Amazon's Jeff Bezos and his new space company Blue Origin will launch rockets from Florida later this decade. (Photo : Blue Origin)
Amazon is now in the fight against fake product reviews on its online shopping website, where the company is apparently suing more than 1,100 users for allegedly posting bogus reviews, usually overly positive ones for US $5 per review.
This complaint was filed in a Seattle state court last Friday where this turn of events suddenly became a revelation of how these reviews are fast becoming an illegal practice online. Many people try to make some cash out of writing five star reviews about products they have not even tried and tested in order for companies to boost product sales by paying for such fake reviews.
In turn, online shoppers who obviously rely on consumer reviews from restaurants to iPhone cases to hotel accommodations are becoming more dependent on these before making a purchase. According to Forrester Research, 45 percent of consumers consider product reviews before deciding on a purchase.
In order to crack down this growing trend, retailers find it challenging to to stop or even track down paid-for fake reviews. Sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor rely heavily on customer generated reviews and apparently use computer algorithms and investigators along with experts to detect these review frauds.
Last April, Amazon already sued several websites that are offering to pay for positive reviews.In the latest lawsuit, the company is now going after writers who actually generate these fake, glowing reviews who possess accounts on the freelance job website called Fiverr.com.
This scam works where writers give their promise to write five-star reviews to companies that sell products in Amazon.com, which is the United States' biggest online shopping site. In most cases, most sellers write the reviews themselves and in turn, use the writers' names under those reviews, the lawsuit claims.
To date, the defendants in this lawsuit are only identified by their online handles since Amazon is still investigating to determine the real names of these bogus Amazon "verified" customers.
