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
Canva Brings On-Brand Designs Directly into AI Assistants6.2.2026 01:00:00 EET | Press release
The future of work is being rewritten by AI, with professionals accomplishing in minutes what used to take hours. But there's been one persistent breaking point in AI assistants: generic visual outputs and off-brand colors that undermine AI speed with tedious manual cleanup. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260205384226/en/ Canva Today, that friction ends as Canva brings brand intelligence directly into the AI tools where modern day work happens most. Starting now, ChatGPT users can create designs completely tied to their Canva Brand Kit, making a company’s brand come to life visually and function as a living participant in AI workflows. This expansion marks the coming together of Canva and ChatGPT, two category-defining platforms, in a new way to make on-brand design more accessible and fluid. From client-ready pitch decks to social posts and professional-looking posters, the partnership continues to fuel Canv
DNIB.com Reports Internet Has 386.9 Million Domain Name Registrations at the End of the Fourth Quarter of 20256.2.2026 00:04:00 EET | Press release
VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), a global provider of critical internet infrastructure and domain name registry services, today announced that, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief Quarterly Report from DNIB.com, the fourth quarter of 2025 closed with 386.9 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of 8.4 million domain name registrations, or 2.2% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Domain name registrations also increased by 22.7 million, or 6.2%, year over year. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of 173.5 million domain name registrations in the domain name base at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, an increase of 1.6 million domain name registrations, or 0.9% compared to the third quarter of 2025. The .com and .net TLDs had a combined increase of 4.5 million domain name registrations, or 2.6%, year over year. As of Dec. 31, 2025, the .com domain name base totaled 161.0 million domain name registrations and the .net
Calix CEO Michael Weening To Keynote at MWC26 Barcelona: How Agentic AI Enables an ‘Experience of One’ for Every Subscriber5.2.2026 21:30:00 EET | Press release
Calix, Inc. (NYSE: CALX) today announced that President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Weening will deliver a keynote in the Tuesday morning, March 3, “Architects of the AI Age” session at MWC26 Barcelona. Calix’s presence at MWC, the world’s largest and most influential connectivity event, extends the momentum following the recent launch of the company’s AI‑native platform. Weening will take the MWC Main Stage on Tuesday morning to reveal a transformative vision for telecommunications: how agentic AI enables service providers to deliver an “experience of one” to millions of subscribers simultaneously—personalizing every interaction in real time, unlocking new revenue streams, and fundamentally redefining what it means to grow in the connected world. He will be joined onstage by leading AI researcher and author Kate Crawford, a globally recognized voice in AI ethics, to explore how this transformation goes beyond automation. They will address how responsible agentic AI can amplify
Verimatrix: Sale of Extended Threat Defense Assets (Mobile Application Protection) to Guardsquare5.2.2026 18:45:00 EET | Press release
Regulatory News: Verimatrix, (Euronext Paris: VMX), a leading provider of security solutions for a safer connected world, today announced that it has completed the sale of 100% of its Extended Threat Defense (XTD) assets to Guardsquare, a Belgian company and leader in mobile application security. This transaction follows the signing of an agreement announced in a press release on December 8, 2025, as well as regulatory approval. It is part of Verimatrix's overall strategy to refocus on its core business, reflecting the group's strategic decision to concentrate on the key growth segments of the video protection market. Commenting on the announcement, Laurent Dechaux, CEO of Verimatrix, said: “Verimatrix has a strong technological foundation that enables our teams to pursue new business opportunities. Our priorities are to identify key growth drivers, address our clients’ needs effectively, and optimize resource allocation. I look forward to presenting these strategic initiatives to the
Andersen Consulting Enters Into Collaboration Agreement With Alfa Group5.2.2026 16:30:00 EET | Press release
Andersen Consulting adds depth to its cybersecurity offering with collaborating firm Alfa Group, a leading technology firm with nearly three decades of experience helping organizations safeguard and optimize their operations. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Rome, Alfa Group delivers advanced solutions in cybersecurity, fraud detection and prevention, incident response, and vulnerability management, as well as select business process management services. Its proprietary technology, N.O.V.A., is an end-to-end managed service that integrates Alfa Group’s innovations with third-party systems to safeguard digital infrastructures, mitigate risk, and enhance operational efficiency. The firm serves clients across industries including finance and insurance, defense and aerospace, telecom, manufacturing, energy, and pharmaceutical. "Our collaboration with Andersen Consulting allows us to extend our reach and deliver greater value to clients navigating the complexities of digital transformat
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