Rebecca Jones, of London, recently pulled up Amazon.co.uk to search for a phone adapter.
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For Jones, the out-of-place reviews gave her pause and ended up steering her away from the purchase.
In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Patrick Graham said customer trust is a top priority.
We have robust proactive and reactive systems in place to protect our store and our customers.
How fake reviews happen
Reviews are the oil that keeps the gears of the Amazon machine turning.
One common technique is for a seller to offer free or discounted products in exchange for positive reviews.
David Gasser runs theAmazon Review Clubgroup, which currently has 1,500 members.
This should be avoided.
In reality, however, it is difficult to do so.
He said Facebook had previously deleted a similar group he ran that had almost 200,000 members at the time.
The Markup reached out to the owners ofAmazon Free Productsbut did not receive a response.
Heres how it works: A buyer is offered a selection of products that need reviews.
When the review appears, it gets a reassuring Verified Purchase label.
Then there are various versions of review hijacking, like the one Jones experienced with the taco holder.
Its possible to thenchange the product name, description, and photos.
The Verge reported thatsellers were even using this hijacking technique onAmazons own brand listings.
He added that the company takes enforcement actions against the listings and sellers when they detect abusive grouping.
In October 2019,Amazon changedthe label next to the stars in product listings from customer reviews to ratings.
The change lets a customer give a one-tap rating to an item.
They are making it more obfuscated and hidden and harder for the average Joe.
After we shared this listing with Amazon, all of the reviews and ratings were removed.
Amazon spokesperson Patrick Graham said the one-tap ratings feature captures more feedback for customers.
Because they are lightweight and easy to provide, many more purchasers are willing to provide their feedback.
As a result our ratings reflect the experiences of more customers, he said.
Read a sample of both positive and negative reviews.
Sort by most recent reviewsDont depend on the default curated top reviews.
That top critical review can be curated by the seller, says ReviewMetas Noonan.
If a product has a lot of reviews with videos and photos, thats unusual, he says.
Both sites let you paste in an Amazon product listing URL and get an independent analysis of the reviews.
This article wasoriginally published on The Markupby Jon Keegan and was republished under theCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeslicense.
