Sellers on Amazon are still purchasing fake reviews, despite a crackdown by the e-commerce giant. These fake reviews can be bought for around 15 euro each (about Rs 1,200), Daily Mail reports. Fake reviews are done by an army of “testers” who buy the products and post the four and five-star reviews online, says the report. These fake reviewers are then paid by the sellers. The testers then even get a refund for the cost of purchasing the products, in addition to a small fee.
This additional step of buying the product is done for a reason. This way, these fake testers can also get classified as “Amazon Verified Purchases”. Hence, their reviews seem more legitimate. One such review firm, AMZTigers of Germany boasts about deploying 3,000 testers in the UK alone. “We help you get verified reviews from real people. Our more than 60,000 product testers throughout Europe specialize in writing reviews quickly and reliably,” said the company’s website.
Amazon said it was committed to protecting the integrity of reviews and had spent 300 million pounds (over Rs 2,765 crore) in the past year to protect customers from abuse, fraud and other forms of misconduct. “Our objective is to catch and remove abusive reviews before a customer ever sees it and in the last month, over 99 percent of the reviews read by the customers were authentic,” said an Amazon spokesman.
Spotting fake reviews
Fake testimonials are sometimes easy to spot. A few practices can come in handy. Always check the profile of the people posting the reviews. A blank profile without much information may point to an account created specifically for this purpose. A lot of five-star reviews for products of the same company also could be fishy.
Hence, also check the timings of these reviews. If the post timing is in close proximity to the launch or first sale of an item, it is likely fake. Further, look out for too many reviews popped up over a short span of time. Unless it’s a festive sale, this may point to a bigger targeted campaign with many fake testers.
Meanwhile, feel free to reach out to these profiles and ask them questions. While fake testers will post detailed pointer-wise review, they will likely never reply to help further. Finally, always trust verified purchases only. Do not forget to use your common sense during reading reviews. If a cheap product seems too good to be true, it probably is!
With inputs from IANS
