With 95% of customers checking reviews before purchasing, it’s safe to say that fake Amazon reviews can make or break your business. And it’s not just negative reviews you need to look out for; research shows that customers are less likely to purchase a product with a 5.0 rating than those with a 4.0 to 4.7 rating, likely because they assume the reviews are too good to be true.
Fake Amazon reviews are troublesome for buyers, but they pose a real threat to FBA Sellers. They can flood your product with fake negative feedback, ruining its reputation. On the flip side, excessive five-star reviews may make your product seem shady and untrustworthy.
Using a review checker is the best way to prevent losing business to fake customer reviews. We’ve tried a few different tools to find the best Amazon fake review checker, so you can remove nonsense from your product pages and focus on getting real reviews from satisfied customers.
Key Takeaways:
- 42% of Amazon reviews may be fake, requiring reliable review checkers.
- Buyers can use tools like Helium 10, The Review Index, and Fakespot to find fake Amazon reviews.
- Amazon Sellers benefit from monitoring tools like Review Monitoring to manage product feedback and improve products.
How Common Are Fake Amazon Reviews?
NY Mag reports that, around 42% of Amazon reviews are fake. This staggering number makes identifying these fake reviews extremely important for both buyers and sellers.
How Do Amazon Sellers Get Fake Reviews?
There’s a big market for fake Amazon reviews, according to a study published in Marketing Science. Similar to how someone can buy followers for social media accounts, sellers can purchase positive reviews in bulk from Amazon accounts (many of which are AI) who have no experience with your business or products.
Fake reviews also happen when sellers offer free products or other rewards in exchange for a five-star review. Some sellers will also message customers who left negative reviews with incentives to try to get them to delete or edit their honest feedback in favor of the product.
How to Spot Fake Amazon Reviews
There are some key indicators of fake reviews on Amazon that you can likely spot on your own. But to give you some ideas, the following red flags are likely tied to a fake customer review:
- Vague verbiage and lack of detail about the product’s performance or use.
- Overuse of personal pronouns such as “I” or “my.”
- Unnaturally positive language that reads like an advertisement.
- Multiple five-star reviews posted within a short period.
- Several reviews featuring generic names and photos.
- Lack of reviewer authenticity (no profile information).
- Text that appears plagiarized or copied from other product reviews.
Best Amazon Fake Review Checkers for Sellers
Having fake Amazon reviews on your page can be detrimental to your product listings. If a customer spots false reviews of your product or finds them with a review checker, they’ll likely think twice about adding it to their cart. Manage fake reviews and remove them before your customers notice them to avoid losing their trust.
1. Review Monitoring
This is a great tool for sellers to keep tabs on the reviews that they receive. It can also provide some very valuable insight into trends with competing products. This can help sellers learn more about their products and improve their inventory options.
Key Features:
- Uses a Word cloud for easy-to-interpret data regarding positive and negative feedback.
- Provides actionable data for product improvement based on verbiage in customer feedback.
Pros:
- Receive notifications regarding negative reviews
- Provides easy-to-interpret data reports
- Monitors reviews on other platforms as well
Cons:
- Isn’t a free tool
- Newer to the market
- Can lag at high usage times
2. AMZ Tracker
AMZ Tracker is a powerful tool designed for Amazon sellers to help them track and improve their performance on the platform. It provides detailed data and insights on product ranking, sales and, of course, reviews.
Key Features:
- Alerts you whenever a new review is posted for your product, making it easier for you to monitor for fake Amazon reviews and stay on top of customer feedback.
- Sophisticated software helps you scan each review thoroughly to detect whether it’s real or fake.
Pros:
- Review notifcation system
- Easy to use interface
- Wide range of data and insights for Amazon sellers
Cons:
- Some sellers may find this tool to be pricey, with plans starting around $50 per month.
- Can experience lag or delays when many sellers are using the tool
3. Helium 10
If you’re looking for the best Amazon Seller tool overall, Helium 10 has a full suite of helpful features for Amazon sellers, including review scanning. Helium 10 allows sellers to analyze reviews across their product lines, offering insights into customer sentiments and identifying patterns that may suggest fake or inauthentic reviews. You can add Helium 10 as an extension right on your browser, making it super easy and convenient to use.
Key Features of Helium 10:
- Gives you the ability to sort reviews and read ones only from verified purchasers or that are marked helpful.
- Allows you to filter reviews by star ratings and view ones in that range.
- Integrates into the Chrome browser as a free extension.
Pros
- Free to use.
- Easy way to download and sort reviews
- User-friendly and simple to install
- Provides a wide variety of filter metrics
Cons
- Limits the number of reviews that users can download
- Can lag at times because of high memory usage
- Not the best specifically for review scanning, but one of the best tools overall
Get 20% OFF 6 months of Helium 10
Top Amazon Fake Review Checkers for Buyers
The most accurate way to spot fake reviews is by using a review scanner. These Amazon fake review checkers are reliable tools to help buyers avoid frustrating purchases.
