Amazon has taken legal action against review sites.
Amazon is suing four organisations it claims are purposely flooding its online shopping site with bogus reviews.
On their books, three of the companies had approximately 350,000 reviewers.
According to Amazon, the companies function as unauthorised intermediaries between Amazon vendors and reviewers.
In exchange for each review, the reviewers receive free products and a modest fee, and the firm charges the seller a fee to enhance its Amazon ratings.
According to Amazon, vendors are not always aware that fraudulent reviews are being used.
It accuses the companies it has threatened legal action against of jointly targeting its platforms in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, and Canada. It went after three of them earlier this year and is now pursuing a fourth.
As a result, one company has stopped trading. Matronex has “totally shut down” as a result of Amazon’s actions, according to a statement on its website.
There is advise for consumers whose reviews have been rejected by Amazon on the website of one of the firms that is still in business. The following are some of the possible causes for this:
Attempting to submit a review before the delivery date claiming that the goods was free or discounted by ordering the same thing multiple times “from the same location and computer.”
“Please submit your reviews honestly and not too frequently,” it continues.
As part of the deal, Amazon claims that one company has agreed to divulge information about its customers. It argues that this will aid in locating them on its platform.
Because the exchange does not take place on Amazon, it admits they can be tough to see. It says that by 2020, it will have prevented the publication of 200 million fraudulent reviews.
It would be criminal to pay someone to post or host phoney reviews under new suggestions now being considered in the UK.
According to a recent analysis by Which?, nine out of ten of the top-rated headphones on Amazon earlier this year had outstanding reviews for a variety of unrelated products.
Which? praised Amazon for their actions.
“However, our latest study discovered that unscrupulous organizations are still exploiting Amazon’s review system, putting buyers at danger of buying products bolstered by thousands of phoney five-star evaluations,” Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy, stated.
“The current fake review inquiry by the Competition and Markets Authority must seek out any unfair practises intended to deceive shoppers and guarantee that customers are safeguarded while visiting major shopping sites.”
