Amazon

Amazon review bribes: can you ever trust an Amazon review?

Amazon review bribes
Rigged reviews: sellers bribe buyers for five-star ratings

Bribes for writing positive reviews about Amazon products are nothing new – but is Amazon really serious about stamping them out?

A Victure Wildlife Camera I bought last week was just the latest product to come with a little card inside the box, which is shown below. It’s a blatant bribe to write a positive review about the product.

“Write your great shopping experience,” leave the five-star review illustrated, and collect your prize. It’s corrupt.

This type of bribe is particularly pernicious, because the review on the site will appear from a “verified purchase”, someone Amazon can see has actually bought the device, giving the review more weight.

Amazon has made noises about stamping out fake reviews in the past, but the problem still persists. And while I accept it’s very hard for Amazon to police this problem when manufacturers are slipping cards inside sealed boxes, it will be interesting to see how the company reacts when I report this incident to them.

Consumer watchdog Which? attacked Amazon earlier this year for not doing enough to root out fake reviews. It’s making it impossible to trust anything you read in Amazon customer reviews.

In the meantime, I’ll let you know how good the Victure Wildlife Camera really is when I write up my review in the next week or so. It will be interesting to see if it lives up to its lofty average Amazon rating of 4.6 out of 5.

NOW READ THIS: Where are my Amazon reviews?

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About the author

Barry Collins

Barry has scribbled about tech for almost 20 years for The Sunday Times, PC Pro, WebUser, Which? and many others. He was once Deputy Editor of Mail Online and remains in therapy to this day. Email Barry at barry@bigtechquestion.com.

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