Fake Unverified Review Pandemic
Amazon Moderators / MOD Team:
The genuine seller community needs your support more than ever. Please help
Enclosed you will find a business-case as per why Amazon should block unverified reviews:
Our US brand among ALL US brands within our product category receive on average 7 to 15 unverified 1-star reviews per week. Meanwhile, the sponsors of these attacks boast their SEASONAL listings with +1000-3000 reviews while genuine sellers play by the rules and launch NEW ASINs for seasonal products. Source of these reviews: dark web review marketplaces where mostly PRC factory sellers shop for reviews to boost their listings, and now since March: to hurt US sellers.
You cannot find most of these sites via conventional search engines and only a Tor browser reveals their existence. It is mind boggling how many sites are offering their review service to boost listings AND HURT COMPETITORS with unverified 1-star reviews.
Call to Action:
• Please escalate for the need to stop dark-web review marketplace commissioned unverified reviews.
• Raise the need for purging all unverified reviews from customer accounts that are less than 75 days old
Technical Approach until a policy has been established to limit/exclude unverified reviews:
- Filter customer account database by age (<= 75 days)
- Filter by customer accounts that left unverified 1-star reviews
(Repeat weekly as these customer accounts pop-up like fruit flies)
These reviews are targeted to hurt brands when their products are most vulnerable: just-launched new ASINs with zero reviews
• Result: suppressed conversion rates translates into suppressed organic review metrics
0 replies
Seller_T5Mv3ZCUSh7Zl
I can agree with limiting reviews to verified purchases. One does have to question if that would potentially limit the reviews for products that are most likely to be gifted and not for Buyer’s personal use.
I do agree that there are issues of review manipulation, etc. and that should be addressed by Amazon (hopefully, it already is, and possible criminal charges are pending). I think calling it a pandemic is unwarranted grandiose, hyperbole. It should also be mentioned that the dark net providers of fake reviews (Amazon and other platforms) are criminals and Law Enforcement should be left to Governments. So we must recognize that there is a line somewhere that Amazon should not cross in dealing with these criminals. Which also implies that Law Enforcement Agencies at State levels but more importantly the Federal level, need to step up and do a significantly better job of identifying victims, and bringing to justice not only the actual hackers, but anyone that paid for their criminal services.
Seller_jZWpyInw8RkYT
@Perhaps, I agree with prohibiting all unverified reviews in an attempt to prevent fake unverified reviews. At this point in Amazon’s lifespan, I don’t see any benefit to unverified reviews anymore.
@The_Sawle_Mill, as far as product reviews for gifts, Amazon could put some mechanism in place for “transferring” eligibility to leave a verified review in place and mark the transferred review as a gift review–possibly via a one-time use link or such that comes with a 
icon.
Yes, any solution will invariably have people find ways to work around it, but it might slow down fake reviews (though certainly not prevent them).
I agree, but Amazon could certainly be more proactive in identifying specific sites or actors, compiling evidence, and registering specific complaints or reports with the right people to get this more attention.
