Amazon Takes More ‘Fake Review Brokers’ to Court

Amazon has filed suit against two services it accuses of churning out bogus product reviews.

“Fake reviews are primarily being driven by the emergence of an illicit ‘fake review broker’ industry,” the retail giant said on its blog Monday (Aug. 14).

“These brokers approach customers directly through websites, social media channels, and encrypted messaging services, soliciting them to write fake reviews in exchange for money, free products, or other incentives. These fraudsters knowingly conduct illicit activity in an attempt to deceive Amazon customers and harm Amazon selling partners through the facilitation of fake reviews and other fake content.”

According to the blog entry, the lawsuits were filed against two brokers: PMNLWeb and ProAmazonService.

The company alleges that PMNLWeb used social media sites to solicit prospective reviewers to leave phony five-star reviews on the product listing pages of “bad actors” operating Amazon selling accounts.

Reviewers buy a product and get a suggestion for keywords that make their purchase appear authentic via organic searches. From there, Amazon says, “PMNLWeb fully refunds the reviewer for the product purchase price in exchange for a fake positive review.”

ProAmazonService, meanwhile, is accused of selling fake “Amazon Customer Verified” reviews and other fake content to bad actors operating Amazon selling accounts, while also allowing bad actors to create their own reviews, offering fake reviews starting from $7.99.

PYMNTS has reached out to ProAmazonService for comment but has not yet received a reply. Contact information for PMNLWeb was not immediately available.

The news came the same day Amazon announced it was employing artificial intelligence (AI) for a feature that highlights what customers have written in their product reviews. 

This tool provides a short paragraph on the product detail page that showcases the item’’s features and customer sentiment frequently mentioned in reviews to help customers decide if the product in question is right for them.

“We welcome authentic reviews — whether positive or negative — but strictly prohibit fake reviews that intentionally mislead customers by providing information that is not impartial, authentic, or intended for that product or service,” wrote Vaughn Schermerhorn, director of Amazon’s community shopping effort.

“The new AI-generated review highlights use only our trusted review corpus from verified purchases, ensuring that customers can easily understand the community’s opinions at a glance,” he added.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has gone to court over fake reviews. Last year, the company filed its first criminal complaint in Italy and first civil case in Spain against the review sites.