As the leading online retailer in the US and the UK, Amazon sells just about everything. (Like the logo says, from A to Z.) Whether you are shopping online for a cheap portable charger, eco-friendly cleaning supplies, or headphones for your kids, Amazon is likely your first stop. And when it’s time to choose between similar-looking products, most folks rely on user reviews.
The trouble is that many Amazon reviews are fake. Unscrupulous or desperate sellers pay for glowing reviews, and some offer gift cards or free products in exchange for five-star ratings. Occasionally, sellers will even solicit false negative reviews on competing products. It’s tough to identify with certainty what’s real, but you can reduce the risk of being conned when you know the warning signs. We’ve compiled some tips that can help.
Updated June 2024: We added details on manipulative tactics used by some sellers on Amazon, refreshed our existing tips, and removed the now sadly defunct Review Meta.
Fake Amazon Reviews
If you are shopping on Amazon, there is a good chance you’ll see some fake reviews. A recent UK government report suggested that 11 to 15 percent of consumer electronics reviews on ecommerce platforms are fake.
The majority are positive, extolling the virtues of a product in suspiciously glowing terms. Short five-star reviews are likely intended to game the system by boosting a product’s ranking and visibility. But there are also more subtle attempts to persuade you to buy, where paid reviewers will go into some detail, maybe share photos, and even write something negative alongside many positives. They might score a product four out of five stars, for example, which can be very convincing.
Some sellers engage in paid negative reviews designed to criticize competing products. They are typically one-star reviews that focus on cons and will often mention another product that compares favorably to try to steer you toward it.
Amazon is not the only ecommerce website with a fake review problem. Walmart, Target, and many others have similar issues (the Federal Trade Commission put more than 700 businesses on notice in 2021 and is considering a rule that would trigger stiff civil penalties for violators). Most of the tips we discuss here will serve you in general, not just on Amazon.
How Amazon Sellers Get Fake Reviews
Sellers want to increase their sales, and reviews can do that. The reviewers want to earn cash or free products. That’s why the underground market for fake reviews is thriving. There are overseas companies selling blocks of positive reviews, social media groups that organize teams of reviewers, and companies that offer all kinds of incentives to persuade genuine buyers to leave a favorable review. Sellers also provide refunds or other rewards to convince buyers to remove or edit negative reviews. Reply All’s “The Magic Store” episode covers some common scenarios and is a fun listen on the topic.
How Sellers Manipulate Amazon Reviews
Before we dig into the veracity of individual Amazon reviews, there are a couple of dodgy seller techniques to be aware of. Some sellers abuse the variation system, intended to enable them to sell variations of a product (for example, different colors of the same device). Amazon’s variation policy prohibits sellers from adding variations that are “fundamentally different” from the original and that include new versions or models. But it is very easy to find examples of sellers doing exactly that.
Let’s say a seller has a listing with 4,000 positive reviews and an average 4.5 stars. They can add other products with far fewer, mostly negative, or even no reviews at all as variations, and at a glance it appears as though they have lots of positive reviews. If you find a listing with multiple variations, you have to scroll down to click See more reviews and then select the All formats drop-down to filter the reviews for the specific product you are looking at.
There’s a second advantage for sellers in abusing this system because it can help them win the coveted Best Seller badge and earn a spot on Amazon’s Best Sellers page. The sales totals that decide best-selling items from each listing include all variations, and the Best Seller badge is applied to all variations. This can create a positive feedback loop that boosts visibility for that listing, which boosts sales, and so on.
A quick look in the Best Sellers in Cell Phones & Accessories, for example, reveals countless abuses of this system. Many sellers are listing multiple products, such as cases for different models of phone, as variations under the same listing. I found the same issue, with completely different models under a single listing, in several electronics categories, from Wi-Fi routers to video projectors.
It’s also alarmingly common for sellers to deliberately list under the wrong category. Sticking with Cell Phones & Accessories but drilling down into less-competitive categories, where it requires fewer sales to get the Best Seller badge, like Crossbody & Lanyard Cases or Holsters, at the time of writing, the top products in both those categories appear to be miscategorized cases.
How to Avoid Fake Reviews
We are not talking about big-ticket items and major brands, where you can easily find legitimate reviews in the media (though counterfeits are a whole other problem). If we may be so bold, you can find genuine product recommendations and honest reviews here at WIRED.
However, most fake reviews target affordable items from unknown brands that only have reviews on Amazon. While it may not be possible to avoid false reviews, you can reduce their impact on your purchasing decisions.
Start by confirming the product reviewed. As we explained above, some listings have multiple products or switch the product listing to a newer version but still have older reviews attached. If there are multiple products under the listing, you must select the product you are interested in, click See more reviews, and choose it under the All formats drop-down. It's also a good idea to switch the reviews list from Top reviews to Most recent to find out what the latest buyers are saying.
