Amazon Files Suit Against Individuals Offering Fake Product Reviews On Fiverr.com

TechCrunch ^ | October 17, 2015 | Sarah Perez

[EveningStar]

In April of this year, Amazon filed suit against the operators of websites that offered Amazon sellers the ability to purchase fake, four and five-star reviews of their products. Most of those websites have now been closed, and Amazon took action against the sellers involved. Now Amazon is continuing its crackdown on fake reviews by going after individuals who provide these sort of fake reviews – this time, those who used the online freelancing marketplace fiverr.com.

[EveningStar]

After Amazon's Crackdown, Will The Fake Customer Review Industry Just Move Offshore?

[grania]

I no longer shop at Amazon. How can I trust them to provide reading material, DVDs and CDs as an open honest provider of that information? I say that because the stopped selling the Confederate flag when the controversy arose. Who would trust them providing a full range of historic and cultural material? I no longer trust them to not censor their offerings.

I still use their site for reviews of other things (which I don't buy there) and price comparisons. It's usually pretty easy to tell which reviews are real.

[Jedidah]

I have no problem shopping with Amazon.

Free enterprise should have the freedom to sell or not sell whatever it chooses without explanation. And I have the freedom to find what I want to buy elsewhere if I don’t find it there.

[Kirkwood]

You can buy all the Confederate flags you want on Amazon. You just purchase from one of the independent sellers there, whch is probably what you want to do anyway.

[Grampa Dave]

Good for Amazon, going after lying/paid trolls.

How many paid lying trolls are on FR pretending to be good citizens?

“I have no problem shopping with Amazon.

Free enterprise should have the freedom to sell or not sell whatever it chooses without explanation. And I have the freedom to find what I want to buy elsewhere if I don’t find it there.”

[SunkenCiv]

I was once upon a time a top-1000 reviewer (I think I was in the 700s somewhere, maybe it was higher; there were generally a number of people at each ranking, because of their number of votes, so this isn't as great as it sounds) with fewer than 100 reviews; the leading reviewers had literally 1000s of reviews each, a number I greatly doubted. Some years ago Amazon yanked their rankings around and I fell, quite literally, thousands of spots (I wound up 17000 and something I think it was). Amazon also introduced the obnoxious and stupid "post comments" facility, so buyer reviews could be trolled, and Amazon was completely unresponsive about my concerns regarding troll activity. So I stopped writing Amazon reviews and wound up on places like FR. IOW, blame Amazon!

[Jedidah]

Yep. And those trolls on FR seem to be reproducing rapidly these days. Nasty place some days. :(

[EveningStar]

If you’re an Amazon shopper, this might be of interest to you.

[RegulatorCountry]

I’m an occasional Amazon shopper and have noticed the “canned” reviews. I don’t rely upon them, do my own research. Too bad what should have been a helpful feature turned into just another trolling venue, maybe they’ll get it under control to the point that it has some value to shoppers.

[minnesota_bound]

Copy some parts of the reviews and google them. I have and found similar postings at other sites. Amazon same as Best Buy or other online retailers as an example.

[RegulatorCountry]

What’s more irritating to me than the glowing reviews are the really negative ones that are obviously canned.

[wally_bert]

In all the years I’ve shopped at Amazon, I’ve actually filed my first claim for a non delivery from a 3rd party.

As far as Amazon goes, I have 0 problems with them and I used the Smile side to donate to a favorite charity.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

I like some of the reviews on Amazon. They can be quite funny.

Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears 5LB
http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-Free-Gummy-Bears/product-reviews/B008JELLCA

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Every single time I release a new book, my inbox gets several offers to buy multiple 5-star reviews (100 for $50 is typical). It pisses me off so much. I forward the messages to Amazon so they can possibly match the fraudster with their Amazon account. Not much chance, but if I can get one account closed, I feel better.

[Grampa Dave]

“Yep. And those trolls on FR seem to be reproducing rapidly these days. Nasty place some days.” :(

Wait until next year, the year of the election.

Then, the Zombie trolls, who haven’t posted since the last election come out to insult us. They remind us of the dead rat voters who still vote after they die.

[wrench]

When Amazon started censoring their feedback, I quit leaving it.

They would post my positive feedback, but only one in 3 negative feedbacks. The first I thought was an accident, on the 2nd strike, I knew it was intentional, so I quit posting fedeback, and consider any feedback they display as very suspect.

[HonkyTonkMan]

This one from '08 helped start the fad of posting illustrative, humorous reviews: Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz

The entire premise was a hoot - buying a gallon of milk thru the interwebz

[Jack Hammer]

Apparently, congessional practices commonplace for years have now compromised Amazon’s site.

[Scoutmaster]

Tuscan Whole Milk was one of the products that helped start the fad.

Among the others were:

Bic Cristal for Her Pen:

" These pens fit perfect in my hands, but hubby feels they are unnecessary since he writes all the checks. I'd explain more but I have to go make him a sammich."

"I used one of these pens post-hysterectomy, and my uterus grew back. Thanks a lot, Bic. Thanks a whole h*ll of a lot."

Or How to Avoid Huge Ships":

This book really is one of the best huge ship avoidance references I've come across, not just for the effective methods it teaches as to avoiding huge ships, but also for exploding some of the huge ship avoidance myths that many of us take for granted.

For example:

• Do not charge the huge ship at full speed in an attempt to scare it off. This may work with coyotes, but it is less effective with huge ships.
• Similarly, do not roll your boat over and play dead. Unless the huge ship is captained by a grizzly bear, this will not work.
• Do not attempt to go under the huge ship. This is typically not successful.
• Do not attempt to jump over the huge ship.

Captain Trimmer presents a rather novel technique for avoiding huge ships - move your boat out of the path of the huge ship. I know what you're thinking, this goes against conventional wisdom, but Trimmer presents significant empirical evidence to support his theory. Indeed, over the long run, moving out of the way will dramatically decrease the number of huge ship collisions you will have to endure in your daily life."

Other nice ones include Uranium Ore, Canned Unicorn Meat, or among the more recent entries, straight from the pages of FR, Maisto Fresh Metal Tailwinds 1:97 Scale Die Cast United States Military Aircraft - US Air Force Medium Altitude, Long Endurance, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) RQ-1 Predator with Display Stand (Dimension: 6" x 3-1/2" x 1"), with such comments as:

This is the best toy ever. Finally, I can pretend that I'm a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! It's like I'm sitting right there in the White House with my very own kill list!

[tbw2]

The issue with banning it on Fiverr is that it does nothing to end the buying of reviews on other crowd-sourcing sites.
And I have heard nothing of buying Facebook likes or Tweets via Amazon Mturk, which I have personally witnessed as a couple cents each.