Hello all,
We have a new brand (only been on Amazon for 3 months now) and we started well. We had worked on perfecting this product for almost one year when we launched so it is truly a high quality and very much improved product versus what the competitors offer. We were really doing well, selling more than we had expected even from the beginning. We received a few 5 stars review, and the only 4 stars we got were from the Amazon Early Reviewer Program. Anyway, even with those we received enough 5 stars for the average to be over 4.8, so the icon was showing the full 5 stars. (important remark for what happens next, we had 10 reviews, so still very vulnerable)
At the beginning of Sep we received the first 1 star review, coming from a customer that only wanted to be seen as “D”. He was claiming a thing that had nothing to do with our product. The sales immediately dropped to less than half.
We spoke to the seller support and they opened a case addressed to the reviews team, because they could do nothing about it. The answer was simple “This review is within our posted guidelines. We won’t remove the review in its current format, and we aren’t able to consider the removal of this review any further. I’m sorry for any additional concerns this may cause.(…)”
Then, mid Sep we received the same day 2 reviews, one was 2 stars, the other 3 stars, both coming from same kind of “customers” that used only one letter names both claiming different issues of the product, again not covered by the reality.
We went back to them to report the problem. Guess what… the answer was exactly the same. This time I replied myself and explained exactly how we were under attack by a competitor in bad faith and we needed to be protected, also showed exactly the proof (there were many details about the product and we also attached pictures showing the claims really had nothing to do with the product). We also invited them to pick any product on our expense and test it so that they could convince themselves it really is how we say, and not what those “D”, “F” and “J” were claiming.
Ever since then no reply.
In the meantime we continued to receive positive reviews and customer feedback, some of them even saying the family/friends were so impressed with the purchase that they ordered themselves. Sales increased, but there are still a long way to go until they get back to what they were before the attack.
It really is easy and cost free to damage the image of a new brand. All you have to do is ask a few friends to order, write a fake review and just ask for a refund… in case they don’t like it so much they actually decide to keep it… haha
It is frustrating and Amazon support does nothing.
What can we do under these circumstances?
Other Sellers have had success with this. It would appear that the reviews you suspected were fake did not appear to be so to Amazon. 
