‘Half of Amazon reviews are fake’

Five out of ten Amazon reviews are currently based on fake entries. That is what a reviewer, working for a reputation agency, claims in a report written by German magazine Computer Bild.

Millions of customers buy at Amazon and they often rely on the accompanying product reviews, which (alleged) buyers have left after their purchase. But, in many cases, these product reviews on Amazon are fake, Computer Bild claims.

‘Dubious agencies that offer reputation management’

“There are a striking number of top reviews on Amazon for the headphones of a start-up: clearly fake reviews. Who’s behind this, can be read in the current issue”, the magazine writes. Getting products at the top of the search results in Amazon by generating positive reviews, according to Computer Bild, this is the work of dubious agencies that offer so-called reputation management.

3-star review had to be rewritten to 5 stars

Through portal such as TesterJob, anyone can register as a freelancer to write reviews for a fee. The only condition: the reviews must be positive. Editors of Computer Bild tried this out and applied for a job as reviewer. Although the products were sent for testing, it was not checked whether the products were actually tried. And even more, a three-star rating was criticized by the client who strongly advises to rewrite the review and to turn it into a five-star rating.

‘5 out of 10 Amazon reviews are based on fake entries’

Of course, the magazine confronted Amazon with the results, but the ecommerce giant claims to be strictly against fake reviews. However, a reviewer working for such a reputation agency, claims that currently five out of ten Amazon reviews are based on fake entries.