As the leader Internet merchant in the United States and Britain, Amazon sells almost everything. (As the logo says, from A to Z.) Do you buy online for Cheap portable charger,, Eco-friendly cleaning suppliesor Headphones for your childrenAmazon is probably your first stop. And when it is time to choose between similar -looking products, most people depend on using reviews.
The problem is that many Amazon reviews are false. Unspoken or desperate vendors pay for brilliant reviews, and some offer gift cards or free products against five-star estimates. Sometimes vendors will even ask for fake negative reviews of competitive products. It is difficult to identify with certainty, which is real, but you can reduce the risk of being bound when you know the warning signs. We have compiled some tips that can help.
Updated July 2025: We have updated this article with recent news, including the CMA crop of Britain on fake reviews, AI adoption, and fake closure.
False Amazon reviews
If you are Shopping on AmazonIt is a good chance that you will see some false reviews. A 2023 UK government report suggested that 11 to 15 percent of consumer electronic reviews on trading platforms were false. That survey led to Explicit Prohibition of False Reviews In the UK in April 2025, as part of the digital markets, competition and consumer -act 2024. But false reviews are not easily uprooted.
Most are positive, expelling the virtues of a product in suspiciously brilliant terms. Short five-star reviews are likely to play the system by accelerating the ranking and visibility of a product. But there are also more subtle attempts to persuade you to buy, where paid reviewers will go into details, may share photos and even write something negative along with many positives. They may win a product four out of five stars, for example, which can be very convincing.
Some sellers are involved in paid negative reviews designed to criticize competitive products. They are typically one-star reviews that focus on opposites and will often mention another product that compares in favor of trying to direct you to it.
Amazon is not the only business website with a false review problem. Walmart, goal, and many others have similar problems (the Federal Trade Commission has put over 700 companies in notice in 2021 and explored a rule that will trigger rigid civilian penalties for rapists). Most tips we discuss here will serve you in general, not just on Amazon.
As Amazon salesmen get fake reviews
Sellers want to increase their sales, and Reviews can do that. The reviewers want to make money or free products. Hence the underground market for false reviews prosper. Are foreign companies Selling blocks of positive reviewsSocial media groups that organize teams from 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. Answer everything‘is “The magic shop“Episode covers some common scenarios and it’s fun listening to the topic.
As sellers handle Amazon reviews
Before we have buried the truth of individual Amazon reviews, there are some nasty store techniques to ascertain. Some vendors abuse the variable system, intended to enable them to sell product variations (for example, different colors of the same device). Amazon’s varied policy prohibits sellers from adding varieties that are “fundamentally different” from the original and which include new versions or models. But it is very easy to find examples of sellers doing exactly that.
Let’s say that a seller has a list with 4,000 positive reviews and an average of 4.5 stars. They can add other products with much less, mostly negative, or even no reviews at all as variations, and at the glance seem as if they have many positive reviews. If you find a list with multiple variations, you need to scroll down to click on See more reviews and then choose the All formats Slot to filter the reviews of the specific product you are looking at.
