Amazon Targets Fake Review Fraudsters on Social Media
19.7.2022 07:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today filed legal action against the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups that attempt to orchestrate fake reviews on Amazon in exchange for money or free products. These groups are set up to recruit individuals willing to post incentivized and misleading reviews on Amazon’s stores in the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
Amazon will use information discovered in this legal action to identify bad actors and remove fake reviews commissioned by these fraudsters that haven’t already been detected by Amazon’s advanced technology, expert investigators, and continuous monitoring.
“Our teams stop millions of suspicious reviews before they’re ever seen by customers, and this lawsuit goes a step further to uncover perpetrators operating on social media,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of Selling Partner Services. “Proactive legal action targeting bad actors is one of many ways we protect customers by holding bad actors accountable.”
The fraudsters behind such groups solicit fake reviews for hundreds of products available for sale on Amazon, including car stereos and camera tripods. One of the groups identified in the lawsuit is “Amazon Product Review,” which had more than 43,000 members until Meta took down the group earlier this year. Amazon’s investigations revealed that the group’s administrators attempted to hide their activity and evade Facebook’s detection, in part by obfuscating letters from problematic phrases.
Amazon strictly prohibits fake reviews and has more than 12,000 employees around the world dedicated to protecting its stores from fraud and abuse, including fake reviews. A dedicated team investigates fake review schemes on social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, and regularly reports the abusive groups to those companies. Since 2020, Amazon has reported more than 10,000 fake review groups to Meta. Of these, Meta has taken down more than half of the groups for policy violations and continues to investigate others.
Amazon was a pioneer of product reviews, having introduced them in 1995 to help customers make more informed shopping decisions. The company aims to ensure every review that appears in its stores is trustworthy and reflects an actual customer experience. Amazon’s expert investigators use industry-leading tools to detect and block fake reviews. As a result, Amazon proactively stopped more than 200 million suspected fake reviews in 2020 alone.
Today’s legal action is the latest step by Amazon aimed at stopping fraudsters who attempt to post fake reviews in Amazon’s stores. In the past year, legal action from Amazon has shut down multiple major review brokers targeting customers in the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.
However, the nefarious business of brokering fake reviews remains an industry-wide problem, and civil litigation is only one step. Permanently ridding fake reviews across retail, travel, and other sectors will require greater public-private partnership, including collaboration between the affected companies, social media sites, and law enforcement, all focused on a goal of greater consumer protection. Amazon remains eager to continue to partner with all the relevant stakeholders to achieve that mutual goal.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth’s Best Employer, and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220718005747/en/
Contact information
Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline
Amazon-pr@amazon.com
www.amazon.com/pr
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Forrester’s 2027 B2C Marketing, CX, And Digital Predictions: Rising AI Costs Will Force B2C Leaders To Scale Back A Third Of AI Initiatives21.10.2026 11:30:00 EEST | Press release
According to Forrester’s (Nasdaq: FORR) 2027 B2C marketing, customer experience, and digital predictions, rising AI costs will force B2C marketing leaders to scale back a third of AI initiatives. As AI usage grows and martech vendors increasingly adopt usage-based pricing models, every agent interaction, generated asset, and automated workflow becomes a billable event. As a result, leaders will need to make tougher decisions and focus investments on AI initiatives that deliver measurable business value. Forrester’s Predictions reports deliver forward-looking insights into the signals and trends that will shape the year ahead. Forrester’s consumer marketing, CX, and digital business predictions cover topics including B2C marketing, customer experience, consumer behavior, digital commerce, media and advertising, marketing agencies, content and creative, and trust and privacy. Additional highlights from Forrester’s 2027 B2C marketing, CX, and digital predictions include: CX staffing will
Forrester’s 2027 B2B Go-To-Market Predictions: AI Agents Will Influence 75% of B2B Purchase Decisions21.10.2026 11:30:00 EEST | Press release
According to Forrester’s (Nasdaq: FORR) 2027 B2B go-to-market predictions, business buyers will increasingly deploy AI agents to handle tasks across the buying process, from supplier discovery and information gathering to contract-renewal analysis. While truly autonomous buying will remain concentrated in high-volume, low-risk, and repeatable purchases, the ubiquity of these agents will require providers to ensure that their systems and sellers can respond with speed, accuracy, and consistency. Forrester’s B2B Predictions reports, covering topics including B2B go-to-market strategy, business buyers, and content and creative, offer forward-looking insights to help executives and their teams anticipate change, reduce uncertainty, and make confident decisions ahead of market shifts. Key highlights from the 2027 B2B go-to-market predictions include: Buyers will double their human interactions to validate AI-generated recommendations. As AI becomes the primary interface for researching prod
Forrester’s 2027 Technology And Security Predictions: AI Will Account For 20% Of All Business Technology Spend21.10.2026 11:30:00 EEST | Press release
According to Forrester’s (Nasdaq: FORR) 2027 technology and security predictions, CIOs and CISOs will face growing pressure to realize returns on their AI investments in infrastructure, security, digital sovereignty, and emerging technologies. Additionally, with global technology spending forecasted to reach $6.1 trillion in 2027, technology leaders will need to balance AI governance and control with innovation and business agility. Forrester’s Predictions reports offer forward-looking insights into the trends and signals that empower leaders and their teams to think beyond the conventional and ignite bold ideas for the year ahead. Forrester’s technology and security predictions cover topics including AI, automation and robotics, tech leadership, cloud computing, tech infrastructure and operations, enterprise software, software development, cybersecurity and risk, and smart manufacturing and mobility. Key highlights from Forrester’s 2027 technology and security predictions include: A q
LTM Launches BlueVerse™ ValueMesh™ to Help Enterprises Scale AI Across Oracle Transformations21.10.2026 11:30:00 EEST | Press release
LTM, the Business Creativity partner to the world’s largest enterprises, today announced the launch of BlueVerse™ ValueMesh™, an AI execution fabric designed to help enterprises industrialize AI across the Oracle transformation lifecycle, from strategy and implementation to operations and continuous innovation. BlueVerse™ ValueMesh™ is developed and validated by LTM as part of its Cloud Services expertise. Built on LTM's deep Oracle expertise and BlueVerse™ portfolio, BlueVerse™ ValueMesh™is designed to help enterprises industrialize AI across their Oracle transformation journey. It brings together AI-native delivery, intelligent automation, AI agents, managed services, intelligent business processes, industry solutions, data, and governance in a unified execution model designed to help organizations move beyond fragmented initiatives and isolated pilots and pursue scalable innovation, continuous optimization, and measurable business outcomes across their Oracle estate. At its core, Bl
NIQ Announces 2026 Western Europe NIQ BASES Breakthrough Innovation Award Winners21.10.2026 11:00:00 EEST | Press release
NielsenIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a global leader in consumer intelligence, today announced the winners of its 2026 Western Europe NIQ BASES Breakthrough Innovation Awards, recognizing the most successful and commercially impactful product innovations launched across Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Now in its annual Western Europe edition, the NIQ BASES Breakthrough Innovation Awards celebrate products that have demonstrated exceptional market performance, sustained consumer demand, and meaningful category impact. Winners were selected using NIQ's comprehensive view of innovation performance, leveraging proprietary retail measurement, consumer panel, and BASES innovation analytics to identify launches that achieved strong early success and continued momentum. This year's winners reveal an innovation landscape shaped by evolving consumer expectations around health, convenience, premiumization, sustainability, and experience. While breakthrough ideas emerged across a wide range of
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom