The same thing happened to me a few years back. I got a product that came with an invitation to a secret Facebook group, with promises of further discounts. I joined the group, and it turned out to be a system where they would send you Amazon gift cards to buy specific products in exchange for five-star reviews. Apparently a large number of ordinary customers were involved, given the size of the group in question (all people using what appeared to be their real Facebook accounts).
I reported it to Amazon customer service, and they gave me a $5 account credit for making the report. Not sure if any action was taken against the seller.
Wow. The Facebook groups mentioned in the article have 87,000 members, who are offered full reimbursement of product costs in exchange for writing five-star reviews on Amazon. The only way to describe this is as a large-scale effort to deceive and defraud mass consumers. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
I recently received a mass CCed email from an Amazon seller to 70 other customers (hello GDPR?) offering free products in exchange for 5 star reviews. There's no proper channel to report this. Tried to leave a review with proof of it and it was denied. I really get the feeling Amazon are ok with it.
I had a friend who was doing this. The way it worked is there was a secret FB group where items would be posted, and if you were up for reviewing the item you'd message the group coordinator who would send you money to buy it. You'd then buy and review the item. Initially you would only be reviewing small items ($5-$10), but as you gained more trust you could get more expensive items (not sure what the limit was). Some items even came with an additional $20 for doing a review. I cautioned them that what they were doing was a good way to get their Amazon account suspected (I didn't even think about their FB account) and they eventually did stop. Most of what they accumulated was crap, but there were a hand full of nice items - though thinking about it now, the only thing they got that I thought was cool was a decorative snail statue.
Same thing happened to me in September after purchasing a $35 webcam for my high school sophomore from Amazon. The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review.
I documented everything including photos, my exchange with Amazon customer service, and the confirmation from the seller that they would pay me $20 for a 5-star review (I did not do this ... I was appalled at the situation and more than a little angry that I had been tricked by bogus reviews). Here's what happened when I reported the seller:
Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says “Amazon $20 gift card” and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?
Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller. Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all
And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item
Me: So what should I do?
Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not
Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional
And I have to report the seller for that
Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon’s own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that’s what you recommend.
Even though the CSR reported the seller, and I confirmed with the seller through Amazon's own communication system that they were paying $20 per 5 star review, nothing happened to the seller. The item (a webcam) is still for sale on Amazon, with thousands of additional 5-star reviews - more than 8,000 now, compared to 3,266 when I let Amazon know how they were gaming the reviews in September.
Once again, the good guys (in the case, customers and honest sellers) lose out while the bad guys win, with no repurcussions.
This sort of gaming is rampant on Amazon. My own experience:
A friend of my wife introduced her to a woman who was a representative of a well known brand for home goods/kitchen gadgets. If you bought an item off Amazon of their brand, the woman would Venmo you for the value of the item provided you left a review. It went unsaid but understood anything less than five stars would mean the relationship was over. They also had a few other rules about your Amazon account to "qualify" (had to be personal, you had to review a certain number of other products, etc) to try to bypass any flags getting raised.
There is a whole network of fake reviewers, agents and sellers that pump up products on Amazon. It is extremely easy to find those people. A simple search for "Amazon Reviews" on Facebook will take you to a few open Facebook Groups. Here are a few examples:
I was curious and contacted one of them. They sent proof screenshots that they indeed refund you if you buy a products and leave a good review. They instructed me to search for specific term to find the product instead of giving me a link to click on.
For Amazon, this is easy to prevent because it is so easy to find sellers that are engaging in that sort of activity.
As always, if you follow the money, Amazon has little interest in doing so...
I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different.
I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller.
I documented everything including photos, my exchange with Amazon customer service, and the confirmation from the seller that they would pay me $20 for a 5-star review. I did not take the money offered ... I was appalled at the situation and more than a little angry that I had been tricked by bogus reviews.
Here's what happened when I reported the seller:
Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says “Amazon $20 gift card” and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?
Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller. Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item
Me: So what should I do?
Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional And I have to report the seller for that
Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon’s own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that’s what you recommend.
Even though the CSR reported the seller, and I confirmed with the seller through Amazon's own communication system that they were paying $20 per 5 star review, nothing happened to the seller. The item (a webcam) is still for sale on Amazon, with thousands of additional 5-star reviews - more than 12,000 now, compared to 3,266 when I let Amazon know how they were gaming the reviews in September.
Once again, the good guys (in the case, customers and honest sellers) lose out while the bad guys win, with no repercussions.
I got an offer to this out of the blue once. They wanted me to buy some cheap product and give it a good review.
Of course I understand why this is wrong and unethical, so I tried to report it to Amazon.
There is no way to report this to Amazon. They have no facility for reporting a product that someone tried to pay you to review positively.
The only thing you can do is contact customer service who as far as I can tell do nothing with the report.
