Well we knew so many of them are obvious fakes. But 200,000 people?
“A server containing direct messages between Amazon vendors and customers who provide fake reviews was discovered by the cybersecurity website SafetyDetectives.
Described as an “organized fake reviews scam,” the server contains over 13 million records – about 7 GB of data – potentially involving more than 200,000 people in unethical activities, the SafetyDetectives report said.”
All the Best,
Jeff
I am surprised the number isn’t way higher. So many people message me on Amazon (I have multiple accounts in multiple countries because my employer has moved me so often), the all promised to refund after a 5 star review.
This entire review system is a scam, to be honest, on almost all platforms.
Aliexpress seems to be the fairest system, they don’t delete negative reviews or anything.
I’m sure there’s a lot more than 13 mil. I’ve had companies spam me with offers for “free” products that you have to buy and post a phony verified purchase review and they promise to pay you back - there are vendors who post here on BLF from time to time looking for “reviewers” doing the same thing.
That’s why it’s useful to look mostly at negative reviews and just ignore the obviously pebkac ones. Positive reviews are useful only if they contain very specific and concrete information, something which most reviews, positive or negative, often lack.
There are people who sell fake negative reviews too. Many small businesses have been destroyed by phony bad reviews paid for by their competitors.
You wanna talk less-than-useless reviews? IMDB.
I saw a blurb for amaloop AAs, tried goggling whether they were from jp or cn, reviews from 2014 were at the top of the list, but after wasting too much time the consensus seems to be they’re from cn and thus garbage.
Sure, that’s why looking for concrete information is important.
Yeah, and aside from noting the dates, also gotta watch out for those stupid multiple product listing pages to make sure the reviews are for the right product… ugh.
Reading reviews has turned into an exercise in critical thinking.
It is surprising that with all the AI and neural networks they have going on, nothing seems to help with these fake reviews…. or are they maybe not a problem for the company after all?! 
I mean… more 5 star reviews would result in more sales… even if they are fake.
Banggood edited my review….wouldn’t trust them as far as I could kick em. It riddles right down through society at every level from the very top. Dishonest currupt Gov’s breed dishonest society. I’m not saying everyone is bad or dishonest from said country, but it had a real world effect when the truth dissapesrs on a daily basis.
Indeed when it comes from the top it naturally flows down to the other levels, so many people/organisations just can’t handle the truth.
It can get more complicated. Sometimes businesses get bad reviews because customers wanted something for free, wanted something they didn’t offer, or wanted to get out of paying for a service.
Sometimes businesses have friends or employees (sometimes under a fake account) to lift reviews for their business or put down a competing business.
I still wonder why some of the items I look at in Amazon will list something like 11 reviews and a high star rating while having one in the review section… or sometimes none.
One HUGE issue I have is the large number of websites (often traditionally viewed as reputable magazine companies) that have articles suggesting the “10 best” whatever for whatever and find out they just list the top search results from Amazon and the pros and cons from the “assumed legitimate” reviews. YT has a lot of these as well, but many are from channels without significant reputation for quality content… often with a computer generated text-to-speech voice.
Funniest let down on “real” reviewers I had was when I was looking for a business card holder. MANY negative reviews complaining that the polished metal holder was really only half metal and half soft plastic. It turned out the plastic was a protective piece that is meant to be pulled off after purchase so the metal underneath doesn’t scratch (probably during manufacturer when polishing the opposite side). It pulled off easily, too.
There are millions of affiliate marketers with automated websites like this, for any product or niche. The biggest area are probably beauty and fashion due to higher margins. SEO is what they really know.
Even flashlights are common on these websites, there are several focused purely on light needs.
Referrals are big business, there are billions in there.
Whenever I see a ‘Top 10 Flashlights of 2020’ review on YT….I always wonder why nothing even close to the 10 best lights are in it. Just affiliate marketing by those who seek to take advantage of your lack of knowledge on the subject.
Lately I have been reading only 3 star reviews on Amazon and look for recurring complaints.
I posted this in the Amazon Deal Alerts earlier this week but moved it here. Probably related to your story.
https://tamebay.com/2021/05/amazon-suspended-multiple-chinese-sellers-with-1-billion-revenue-so-what.html
there are many flaws in reviewing
if the product is complicated, bad reviews can come from customer misuse
and good reviews may not address the thing you want the product to do
some ‘buy it and we will refund you’ reviewers are OK - they refund first
others - the worst ones - will not refund until they approve your review
Banggood somehow removed my negative review. It wasn’t negative about them, just that the product was very low quality. It now has near 5/5 for something that is near garbage of a flashlight.
Corruption is everywhere, people won’t like it but its also obviously very common here. 
Not sure about ‘significant reputation for quality content’ as it looks like many people don’t see through the ‘collection of manufacturer videos’ as being just that, or at least there are channels having many subscribers that put out such stuff. But perhaps they did real videos before and now just put out BS. An example is ‘survival gear’ on youtube, having 339k susbscribers, but putting out compilations of manufacturer’s videos as ‘Top 5’ or whatever. If they don’t actually review them they can’t state that these are the best! If they did use/review them, then they should have given an introduction at the very least. But then the use of manufacturer videos would be superfluous!
Websites with ‘10 best’ that are almost exclusively descriptions with specs that are not based on actual use, with links to Amazon, are also annoying, they are just wasting everone’s time.