The overwhelming majority of fake positives are five-star reviews, and false negatives tend to be one-star reviews, so you are more likely to find legitimate reviews in the middle. Canny fake reviewers understand that overselling is a problem and may award four stars rather than the full five, but no one is paying for two- or three-star reviews.
These red flags may indicate a fake review campaign:
- A very high percentage of five-star reviews
- Lack of detail in reviews and vague praise
- Generic review titles like “Nice product” or simply “Awesome”
- Mentions of competing products
- Wording similar to other reviews
- Poor grammar and spelling mistakes
- Multiple reviews on specific dates (especially if there are long gaps between them)
- “Customers also bought” section contains unrelated products
- Glowing reviews with one small negative that isn’t a deal-breaker
- Explaining away cons
Nothing here is a foolproof way to spot fakes, because legitimate reviews will sometimes have these elements. But you can always dig deeper.
Find reviews of the product elsewhere. If you can find them, reputable review websites and YouTube videos can be handy for getting a closer look at a product rather than relying on a few images.
Look up the brand online. If the company doesn’t have an official website, take that as a warning sign. See if you can find social media pages for the brand, and see what they and their followers are posting. You may find alternative reviews on social media or evidence of incentives for positive reviews.
If you’re suspicious, click on the reviewer’s name to see their profile. Look at how many reviews they have written and what other products they bought. Amazon also lists an Impact score for reviewers based on people tapping that Helpful button under their reviews.
Again, none of these potential red flags are concrete proof. Some legitimate small businesses don't have a web presence, for example. But several red flags together are reason to be suspicious.
What Is Amazon Doing?
Amazon claims it’s constantly battling the scourge of fake reviews. Search “buy Amazon reviews” on Google to see how tough a job that is. The company says it removes suspicious reviews frequently, and sellers who engage in forbidden practices, such as offering gift cards in return for five-star reviews, are sometimes banned.
Aukey, Choetech, Mpow, and the Sunvalley Group (the parent company for RavPower, Taotronics, and Vava), were all famously kicked off Amazon. This raises an interesting point: Just because a product has fake reviews doesn’t mean it’s a bad product. Fake reviews can simply be about trying to gain an edge over rivals or boost visibility. I can personally vouch for some products from Aukey and RAVPower, though my opinion of the companies engaging in these practices is another story.
The Verified Purchase badge lets you know that the person writing the review bought the product. However, some groups will refund purchases to enable reviewers to get this badge and leave a fake review. Sellers can also buy Helpful votes for fake reviews to boost their visibility. In research for this article, we found review swap schemes, where sellers agree to review each other’s products favorably.
Part of the problem for Amazon is the sheer volume of goods and reviews. As a shopper, your only option is to flag suspected fake reviews for investigation by tapping the Report Abuse link under each review.
Amazon’s Vine Program
Another part of Amazon's strategy is the Vine Program. Amazon handpicks people it identifies as its “most insightful reviewers” and makes them eligible to request free products from thousands of brands in return for honest reviews. Vine reviewers are encouraged to provide unbiased opinions, even if they are negative, so the sellers who participate must be confident in their products. Reviews are clearly labeled as part of the program and tend to be more in-depth, often with photos.
While many Vine reviewers are honest, and the Vine badge may signal higher trustworthiness than a regular review, the program has come in for some criticism. Vine reviewers get products for free, but they are not supposed to be paid or sell or give away those products (though it's unclear how, or even if, this is policed). Participating vendors must also pay Amazon an enrollment fee for each product. Unscrupulous sellers may still try to circumvent the program by offering extra incentives for positive reviews.
Fraud-detecting artificial intelligence is a relatively new weapon in Amazon's fight against fake reviews. Amazon recently told the BBC that its AI can investigate suspicious reviews by digging into the reviewer's history, sign-ins, and relationships with other online accounts, including any connected to sellers of the products under review. But AI is a double-edged sword.
As artificial intelligence has muscled into the public consciousness with the arrival of easily accessible AI chatbots, it was inevitable that someone would use them to generate fake reviews. An AI chatbot may not be able to buy or try a product, but it can help a human reviewer create more convincing copy.
Tools Can Help
You may not want to conduct an in-depth investigation every time you need to buy a new potato masher or power strip. That’s understandable, and thankfully there are tools that can help you spot fake reviews.
- Fakespot offers a Chrome extension or mobile app that analyzes review legitimacy and seller history to weed out fake reviews.
- The Review Index tries to identify fake reviews and flag them, but it also offers useful review summaries categorized by specific elements of each product.
We can’t verify the accuracy of these tools, and the ratings and analysis they provide still require some interpretation. Amazon insists its fake review problem is not as bad as these tools suggest. Just be aware that any system designed to spot fake reviews will produce false positives. That said, they can help you analyze unfamiliar brands and products.
You can find more useful advice in our guide on how to shop safely on Amazon. If you do end up buying something that fails to live up to expectations, please leave an honest review to warn those who come after.
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