Many merchants are known to exploit Amazon’s position as the #1 online retailer. A new controversy has surfaced which has once again exposed Amazon’s inability to protect its consumers. The controversy involves a merchant making an unethical attempt to manipulate the review system. On 16th December 2011, a merchant who goes by the name of VIP Deals offered a $10 refund on an accessory for the Kindle Fire. In return the merchant asked for a review on Amazon.
Although the offer didn’t specify the requirement of a positive review, there was a statement that implied the same. The extent of this scam surfaced in January this year, when more than 92% of the merchant’s listed 335 products were given a five star review. This left the merchant with 5000 positive reviews which rounded his rating to 4.9/5. After the New York Times mailed a copy of the offer to Amazon, the process of elimination began and eventually the account was deleted by Amazon.
Amazon’s policy clearly prohibits merchants from offering any monetary incentives for product reviews. However, both VIP Deals and Amazon benefitted heavily from this scam. The need for a strict policy is imperative from Amazon’s side, especially on such issues. A common misconception surrounding such scams is that they occur only once. In fact in January 2009, Belkin (a networking and peripheral gear maker) was caught using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service to promote positive reviews for its products at just 65 cents a review. MTurk workers were ordered to draw a contrast between the negatives of other products and the positives that these products offered. The then Belkin president Mark Reynoso issued a public apology and condemned such unethical methods himself.
Laura Owen, a well known analyst who works for paidcontent.org, pointed out that customers should be wary of the top 1000 reviewers on Amazon. This group is dedicated to providing an honest and unbiased opinion on the free products offered to them by various brands. Their job is to make calculated choices and submit a proper review; but a bad review could easily alter their position in/out of this group. Researchers from Cornell are now designing a computer algorithm to decide whether a review is fake. Initial tests showed that the algorithm was successful 90% of the time in detecting fake reviews. Efforts are on to perfect this algorithm, which should come as good news for users of Amazon.
