Tech

The hunt for fake reviews continues: a new manufacturer is banned from Amazon

Amazon continues to clean up its site. The e-commerce giant has just banned RavPower, a huge maker of smartphone accessories. In question, the publication of fraudulent and paid reviews.

After Aukey, it’s RavPower’s turn to get banned from Amazon. The Chinese company which markets heaps of smartphone accessories has just been pinned down by the online sales giant. In question: a traffic of false opinions, once again.

Prohibited by Amazon’s terms of use, this practice is nevertheless quite developed on the site which sometimes struggles to fight against these deceptive methods as a British consumer association showed in 2019. But Amazon is determined to clean up and on June 17: it is therefore a new actor who is kicked off the site.

Paid comments

It must be said that the company is not particularly discreet on the subject. As a Wall Street Journal reporter noted on Twitter, every product you send comes with a small card offering a $ 35 voucher to anyone who posts a review on Amazon and communicates it to RavPower.

Obviously, the card doesn’t explicitly ask for positive feedback, but greasing customers’ paws and going through a company validation system tends to encourage flattering comments. Either way, whether the reviews are positive or not, paying a customer to post reviews on Amazon is strictly prohibited. ” We are bringing review manipulation lawsuits against dishonest sellers and manufacturers who attempt to purchase fraudulent reviews », Indicates the platform.

No more products available

As a result, a search for the term “RavPower” on Amazon almost exclusively returns products from competing brands. The reseller’s page on the site now only shows two products, both ” Currently unavailables ”.

RavPower’s depopulated store // Source: Amazon

By attacking major players like Aukey or RavPower, Amazon hopes to bring into line all the small players who see review traffic as a simple and effective way to climb to the top of the rankings. To show that the hunt for fake reviews is well open, Amazon has also posted a blog post in which the company specifies ” removing 200 million suspected fake reviews before they were even visible to the public.

Amazon also warns that even customers or brands that participate in this fraudulent system can see their accounts suspended. RavPower learned this the hard way.

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