5.3 million Amazon reviews are fake, paid for by third-party sellers
Amazon is struggling to tamp down on fraudulent product ratings, BuzzFeed News reported, as sellers continue to find ways to plant incentivized reviews that help boost sales.
Because the e-commerce platform is so competitive, sellers will reportedly deploy a small army of people to write positive reviews for a product, then reimburse and compensate the reviewers in exchange for their time. One expert, who runs a site dedicated to analyzing Amazon listings, told BuzzFeed News that around 9 percent of the site's 250 million reviews, or around 5.3 million reviews, are "unnatural," and may be the product of disingenuous sellers looking to capitalize on a loophole.
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Sellers pay around $4 or $5 per review, and often let users keep the product, which many choose to resell for a profit on eBay. Small business owners who depend on Amazon for sales told BuzzFeed News that the practice can be debilitating, scooping up customers by padding their listings with verified purchases and positive reviews that smaller sellers can't afford or don't want to buy. Read more at BuzzFeed News.
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