Fake reviews are not uncommon on Amazon. Now, the mail order company has launched a counterattack, suing the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups.
Product reviews are helpful for many people when shopping online. But if you go through the reviews, you’ll often notice posts that don’t really make sense.
This is due to the large number of fake reviews that are now buzzing on many online portals. Amazon now wants to fight back and announced it on Monday The lawsuit was filed against the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups.
What do fake Amazon reviews have to do with Facebook groups?
A business around fake reviews has taken hold in Facebook groups. People who give false product reviews on Amazon gather here. They get paid for their fake reviews or get free products as a reward.
According to Amazon, stores in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan are affected.
Amazon already stops “millions of suspicious reviews” before customers see them, says Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of affiliate sales. With the lawsuit, the group wants to go a step further to “unmask the perpetrators on social media.”
Proactive legal action against bad actors is one of the many ways we protect customers by holding bad actors accountable.
One of the groups involved in the lawsuit called itself Amazon Product Review. She deleted the meta group, which has more than 43,000 members, earlier this year.
However, this deletion only occurred on the advice of Amazon. Administrators have tried to slip through Facebook’s smear grid before — for example, by using the wrong letters in problematic wording.
How is Amazon dealing with fake reviews so far?
According to Amazon, it employs more than 12,000 people worldwide who are dedicated to protecting against fraud and abuse. This also includes tracking fake reviews.
A special team takes care of fake reviews on social networks. As of 2020, Amazon reported Meta 10,000 fake review groups.
More than half of the groups were meta-banned for violating the guidelines. The activities of other groups are still under investigation.
In 2020 alone, Amazon tracked down and deleted more than 200 million suspected fake reviews.
How important are product reviews to purchasing decisions?
The importance of reviews from other customers should not be underestimated. This has already been shown a survey of online shoppers on the importance of 2011 product reviews.
Accordingly, 64 percent of respondents like to use the ratings and tips of other customers. 63 percent even think that the comment feature has improved the ability of consumers to influence things.
And even in 2020, the importance has not decreased. According to Bitkom survey In 2020, about 66 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds surveyed read customer reviews before making a purchase.
Between the ages of 30 and 49, it was 60 percent. And among people over 65, about 40 percent of those surveyed also use an online review tool.
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