Amazon is suing companies for fake reviews

Lawsuits filed in the Seattle High Court accuse companies, AppSally and Rebatest, of inciting false reviews in Amazon’s online market. The companies reportedly linked third-party vendors with consumers who would leave a positive review about their product, in exchange for free products or payments.

The case represents Amazon’s latest effort to eradicate false criticism in its large third-party market. The market now accounts for more than half of e-commerce sales and has helped the company generate record revenue. False reviews have proven to be a particularly thorny issue for Amazon as the market has grown to include millions of third-party retailers.

Amazon said in a statement that the lawsuit seeks to “shut down the two main brokers of fake reviews” which it claims “helped deceive customers by trying to publish fake reviews in stores” such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Etsy.

The statement added that AppSally and Rebatest say they have more than 900,000 users who are “willing to write fake reviews.”

The companies have not yet commented on Amazon’s lawsuit.

According to court submissions, AppSally and Rebatest have been operating since 2018. The complaint states that AppSally organized a scheme in which sellers would pay the company a fee, in some cases only $25, for obtaining “verified reviews”.

After giving AppSally a link to their product, resellers would ship empty boxes and provide AppSally with photos that would be included in the user review, according to the lawsuit.

Vendors would reportedly pay for the service in hopes of increasing their product in Amazon search results. AppSally’s website reportedly promised retailers that they would be able to “overtake competitors from your bedroom”, the complaint said.

Similarly, Rebatest offered sellers cash reviews and other services to manipulate their product rankings, the lawsuit said. Users would order the product on Amazon and leave a review. Rebatest reportedly refunded the purchase of users through services such as PayPal.

Amazon is seeking indefinite damages in both complaints, as well as a ban against companies banning them from selling or facilitating the sale of Amazon reviews.

Amazon is taking many steps to try to reduce false criticism and other scams, including investing in machine learning tools and human moderators.

Other social media companies have also been asked to intervene and help, as fake view communities have appeared in Facebook groups and in messaging apps such as Telegram, WhatsApp and WeChat.