Fake reviews - the online plague
Amazon, please put your house in order!
Fake reviews by competitors are a real bottom of seller's morale. The 'verified purchase' is a joke - anyone can sacrifice a few pounds to buy a product and put a brand-damaging 'review' with no consequences.
For example, I can easily buy tea and then complain about my 'verified purchase' with a one-star review that it is not good coffee. It is just ridiculous and I am not seeing any proactive involvement from Amazon to tackle this issue or even act on reports!
Proposed long-term solution:
Reviews of 3 stars or less should be allowed ONLY AFTER evidence of prior communication between the buyer and the seller. Nothing else will effectively stop this real problem. And reviews must also allow a response from the seller.
Fake reviews - the online plague
Amazon, please put your house in order!
Fake reviews by competitors are a real bottom of seller's morale. The 'verified purchase' is a joke - anyone can sacrifice a few pounds to buy a product and put a brand-damaging 'review' with no consequences.
For example, I can easily buy tea and then complain about my 'verified purchase' with a one-star review that it is not good coffee. It is just ridiculous and I am not seeing any proactive involvement from Amazon to tackle this issue or even act on reports!
Proposed long-term solution:
Reviews of 3 stars or less should be allowed ONLY AFTER evidence of prior communication between the buyer and the seller. Nothing else will effectively stop this real problem. And reviews must also allow a response from the seller.
10 replies
Xander_Amazon
Hey there, I hear you — dealing with reviews that feel unfair or potentially abusive is genuinely frustrating, and you're definitely not alone in raising this concern. I want you to know that Amazon does take review manipulation seriously, including negative reviews aimed at hurting competitors. There's actually a zero-tolerance policy in place for any attempts to manipulate customer reviews, and teams actively investigate these reports.
Here's what I'd recommend as your immediate next step: if you believe a specific review violates our Community Guidelines — for example, it's off-topic (like reviewing a product as something it isn't) or appears fraudulent — use the "Report abuse" link directly next to the review on your product's detail page. You can also report suspected competitor abuse through your Account Health page by selecting "Report abuse of Amazon policies" and choosing "Another seller account is attempting to harm my business." More details on the Customer Product Reviews policy here: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/help.html?itemID=YRKB5RU3FS5TURN
Seller_sg54Fq7GfBZzn
The thing is that amazon dont get is that you can send out 100,000 items, customers are happy thats it you dont hear about it.
Now, one pair gets smashed because the courier is careless and drops a heavy item on it ? you better believe they will leave a one star review.
At least ebay have realised that if someone does not leave feedback within 90 days then the item must be fine.
Its obvious to anyone that those incentivised to leave reviews are either A, bought by Chinese bot farms or people being offered something like discount, money back etc, or B, incentivised because they are upset.
The reality is the majority of peoples experiences lay between this, but one just one bad issue on that 100,000 your product is done. As people simply do NOT leave reviews.
Its easy for a competitor to whack one or two unverified reviews on your product to kill it stone cold dead, whilst all the time, breaching ToS with inserts nothing ever gets done about. Amazon, you literally have thousands of these items in your warehouses, when its reported that they breach ToS, would it kill to open one and check ?
