Amazon cracks down, Chinese merchants violating regulations sentenced

After the beginning of the year, Amazon brought surprises and shocks to sellers.

Recently, a large-scale review deletion campaign has been staged again. This time, many negative reviews were deleted. Is the platform being kind or is it cracking down? In the latest move, Amazon has used legal means to track down fake review brokers and severely punish them. It has filed 14 new lawsuits in the United States, caught 61 violators in China, filed 13 new lawsuits and 2 criminal referrals, and one merchant was sentenced.

Many sellers’ negative reviews were deleted

Recently, many sellers have received review deletion emails from Amazon. The content of the email shows that Amazon has taken measures to delete product reviews that violate Amazon policies from sellers' product information pages. In order to better protect sellers' businesses, Amazon has also launched an automatic process to prohibit the display of product reviews posted by certain buyers.

According to feedback, this situation is not an isolated case, which shows that Amazon is currently conducting another overhaul of its review system.

It is worth noting that during this review deletion process, many sellers were pleasantly surprised to find that the negative reviews of their stores were also deleted, and some sellers had more than one negative review deleted. The platform's proactive deletion of negative reviews is indeed rare, which surprised the sellers.

Combining the situation of sellers having their negative reviews deleted and Amazon’s emails, some industry insiders analyzed that this time Amazon should be cracking down on the buyer’s side.

The email sent by the platform clearly stated that the reviews posted by buyers who violated Amazon's policies were deleted. The problem lies on the buyer's side. Some bad buyers may have been found to have manipulated reviews in violation of regulations, or were caught for fake orders. Amazon shut down their accounts and deleted a large number of problematic reviews.

Regardless, it is a good thing that a large number of sellers’ negative reviews have been deleted. Amazon has also carried out similar review deletion actions time and time again before.

About three months ago, a group of sellers received review deletion emails with content similar to the above, indicating that Amazon deleted reviews posted by buyers who violated the policy.

Many sellers became uneasy as soon as they received the email, fearing that their reviews would be deleted later. However, the unexpected events that everyone was worried about did not occur at the time. Some sellers also analyzed that it was most likely a problem with the buyer’s account.

Looking back further, Amazon has carried out multiple continuous review deletion operations. In addition to deleting problematic reviews, sellers need to be aware that some unsafe reviews will also be deleted.

Some practitioners believe that the following comments are unsafe: first, comments that do not conform to the normal growth trend of product comments; second, comments that increase in large numbers in a certain period of time; third, comments that indicate that the buyer’s account has engaged in illegal operations such as brushing orders.

Unsafe reviews will sooner or later be caught and deleted by Amazon, and every year Amazon invests a lot of resources to crack down on review violations.

Chinese merchants who violated the rules were sentenced to 2 years in prison

Amazon recently released progress in combating fake reviews, with 61 review manipulators caught in China and one of them sentenced.

Amazon customer reviews are a core part of the shopping experience, providing valuable insights into product quality and performance, helping buyers make informed purchasing decisions.

Because of the importance of reviews, in recent years, an illegal industry of "fake review brokers" has emerged, who make money by providing fake reviews. They use websites, social media channels, and encrypted messaging services to directly contact customers and trick them into writing fake reviews in exchange for money, free products, or other incentives.

Amazon will certainly stop this, and it has cracked down on it through various policies and technologies. As early as 2015, Amazon filed its first lawsuit against fake review brokers, and has since established a global team of lawyers, expert investigators, and analysts to track down fake review brokers through legal means and prevent fake reviews at the source.

In 2023, Amazon continued to take legal action against review violators in the United States, China, and Europe.

In the United States, Amazon took action against 58 violators , including filing 14 new lawsuits .

Amazon has uncovered a global, massive review abuse scheme involving a network of more than 20 review abuse sites operating in the United States, China, and Europe. The sites promised potential reviewers a full refund in exchange for fake five-star reviews. The offenders who manipulated Amazon reviews paid fees to the site operators in exchange for fake reviews for specific products.

In 2022, Amazon filed a complaint against these websites in the United States. In 2023, Amazon added newly discovered websites and the names of the individuals behind them. Currently, all the websites complained about have been shut down.

Among them, Amazon sued the owner and operator of the Ormosis website, which has been operating and selling fake reviews, fake customer Q&A, and fake customer Q&A likes since 2022, offering fake review packages ranging from $120 to $1,499. The defendant also used Amazon's trademark logo when marketing its services, creating the illusion that the business was associated with Amazon.

Amazon also filed 13 new lawsuits and two criminal referrals against 61 review manipulators in China, suing the owner of a9top.com, a website that sold fake “Amazon customer verified” reviews and other fake content to Amazon sellers. Two defendants claimed their services boosted product rankings.

Among them, Amazon sued fake review broker Mr. Wu, and following a criminal referral in 2022, the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison and two years and six months of probation.

From April 2021 to September 2022, the defendant, businessman Mr. Wu, used third-party applications to advertise and sell fake reviews to Amazon sellers. The defendant would make a profit by leaving fake positive reviews to improve the seller's product rankings, or leaving fake negative reviews to lower the rankings of competitors' products.

The merchant Mr. Wu used illegal behavior to make money, but ended up sending himself to jail! Domestic merchants who provide this false review, are you scared?

Amazon also took action against 44 violators in Europe and the UK, including filing nine new lawsuits.

Amazon sued Kjero in its first fake review lawsuit in Austria, against three defendants who operated a website offering payment or heavily discounted products to help sellers post fake , positive reviews on Amazon Germany . In the context of the lawsuit, the court confirmed Amazon's argument that Kjero must stop providing fake reviews .

In France, Amazon filed its first legal action against two defendants who operated the French site. The site, owned by the same owner as Tahoevine, offered potential reviewers full reimbursement of the purchase price of a product in exchange for fake positive reviews. The court action is still ongoing, but the offending site has been shut down.

Amazon's crackdown on fake reviews has been ongoing. Sellers who violate regulations and fake reviews will basically be punished later, and some problematic buyer accounts can also be easily found. At the same time, if you violate regulations and manipulate reviews, you may be sued and sentenced by Amazon like Mr. Wu.

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