It's trending! #Amazon charges 116 yuan for a fake review# #Amazon spawns fake review company#

According to foreign media reports, fake reviews on Amazon are deceiving consumers into buying inferior goods. A foreign media investigation found that these enthusiastic evaluations are sold at a gray market price by rogue marketing companies, which use a large group of so-called "testers" to post four-star and five-star reviews online.

Amazon has become an e-commerce giant with services covering the whole world. Many consumers purchase a wide range of products through Amazon, and the reviews of other buyers are also an important basis for them to make purchasing decisions. However, according to the latest news from foreign media, sellers on Amazon are purchasing fake reviews from professional companies. Professional fake review water army companies have emerged in the industry, and the price of each fake review is 15 euros (equivalent to 116 yuan).

According to foreign media reports, fake reviews on Amazon are deceiving consumers into buying inferior goods. A foreign media investigation found that these enthusiastic evaluations are sold at a gray market price by rogue marketing companies, which use a large group of so-called "testers" to post four-star and five-star reviews online.

Testers receive a small fee and a refund on the purchase of the products they are obliged to recommend. A German product review company called AMZTigers claims to employ 3,000 product testers in the UK.

“We help you get verified reviews from real consumers,” the company’s website proclaims. “Our 60,000+ product testers across Europe write reviews quickly and reliably.”

An employee told reporters posing as potential customers that each review costs 15 euros, but if a customer buys Amazon's products, the price of each review is much cheaper. "If you don't like the reviews, we can replace the testers. It's not really legal, but it's not really illegal, so it's like in a gray area."

She acknowledged that the company faces legal action from Amazon, which has removed some fake product reviews in the past.

"Product reviews are a very dynamic subject that is always changing," the employee said. "What you do in the summer is not always the same thing you do in the winter."

She added that more businesses were commissioning in the hope of getting four-star reviews: “If everything was like five stars and the reviews were really good, it’s a little suspicious, so when there’s a mix of ratings it’s good.”

AMZTigers' website lists a number of packages available to customers, including €5,000 (£4,250) for 500 reviews, which equates to €10 (£8.50) per product review. Customers pay AMZTigers for testers to purchase the products and pay a separate fee for each fake review. Testers must purchase the products themselves to ensure that the reviews are classified as "Amazon Verified Purchases." They will receive a refund and a small fee later.

The Competition and Markets Authority said that fake product reviews on e-commerce sites are illegal and that writing or commissioning them could lead to civil or criminal prosecution. It is estimated that tens of billions of dollars of online shopping spending is influenced by the content of other consumers' reviews each year.

Amazon said it had a "zero tolerance policy" for any reviews designed to mislead or influence customers. It added: "We don't allow anyone to use fake reviews as a form of promotion."

According to a survey of 2,000 adults by market research firm Which?, 97% of shoppers rely on other buyers’ reviews to decide whether to buy a product. The firm revealed in October that millions of Amazon shoppers are at risk of being misled by suspicious and fake reviews.

The agency said products such as headphones, vacuum cleaners, dashboard cameras and Bluetooth speakers all had positive user reviews and recommendations on Amazon, but some performed poorly in the agency's product quality tests.

Adam French, head of the agency, said: "Fake testimonials have become a highly profitable global industry. Unscrupulous companies have found it all too easy to game the system on popular sites, including Amazon."

With online reviews influencing a huge number of online shopping transactions each year, it is crucial that consumers are not misled, so Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce site, clearly must do more to combat counterfeiters, the people said.

He said it strengthened the case for further intervention by government regulators to investigate how fake reviews were used to manipulate consumers and take strong action against sites that failed to tackle the problem.

David Li, a tech industry expert, said there are "hundreds, maybe thousands" of fake review companies. Online sellers have to fight for their own rankings, which has spawned a gray industry to help sellers get their companies to the top of online marketplaces, he said.

The expert added: “As long as Amazon ranks products, this business will exist and the problem will persist. Amazon needs to do more. They need to tweak their algorithm to better target fake reviewers and penalize them.”

Heiko Dunkel, a lawyer for the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, said it was not explicitly illegal in Germany to commission or write fake reviews. But he said using such product reviews without sufficient transparency violated laws against unfair competition.

Amazon said it works hard to protect the integrity of product reviews and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past year to protect customers from abuse, fraud and other forms of misconduct.