesses
- Ane site claiming to have processed $viii.9m of refunds for reviews it had organised on Amazon
- Review campaigns claiming to be able to achieve 'Amazon's Selection' condition on products in just 10-14 days
- One site selling contact and social media details for Amazon reviewers
We also quizzed review businesses on the tactics they use to stay ane step alee of Amazon'due south checks.
Read our guide on how to use Amazon reviews for tips on avoiding faux reviews and spotting suspicious activity.
AMZTigers – the auction of positive reviews
AMZTigers is a visitor based in Germany offer 'review campaigns' that it claims will 'help your products become best sellers'. It has a large army of reviewers: 62,000 globally, which can be used depending on where sellers ship to, and 20,000 are based in the UK.
Amazon prohibits sellers from paying 3rd parties in exchange for reviews, and says that it suspends, bans and takes actions confronting those who violate these policies. Simply this is exactly the sort of service AMZTigers offers.
We posed as an Amazon seller and signed upwards to notice out more than. After a short registration, nosotros were assigned an account managing director who arranged a call to discuss what we were looking for, including whether we already had stock to sell.
How much practise reviews toll?
For Amazon marketplace sellers that only want reviews, AMZTigers sells them individually for around £xiii, or in majority packages starting at £620 for fifty reviews going up to an center-watering £8,000 for 1,000 reviews – showing how seriously sellers accept reviews, and the investment they're willing to brand.
Other plans starting time with a free option and go up to £88 per month (€99) for 10 reviews a calendar month and l review votes. These are used to 'uptick' reviews so they are more probable to announced about the elevation. If a seller wants shoppers to see 5-star reviews outset, or possibly move less positive reviews down, then upvoting reviews may assistance attain this.
The business relationship manager we spoke to said that reviewers must leave at least 2 sentences in a review, consistent with the guidance nosotros saw on other sites, and also suggested requesting images or video from reviewers.
Securing Amazon'south Choice
The account managing director also told us that AMZTigers could help sellers get an Amazon's Selection endorsement in less than a fortnight by using its pool of buyers to generate sales on certain search terms – such as 'Bluetooth headphones' – on Amazon.
The Amazon'due south Choice bluecoat is well trusted – 44% of Amazon customers told us in February 2020 that they believe information technology means a product has been quality-checked by Amazon. But it'south clearly beingness gamed by sellers, and it'southward non the first time we've raised concerns. Previous investigations have found poor-quality Amazon's Option products that appeared to have been artificially boosted by incentivised and fake reviews.
We shared our findings with AMZTigers, but it did not respond.
Become more advice on how to spot a fake review, discover out more about shopping scams, and learn how to avoid imitation and dangerous products online.
Gratuitous and discounted products for reviews
Another way online sellers can assemble more reviews is by offer products free or at heavily discounted prices in exchange for a written review on a list.
This is known as review incentivisation, and is a exercise that's strictly against Amazon's terms and conditions.
This isn't the first time we've uncovered evidence of sellers offer incentives in commutation for reviews – nosotros've previously investigated Facebook Review groups, and multiple sites we plant hither are adopting a similar approach.
Nosotros discovered a range of review sites designed to link sellers with potential reviewers, some of which even offered a small payment alongside a free or discounted product – ranging from a few pounds up to more £10.
Some sites had additional reward or loyalty schemes, where reviewers could earn points or 'coins' – increasing their desirability to sellers, and potentially earning themselves the pick of more premium products.
Once signed up, you can scan potentially hundreds of products that are existence offered that mean solar day, ranging from children's toys and books to exercise equipment and nutritional supplements.
Reviewers then follow a link to the Amazon site to buy the product, meaning they announced as a 'verified' heir-apparent when they exit a review several days later – an important stride to increase credibility.
Few sites openly state that yous must leave a positive four or five-star review of a production, although some suggestively include an image of v stars in the instructions. We found products existence sold past third-party sellers where it appeared that incentivisation had paid off, including:
- A pair of Enacfire headphones that were being offered to reviewers for gratuitous instead of the usual £35 price on a review site, which had clustered 21,670 ratings and a 4.4-star customer score on Amazon.
- A costless Lavolta Acer laptop charger that as well came with a £iii payment for a review, and had a coveted Amazon's Choice endorsement.