The Review Index
The Review Index uses Amazon review data to give products a unique score using its own rating system. This helpful extension can give you more reliable insight into Amazon products and help compare multiple with ease.
Key Features:
- Free Chrome browser extension.
- Provides a pass or fail verdict for product listings and reviews.
- Gives products their own score on a scale of 1-10.
Pros:
- Free to use, no subscription required
- Quick and easy pass-or-fail determination can simplify decision-making
- Offers clear data and various review metrics
Cons:
- Can lag and can fail to load reliably
- May have discrepancies in data quality
2. ReviewMeta
ReviewMeta is a quality tool that analyzes review data and removes ones with unnatural verbiage from your results. With this tool, you’ll get a more clear picture of the results you can expect from a product.
Key Features:
- Works as an integrated browser plug-in or as a smartphone app.
- Provides users with a list of the most-trustworthy reviews.
- Generates an adjusted product rating based only on authentic reviews.
Pros:
- Free to use, no subscription required
- Uses 12 rigorous data analyst review tests for more reliable data
- Weeds out the skewed rating results from fake reviews
- Provides users with easy-to-interpret reports
Cons:
- Lacks cability to filter reviews by specific features
- Website has many ads making navigation challenging and laggy
3. Fakespot
Fakespot is a great Amazon review checker. It uses AI technology to scan reviews and gives you an accurate rating for the product. It checks for fake reviews, incentivized reviews, and suspicious patterns in order to provide a reliable evaluation of a product’s overall rating.
Key Features:
- Uses AI technology to scan reviews.
- Available as a mobile app.
- Provides users with review summaries featuring categories like price and quality.
Pros:
- Free to use on both desktop and mobile
- Guard feature identifies sellers with a high volume of fake reviews
- Can help you find better deals on more trustworthy products
Cons:
- Lacks a continuous monitoring feature
- May miss some fake reviews, as it relies on user reports
What is the Amazon Vine Program?
The Amazon Vine Program is an invite-only program that allows select reviewers to receive free products in exchange for their honest and unbiased reviews. These reviews are then published on the product page for potential customers to read before making a purchase. The goal of the program is to generate more customer feedback and increase sales through authentic reviews from trusted reviewers.
Because it’s invite only, you can’t leverage vine on your own. According to Amazon, customers who consistently write insightful reviews are most likely to be invited ton join the program.
Common Questions About Fake Amazon Review Checkers
How accurate are Amazon fake review checkers?
Amazon review checkers use high-level AI technology and constantly evolving review scanning algorithms. While they aren’t foolproof, they can be significantly more accurate than manually weeding through reviews. Plus, with the sheer number of reviews that some products receive, an automated checker is a true time saver in identifying misleading reviews.
Can I use a fake review spotter with the Amazon mobile app?
Review checking is not available through Amazon, but many of these third-party review checkers offer a mobile version of their app, which allows you to check for fake reviews when shopping on the go. Each app will function a little bit differently but each can make mobile shopping safer and more reliable.
Are fake Amazon reviews illegal and why doesn’t Amazon remove them?
Fake reviews aren’t only unethical but they’re not permitted by the Federal Trade Commission and Amazon has even taken legal action against some well-known fake review brokers (via About Amazon). They have a large team working to prevent and remove fake reviews from impacting their site. However, with the large number occurring daily, it’s inevitable that some will slip through their safeguards.
How do I remove a fake review on Amazon?
If you notice a fake review on Amazon, the first step is to report it. You can do this by clicking the “Report Abuse” button next to the review. This will prompt Amazon to investigate and potentially remove the review if it violates their policies.
Additionally, you can contact Amazon’s customer service to report a fake review. They have a dedicated team that handles these types of issues and will work to resolve them as quickly as possible.
Can fake reviews suspend your Amazon account?
Yes, fake reviews can result in your Amazon account being suspended. Amazon takes the issue of fraudulent reviews very seriously and has strict policies in place to combat them. If you’re found guilty of participating in or allowing fake reviews on your product listings, you could face suspension or even termination of your account.
To avoid this, it is important to closely monitor your product listings and report any suspicious activity or reviews immediately. Ensure that all customer reviews are genuine and comply with Amazon’s guidelines. Encouraging customers to leave honest feedback can help boost your ratings without resorting to fake reviews.
Successfully Checking for Fake Amazon Reviews
It’s important for FBA sellers to use a reliable Amazon review checker, not only to earn customer trust, but to keep your account in good standing with the platform. Use your common sense and dig deeper when something doesn’t seem right about a product’s feedback. And make sure to install a reliable Amazon fake review checker to double-check a product’s trustworthiness before buying. Review checker tools are helpful for sellers to win out over their competition and for buyers to feel more confident in the products they’re ordering.
