Amazon files lawsuit against Facebook groups soliciting fake reviews

Amazon has filed a lawsuit against administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups for attempting to orchestrate fake reviews on the eCommerce platform in exchange for money or free products. According to a statement by Amazon, these Facebook groups are set up to recruit individuals willing to post incentivised and misleading reviews on its stores in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

For instance, one of the groups, “Amazon Product Review,” had more than 43,000 members and allegedly offered refunds or other payments to buyers willing to leave bogus reviews on products such as camera tripods and car stereos. Amazon will also use information discovered in the lawsuit to identify and remove fake reviews commissioned by fraudsters that have not already been detected by the eCommerce platform.

Dharmesh Mehta, VP, selling partner services at Amazon said that it stops 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. "Proactive legal action targeting bad actors is one of many ways we protect customers by holding bad actors accountable," he added.

Amazon's lawsuit is its latest effort to stop fraudsters who attempt to post fake reviews in its stores. In the past year, legal action from Amazon has shut down multiple major review brokers targeting customers in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

Amazon currently has over 12,000 employees around the world dedicated to protecting its stores from fraud and abuse, including fake reviews. According to Amazon, 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. The platform also stopped over 200 million suspected fake reviews that year.

"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," Amazon said.

Separately, Amazon and luxury goods maker Cartier joined forces to sue a Chinese group for advertising, promoting and selling counterfeit jewellery that infringe on Cartier’s registered trademarks, and breach the US shopping site’s policies. On 15 June 2022, two joint lawsuits were filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington against a Chinese social media influencer and eight Amazon sellers, accusing them of colluding with each other to sell fake Cartier bracelets, necklaces and rings, according to a statement from Amazon Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU).  

The two companies also alleged that to avoid Amazon’s anti-counterfeiting detection tools, the defendants promoted fake Cartier items on social media such as Instagram, Linktree and other websites, directing potential shoppers to an Amazon product page for a non-branded version of the same item. Customers who placed orders would then receive the fake Cartier pieces originally advertised on social media, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

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