- An Owkey-branded Samsung Galaxy A20e phone cover with 226 ratings and an Amazon's Pick bluecoat.
We shared these findings with Amazon, and while both the Lavolta charger and Owkey phone appear to accept had their Amazon's Option endorsements removed, the Enacfire headphones had gathered a further 3,110 ratings on the listing in less than a month.
Enacfire responded and said it has no cognition, involvement and does not endorse offer rebates in exchange for reviews.
A Lavolta spokesperson said that the brand is not aware of whatever activities on the website Testerjob. It said 'if anyone is offering any reward, this is done without our knowledge and authorisation. We will contact the website administrators to take that listing down. Equally a reputable brand, we condemn fake and incentivised reviews. Generally, we are quite happy with Amazon's review solutions such as Early Reviewer Program and Vine.'
We were unable to get a response from Owkey.
Simulated review tactics to avert detection
All of the sites we signed up to gave communication for how to write reviews and many had criteria for reviewers to see to qualify for rewards.
These included leaving reviews that were at to the lowest degree 2 sentences long and even minimum word counts to reach.
Other measures include leaving reviews a certain number of days after receiving a product, and some sites had no return policies, as returned products are monitored by Amazon and loftier render rates tin can impact the chance of an Amazon's Choice endorsement.
This isn't the simply time nosotros've seen unscrupulous sellers, or those interim on their behalf, adapting to new measures introduced by Amazon or other platforms. In our latest investigation into member-only Facebook groups trading in incentivised reviews, we found users trying to evade discovery past the platforms algorithms past inserting symbols into words such every bit review or refund (eg 're*vi*w' or 're-f*nd').
Direct marketing to existing Amazon customers
One site we signed up to – AMZDiscover – allows sellers to target those they know are interested in item products, and poach them from competitors.
By signing upwardly to one of the paid-for plans, sellers tin access the contact details of existing Amazon reviewers, including information about their reviewer ranking on Amazon, to email addresses and social media profiles.
The site allows sellers to search the URL of an existing Amazon listing, and then download contact details for the reviewers of the product so they can contact them, unsolicited, directly.
It claims that some AMZDiscover clients have downloaded xl,000 email addresses for potential reviewers.
As with incentivisation, this do is against Amazon'south terms and weather condition. All transactions betwixt buyers and sellers on the platform must happen through Amazon'southward own encrypted email service – and it can see sellers banned from using the platform.
How is Amazon tackling fake reviews?
The fact that sellers are having to evolve their techniques to avoid detection of fake or manipulated reviews on Amazon suggests that it is working to tackle the issue.
Amazon told usa that it has clear policies for both reviewers and selling partners that prohibit corruption of its customs features, and that information technology suspends, bans, and takes legal action against those who violate these policies and analyses more than than 10m reviews weekly.
It said that it's taken dozens of injunctions against providers of fake reviews across Europe. Amazon says that it and other online retailers can't practice this alone, and that 'the systematic manipulation of reviews needs consistent enforcement and global coordination with stronger enforcement powers given to regulators confronting bad actors'.
To protect consumers from being misled, Which? is calling for swift and effective action that puts a end to sites that are trading, or facilitating the trading of, false reviews, a practice which is likely to be in breach of consumer police.
Online platforms, including Amazon, must also exercise more to proactively prevent false reviews infiltrating their sites. This includes working with other tech firms where these fake review firms and groups thrive, to shut them down.
If online platforms practise not take responsibleness, the government must urgently strengthen online consumer protections, including platforms' legal responsibilities for faux and misleading review activity, so that sites can be held to account if they fail to go on their users rubber.
In response to our findings, a CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) spokesperson said: 'Imitation reviews are a blight that stop consumers getting a fair deal. We are determined to practice all we can to stamp it out and will examine any new evidence.
'Thanks to our intervention, Facebook, Instagram and eBay accept already committed to tackle the trade of such reviews on their sites and we're not stopping there. We are also separately investigating several major websites to make certain they are protecting people from faux reviews.'
At the fourth dimension of publication, none of the review sites had responded to requests for comment.
We've been exposing the problems caused by fake reviews for years. Browse our previous investigations into imitation reviews to observe out more than.
Source: https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/02/how-a-thriving-fake-review-industry-is-gaming-amazon-marketplace/
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