Amazon filed a lawsuit against more than 10,000 Facebook group administrators for allegedly brokering fake reviews, including one called “Amazon Product Review,” which had more than 43,000 members.
“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 U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and Spain,” Amazon said in a blog post on Tuesday (July 19).
The lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle, Washington, claims that the Facebook groups allegedly orchestrate fake reviews on Amazon in exchange for money or free products. The groups reportedly recruit people willing to post incentivized and misleading reviews, according to Amazon’s statement.
While Amazon said it uses “advanced technology, expert investigators, and continuous monitoring” to detect fake reviews, the information coming from the lawsuit will help it identify the fraudsters and remove the fake reviews that haven’t been otherwise spotted.
“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.”
Amazon has more than 12,000 employees worldwide hired to safeguard the eCommerce giant’s storefronts from fraud, abuse and fake reviews. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter are routinely swept for fraudulent reviews and activities, and anything untoward is reported to the individual social media sites, per the post.
Over 10,000 fake review groups on Meta were reported to the site by Amazon since 2020. More than half were removed, and others are being probed.
Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.
