Amazon’s Claimed to Shut Down Fake Review Brokers But They Didn’t
Amazon recently claimed to have prevented millions of fake reviews from being published and also to have stopped some of the biggest review brokers from operating.
However, an investigation from EcomCrew found that these fake review brokers (some of whom Amazon claimed to have shut down) continue to operate.
In this article we'll expose why and how the fake review problem on Amazon continues to thrive.
The Marketplace for Fake Reviews
The first stop in the fake‑review world is often Facebook. Sellers or intermediaries run private groups that promise free products in exchange for glowing reviews. A user buys the product, uploads proof (e.g. order ID), and then gets refunded via PayPal or another channel. Meanwhile the seller collects the review.
For Amazon, this is a major problem as these reviews are coming from actual local buyers and very difficult to detect as it mirrors real buying and review behavior.
These groups are often segmented by country or region—U.S., Canada, UK, etc. Some are password-protected or invite-only. Researchers studying Amazon’s fake review problem confirm that these private groups are a major channel through which sellers acquire manipulated reviews.
Our Experience Buying Fake Reviews
In an Amazon press release, they claimed to have shut down some of the largest review brokers on the internet. We visited one of these review brokers only to find their website continuing to operate.
We reached out to the operators of the group and asked if I could buy reviews for a product and they responded almost immediately that they could. We sent the money ($5 plus the cost of the product) and within a few days a customer had ordered the product and left the fake 5-star reviews.
In a nutshell, this is how these services work:
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You pay a “review fee” (e.g. $5 per review).
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You reimburse the cost of the product (so the reviewer doesn’t lose money).
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The broker claims to assign local reviewers who will purchase the item, post the review after some delay to look organic, and then get compensated.
In our test, the broker even gave me dashboard access to see the order status, review count, and timestamps. After waiting, a fake 5‑star review appeared on the product listing.
Amazon Claims to Have Shut Down Review Brokers But They Didn't
In a glowing press release, Amazon claimed to have “[secured the] largest-ever legal win against global fake review networks“.
It also went on to say that “the court’s ruling ordered the transfer of ownership of all related domains to Amazon”.
However, as shown above, these review websites continue to operate seemingly continuing to be run by the defendants in the case.
The issue for Amazon is that these websites primarily operate overseas in such countries as India and Bangladesh and enforcing U.S. judgments can be difficult.
Amazon’s AI & Human Review Systems
Amazon claims that it doesn’t just let reviews go up unchecked. They claim to run reviews through AI models, looking for signals of abuse or manipulation before publication.
However, weeks after we purchased a fake review, it continues to remain on the product detail page.
The challenge is scale and subtlety: bad actors constantly adapt their tactics (delays, review timing, IP masking) to mimic legitimate behavior. As mentioned, the fact these reviews are coming from legitimate Amazon customers make detecting the reviews very difficult.
Despite there being numerous studies such as this one into how to detect customers who may be leaving fake reviews, the technology still seems to lag.
Amazon Policy and FTC Rules Make Fake Reviews Illegal
Amazon’s review policy states that any attempt to “manipulate reviews” is strictly prohibited. During 2022, Amazon also banned several very high profile sellers for review manipulation.
Amazon has also sued Facebook group admins and brokers. Moreover, on the regulatory side, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2024 finalized a ban on buying and selling fake reviews, with penalties up to tens of thousands of dollars per violation.
Conclusion
Despite the Amazon's efforts and combatting fake reviews and FTC rules banning fake reviews, the issue remains significant on Amazon.
The fact Amazon claims to have stopped hundreds of millions of fake reviews from being published in 2024 demonstrates the magnitude of the problem.
The reality is that as long as reviews continue to be an important conversion factor for products where more 5-star results in more money, the problem likely isn't going away any time soon.
