Amazon sellers are duping buyers by hijacking reviews on rival products to boost their sales, according to a report.
Flaws in Amazon's system mean unscrupulous sellers are able to fraudulently boost their items by lifting reviews from different listings, an investigation by consumer group Which? found.
Nine of the top 10 rated headphones found on the online marketplace carried glowing reviews for unrelated products such as toys and umbrellas.
Which? said sellers are using a ‘black hat’ marketing tactic – where the seller exploits loopholes to get an unfair advantage – known as review merging abuse.
The Competition & Markets Authority says £23billion of consumer spending is influenced by online reviews.
Its comparison of bluetooth headphones in order of ‘average customer reviews’ found just one major brand had genuine feedback.
The other nine were unknown or little-known brands, which did not appear to be sold on any other sites apart from Amazon.
Which? found they had been artificially boosted by thousands of irrelevant reviews for entirely different products - including umbrellas, personalised jigsaw puzzles and bowls.
In some cases, the listings had no reviews for bluetooth headphones at all.
Two of the nine artificially boosted listings had earned the coveted Amazon’s Choice badge, despite being inflated by clearly illegitimate reviews.
Merging reviews can be a legitimate way for sellers to manage their catalogue when they have a close variation of an existing product to add to a listing - such as the same product available in a different colour.
But doing this for unrelated products is against Amazon’s terms and conditions and is misleading.
While sellers can merge their own product reviews, some unscrupulous sellers find ways to merge reviews from other people’s listings too, which is known as ‘hijacking.’
Have you spotted fake reviews on Amazon? Let us know in the comments below
On Amazon’s own forum for sellers, there are more than 50 threads mentioning “review hijacking” as the topic, where people complain of having their product reviews “co-opted” and “stolen” by other sellers.
The most highly rated headphones, boasting five stars out of five, were ‘Amazon’s Choice’ and had received 40 reviews – but none of the reviews were about headphones.
All of the reviews, including three reviews clearly showing photos of the product, were for “plushie” toys - a “cute” and “adorable” cuddly stuffed animal apparently loved by children and adults alike.
The second pair of headphones to be labelled Amazon’s Choice were entirely propped up by reviews for an extension lead several shoppers claimed could be a fire hazard.
Which? found no mentions of headphones or earbuds in any of the 207 reviews, while all nine photo reviews showed an extension cable. Most of the reviews for the product were five stars, and beneficial to the rating of the headphones, but several reviewers claimed the extension lead was unsafe.
One listing had 863 reviews for a personalised jigsaw puzzle - with just three reviews for the headphones themselves. Another had 1,386 reviews that appeared to be for beach umbrellas - including 64 photo reviews.
Amazon said it is disappointed when bad actors evade its systems, and emphasised that it does have proactive measures in place to "detect and block the vast majority of abuse in our store automatically" and continues to invest in its tools and processes.
Customers can report fake reviews by using its ‘Report Abuse’ function. But some buyers say this does not always result in an outcome.
Alistair Soames, a 50-year-old investment manager from Surrey, saw evidence of review merging when he was shopping for earbuds on Amazon in 2019.
He noticed some of the products were boosted by reviews for shower curtains and kitchen knives.
“I read the reviews [for some of the headphones] and many were absolute nonsense,” he said.
“They were for shower curtains and kitchen knives. It was the pictures that gave it away - I saw a shower curtain and thought: hang on a second, what has that got to do with headphones?”
He complained to Amazon, and sent several other emails highlighting the issue on other products, he said, but was “disappointed” in the response.
“I don’t feel they’ve really been that interested in me taking the time out of my day to highlight things that are clearly wrong.”
Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: “Unscrupulous businesses are exploiting weaknesses with Amazon’s review system, leaving shoppers at risk of buying products boosted by thousands of bogus five-star reviews.
“Once again, this reinforces the importance of the CMA’s ongoing fake reviews investigation getting to the bottom of the issue and ensuring that major shopping sites are protecting people from these unfair practices.
“The government also announced its intention to tackle fake reviews as part of its consumer and competition reforms and should bring forward new laws, in the upcoming Queen's Speech, to banish these exploitative practices as soon as possible.”
Amazon said it had measures in place to "detect and block the vast majority of abuse in our store automatically".
A spokesman for Amazon said: "We will continue to innovate and invest in our tools and processes."
The brands with fake reviews, in order of ranking:
- FSZBWL (had reviews for plushie dolls)
- Hakdsy (had reviews for jigsaw puzzles)
- LUECNG (had reviews for beach umbrellas)
- Hakdsy (had reviews for engraved souvenir mugs)
- UBBH (had reviews for razor blades)
- WHJJK (had reviews for a keyboard desk tidy)
- YOOUS (had reviews for glass pitchers/mason jars)
- N/A (Bose) - no evidence of review merging on this listing
- CATEDUS (had reviews for an extension cable)
- WHJJK (had reviews for disposable paper bowls)