All they need to do is add a category to their customer service section to report fraud. It blows my mind that they do not do this. But not really. They make more money by allowing this behavior, both from the fake buyer, as well as the other customers who are duped into buying highly reviewed items.
Yes, I've seen articles where people who do this say there are a bunch of Facebook groups for exactly this purpose. Manufacturers/sellers ask people to buy their goods on the group and write good reviews. Once they get the proof of the purchase/review, they Paypal (or whatever) money to the "reviewer." I remember an article I read where some woman's house was overflowing with junk she didn't want because she was writing so many of these fake reviews. I would think Amazon could apply their awesome machine learning to figure out which accounts are pumping out these suspect reviews and perhaps de-prioritizing and maybe even rate limiting and delaying publishing of their reviews. I'd think that would do a lot to alleviate the problem.
They'll do more than a discount. They have entire groups dedicated to giving out entirely free products in exchange for five star reviews. They provide entire catalogs of products available; you put in an order request(s) then get a confirmation to place the order. Then you buy the item on Amazon and leave your 5 star review. After the seller verifies your review you are sent full reimbursement typically through PayPal.
I got invited to join one of these groups from a friend and got tons of free products on Amazon this way. I remember getting a free home security system that was like $500 or $600. I never even took it out of the box, just re-sold it on Facebook Marketplace.
Eventually I left the group because I felt bad leaving these good reviews when some of the products were absolutely garbage. It's an unfortunate situation for the sellers though too; people don't buy products on Amazon that don't have reviews. So if a seller can't bootstrap a few good reviews early on then they won't ever start making real sales.
There are facebook groups where Amazon sellers will post an item. Then you purchase it and write a review, and seller will send paypal or an amazon gift card for the price of the item and maybe a few more bucks.
Hiring a few interns to sign up for all of these facebook group and track who is participating would go a long way. Doesn't seem like Amazon really cares much.
I brought a product from Amazon and returned it since it’s defective. Posted a 3 star review, which I thought it’s fair.
For the next two months someone from the seller company constantly sent me emails offering a $30 gift card to me to change the rating to a 5 star. So those “it’s trash...5 star” are probably people being paid to change their initial review.
I’ve thought about taking their money but added in a statement in the review that the 5 star was a paid request from the seller, just to screw their practice a bit. But stopped fearing that Amazon might ban my account.
Wanted to jump in and throw this here since this is about the first time I've been reached out to by an Amazon seller by mail, directly asking me to leave a 5-star review in exchange for a $20 gift card.
With an already struggling E-commerce market, it's quite strange to see the lengths sellers are going to, to buy 5-star reviews from buyers. I am considering reporting this to Amazon, however wanted to run this by you guys and hear similar stories from you!
I bought a $50 item and a couple of weeks later I received a letter in the mail offering me a $35 Amazon gift card if I leave a 5-star review with a video or picture attached.
I'm surprised Amazon allows these kinds of bribes.
I’ve probably purchased 10 products this year from Amazon that have a card tucked in the packaging offering to give me something free in return for a 5 star review and sending them proof I left it.
I reported a violation of Amazon's community guidelines and Seller TOS for a popular electronics product I purchased earlier this month (details: http://leanmedia.org/amazon-is-broken/). Here's the thread with support:
Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says "Amazon $20 gift card" and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?
Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller
Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all
And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item
Me: So what should I do?
Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not
Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional And I have to report the seller for that
Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon's own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that's what you recommend.
So I contacted the seller through Amazon's closed system. This is what happened:
Me: I received your product and inside the box is a card that says "Amazon $20 gift card" and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate?
Seller: Thanks for your contact. Could you please follow the instruction and contact us on the email? Please be rest assured that we will fulfill our promise.
- Amazon's own support people have a difficult time telling the difference between violations of this policy and legitimate promotions, and leave it up to customers to contact these sellers on their own to figure it out.
- The rule-breakers are all too willing to lie through their teeth, brazenly using Amazon's own communication system to do so.
- Nothing happened to the seller, they are still selling this equipment without penalty on Amazon and will continue to violate the rules knowing nothing will happen.
To be fair I've received those 'give a review' cards on some things I've bought from Amazon before.
Out of curiosity I went along with the game, knowing it was probably a scam, and whilst still giving honest reviews because the products were actually good, to be fair to them they actually paid out very promptly with an Amazon gift card voucher code. Products basically paid for themselves.
> These Amazon vendors send to reviewers a list of items/products for which they would like a 5-star review. The people providing the ‘fake reviews’ will then buy the products, leaving a 5-star review on Amazon a few days after receiving their merchandise.
> Once the Amazon vendor confirms all reviews have been completed, the reviewer will receive a refund through PayPal, keeping the items they bought for free as a form of payment.
I reported it to Amazon customer service, and they gave me a $5 account credit for making the report. Not sure if any action was taken against the seller.
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