Which?, the UK based consumer rights champion, has found during an investigation that Amazon Marketplace reviews are easily bought for as little as £5 per review. These were also available in bulk, starting at £620 for 50 fake reviews and going up to £8,000 for 1,000.
The sites that Which? found offered advice on how avoid Amazon’s suspicious when writing fake reviews. In some cases they set criteria for reviewers needed to qualify for rewards, it said.
Amazon claimed that they take action against anyone involved in fraudulent reviews.
Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK regulator, earlier launched an inquiry into how websites manage fake and misleading reviews, as the popularity of online shopping grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, CMA warned that they would not hesitate to take action against online retailers if they were not following the law.