Andre Yoskowitz
18 Oct 2015 12:01
Amazon has sued 1114 John Doe defendants who are offering to write fake reviews via Fiverr, the site that allows you to purchase services for as low as $5.
The Fiverr sellers offered to write fake, positive product reviews for sellers and manufacturers, clearly tainting what is usually a pretty honest system.
"While small in number, these reviews can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers place in Amazon, which in turn tarnishes Amazon's brand," said Amazon's complaint. The lawsuit only names the defendants by their Fiverr names, with the hope of being able to sue them by their legal names soon.
Amazon's own investigators emailed with the Fiverr users and found that some were willing to use multiple accounts, multiple addresses and different IP addresses to try to avoid detection by Amazon. Others were willing to receive an empty envelope from the seller so they could show up as "Verified Buyer" and also have a shipping record.
"Defendants are misleading Amazon's customers and tarnishing Amazon's brand for their own profit and the profit of a handful of dishonest sellers and manufacturers," added Amazon. "Amazon is bringing this action to protect its customers from this misconduct, by stopping defendants and uprooting the ecosystem in which they participate."
Fiverr is not named in the suit, and the two companies are working together to remove the listings and avoid such scams in the future.
Source:
DT