Amazon is suing admins of more than 10,000 global Facebook Groups claiming to have paid people to post fake product reviews.
The retail giant has launched legal action against the owners of the “nefarious” Facebook groups in Washington King County, near its Seattle headquarters.
According to reports, members are persuaded to leave positive reviews on Amazon stores in the US, UK, Germany, France, ItalySpain and Japan for money or gifts.
Amazon told MailOnline that the Facebook groups are run by “brokers” who offer their services to third-party sellers on Amazon.
Through their Facebook groups, the brokers orchestrate rave reviews for the third-party products, which makes the sellers appear more prominent on Amazon’s website and search engines, and in turn boosts their sales.
One of the groups identified in the lawsuit is Amazon Product Review, which had more than 43,000 members until Meta dissolved the group earlier this year
Amazon said it wants to ensure that every review that appears on its stores “is trustworthy and reflects an actual customer experience.”
“Our teams stop millions of suspicious reviews before they’re even seen by customers, and this lawsuit goes a step further to expose perpetrators operating on social media,” said Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Selling Partner Services at Amazon.
“Proactive legal action against bad actors is one of many ways we protect customers by holding bad actors accountable.”
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, emphasized that it is working to identify and remove groups that promote fake user reviews.
“Groups that solicit or encourage fake reviews are in violation of our policies and will be removed,” said a Meta spokesperson.
“We are working with Amazon on this matter and will continue to work with the wider industry to fight spam and fake reviews.”
The scammers behind such groups are said to solicit fake reviews for hundreds of products for sale on Amazon, including car stereos and camera tripods.
One of the groups identified in the lawsuit is Amazon Product Review, which had more than 43,000 members until Meta dissolved the group earlier this year.
Amazon’s investigations revealed that the group’s administrators attempted to hide its activities and bypass Facebook’s automated detection tools.
An example is giving users the option “R*fnd Afterr R*vew” (refund after verification), using asterisks to disguise the administrator’s intentions.
The scammers behind such groups solicit fake reviews for hundreds of products sold on Amazon, including car stereos and camera tripods
Consumer Champion Which? has already exposed the problem of fake review groups on Facebook after a recent investigation.
The? Employees were able to find objectionable groups “relatively easily” by searching Facebook for keywords such as “Amazon five-star rating” and “free AMZ.”
“We were sometimes faced with a message warning us that the term was associated with fraudulent activity.” Which? said in his findings.
“But we just clicked next to continue our search, which raises the question of how effective such alerts are.”
The? said the groups’ owners are often based in China, India and Pakistan and post photos of products for which they need reviews.
A Which? Today’s spokesman commended Amazon for taking legal action but urged Meta to do more.
“It raises big question marks about the proactive measures Facebook is taking to crack down on fake review agents and protect consumers,” said Rocio Concha, which? Director of Policy and Advocacy.
“Facebook needs to explain why these activities appear to be so widespread, and the competition and markets authority needs to ask the company to provide evidence that the actions it is taking are effective.
“Otherwise, they should consider taking stronger action against the platform.”
These positive reviews make sellers appear more prominent on the Amazon site, which can boost their sales
Amazon said it strictly prohibits fake reviews and has more than 12,000 employees worldwide dedicated to protecting its stores from fraud and abuse, including fake reviews.
A dedicated team investigates fake rating schemes on social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, and regularly reports the abusive groups to these companies.
Since 2020, Amazon Meta has reported more than 10,000 fake review groups, and of those, Meta has shut down more than half of the groups for policy violations and continues to investigate others.
Over the past year, Amazon legal action has shut down several major review brokers targeting customers in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
“However, the nefarious business of brokering fake reviews remains an industry-wide problem, and civil litigation is just one step,” Amazon said in a statement.
“Permanently eliminating fake reviews in retail, travel and other sectors requires stronger public-private partnership, including collaboration between affected companies, social media sites and law enforcement agencies, all aligned towards the goal of better consumer protection.
‘Amazon remains committed to continuing to work with all relevant stakeholders to achieve this common goal.’
