If you’ve grown used to the ease of one-click ordering, you likely depend on Amazon reviews to guide many of your buying choices.
The challenge: How can you tell when reviews on Amazon are bogus?
Firms that boost sales with fabricated reviews have become much more adept. They’ve moved away from bot-created feedback and from using overseas workers with limited English, because Amazon’s detection systems have improved.
Now they form private groups on networks like Facebook to recruit people to purchase their items. These recruiters often promise full reimbursements via PayPal in return for a five-star endorsement. Increasingly, they also demand photos or videos as proof. Roughly 15% even offer a commission in addition to the refund, according to a January 2021 study titled “The Market for Fake Reviews.”
Although the 2021 research notes that Amazon ultimately removes about one-third of counterfeit reviews, the authors found a typical delay of more than 100 days between when a fake review appears and when it’s taken down. That gap gives unscrupulous listings plenty of time to mislead shoppers into spending on inferior — and sometimes unsafe — products.
How to Tell if Amazon Reviews Are Fake
There’s no guaranteed method to separate authentic reviews from fraudulent ones. Moreover, because many fake reviewers actually buy the item, the “Verified Purchase” badge on a positive review is becoming less reliable. Still, these five approaches can help you identify phony Amazon reviews.
1. Use a Browser Extension or App to Identify Unreliable Reviews
An easy defense against fake Amazon reviews is to use tools like Fakespot and ReviewMeta. Both services offer browser extensions and mobile apps for Android and iOS so you can instantly see whether a product’s reviews are low-quality when you shop. You can also paste the product page URL into either service for an analysis.
Fakespot evaluates reviews not only on Amazon but also on sites such as eBay, Best Buy, Sephora and Walmart. It assigns a letter grade that reflects the credibility of the reviews rather than the product itself. An “A” rating means the reviews seem trustworthy, not that the product is outstanding. Conversely, an “F” indicates the algorithm spotted many suspicious reviews, though the item itself might still be acceptable.
ReviewMeta focuses exclusively on Amazon. It scans a product page and filters out reviews its system labels untrustworthy, showing you what share of reviews it removed and providing an adjusted rating.
For instance, a pair of shoes this writer bought showed a 4.5-star Amazon score. ReviewMeta filtered out 7% of the reviews and recalculated the rating to 4.4 stars.
2. Pay Attention to 2-, 3- and 4-Star Reviews
Companies often pay for five-star ratings, or they hire people to leave one-star reviews on rival products. Look for the middle-range reviews — two, three or four stars — where reviewers provide more detailed observations. Those tend to give a truer account of the item’s strengths and limitations.
If many reviews are very short, whether glowing or scathing, it’s a sign of paid or coordinated reviewing. Similarly, if a product has a slew of five-star reviews, a handful of one-star reviews and very few in between, that should raise suspicion. The pattern often means the five-star comments were bought, while the one-star critiques are honest complaints from customers who were disappointed.
Don’t rely solely on the average star rating. Ali Tosyali, an assistant professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of a 2022 paper called “Detecting Fake Review Buyers Using Network Structure: Direct Evidence from Amazon,” relates buying a vitamin with 5,000 reviews and a 4.9 average. After suffering side effects, he returned the product and, on closer inspection of the negative feedback, found others reporting the same issues.
3. Check the Product on Other Websites
Don’t limit your research to Amazon, especially for substantial purchases. YouTube is a particularly useful place for candid evaluations. Reviewers there often have subject-matter experience, and watching a video gives you a better sense of how the product looks and performs, even if the production quality is modest.
4. Read the Product Q&A
A glowing review can be vague and general. The Q&A area, where customers ask and receive detailed answers, usually reveals more specific information. While it’s possible that company representatives answer some questions, a product with many reviews should still generate helpful details about durability, assembly difficulty or whether the color matched photos.
5. Use the Date Filter
Sellers often recruit many reviewers to post within a short time span. Although Amazon defaults to showing top reviews first, you can change the view to the most recent. If you see a sudden cluster of five-star or one-star reviews within just a few days, those are likely orchestrated.
Also compare the date the product first became available to the review timestamps. One Wall Street Journal reporter recently found dozens of raving reviews for a gadget that hadn’t even been released yet.
What to Do If a Fake Amazon Review Tricked You
If you suspect a review is fraudulent, you can report it to Amazon by clicking “report abuse,” whether you bought the product or not. But if you already paid and the item didn’t meet expectations, many items sold and shipped by Amazon can be returned within 30 days of delivery. Some third-party sellers, though, enforce their own return rules. Always check the seller’s return policy before buying from a third party.
Exercise extra caution when purchasing products that are regulated — things like helmets, car seats, items that plug into a wall, cosmetics and over-the-counter medicines. It’s one thing to waste money on mediocre shoes; it’s another to risk your health or safety because of dishonest reviews.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and may change. Any price and availability shown on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the transaction.Certain content on this site comes from Amazon and is provided “as is” and may be altered or removed at any time.
Robin Hartill is a certified financial planner and a senior writer at Savinly. She pens the Dear Penny personal finance advice column. Send your tricky money questions to [email protected].
For more tips on spotting dishonest marketplaces and sellers, see our guide to amazon fake sellers.
