Beware of Amazon Early Reviewer Program, Bot Reviews and Fake Impressions

Ever since Amazon banned Incentivized reviews in October 2016, the Early Reviewer Program and other Amazon regulations have been circumvented by sellers for more sales, smear competitor's business, baseless allegations of counterfeit products and fake product reviews. Amazon has been unable to bring down such unethical practices, resulting in millions of dollars of losses in business for thousands of sellers/merchants around the world.

Freelancers in developing countries can be easily found online to write fake product reviews, called sniping, where one seller destroys another by hiring people to leave critical reviews of their goods and then voting those reviews as being helpful, making them the most prominent feedback seen by shoppers. Merchants who are targets of sniping stand to lose the most as a negative review is a critical parameter considered by a shopper who moves onto the next product, which so happens to be the product of the seller who hired people to sabotage others in the first place, to buy. Amazon still gets its commission on the sale but the targeted vendors have few other options since Amazon is the world's biggest online retailer.

Amazon doesn't tolerate abuse of their policies and constantly works to eliminate 'bad actors'. The trickery escalates during the holidays when the stakes are the highest. US online spending in November and December will top $107 billion this year, with the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday the busiest.

Two years ago, Amazon filed lawsuits against thousands of people it alleged were writing fake product reviews for money as they were diminishing consumers' trust. Last year, Amazon filed lawsuits against merchants it accused of selling counterfeit products, acknowledging it couldn't police the problem on its own. The lawsuits and crackdowns are proving to be little more than speed bumps to those looking to game the system, who keep finding new tactics.

Another major problem for vendors is Bot Reviews. Multiple small companies report they’re seeing one-star reviews of unverified purchases on their pages that are written with bad grammar, coupled with remarks. The problem seems to run across both the first-party and third-party sellers on the platform.

Brands constantly contact Amazon to remove fake reviews that are generated by bots as it tarnishes their value. Though Amazon uses a machine-learned algorithm, as they claim, to qualify a review for the Amazon Verified Purchase badge, bots are still a menace. All reviewers in the U.S. must have an account, used for at least $50 in purchases on Amazon.